Municipal dust-up

There wasn’t much Christmas spirit displayed on the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) council front this week.

Not with four councillors walking out of a closeddoor meeting and Mayor Cecil Clarke later taking Coun. Amanda McDougall to task for “inappropriate” public comments.

It’s the latter point that especially caught our attention because everyone should pay close attention to rules and regulations that limit the ability of our elected officials to express themselves publicly.

McDougall, a first-term councillor from Main-aDieu, caught Clarke’s attention when she attached her name, along with eight others, to a letter in the Cape Breton Post on Monday advocating that council support a $1.5-million funding request for a proposed downtown Sydney arts, culture and innovation centre.

But where McDougall went too far, at least as far as Clarke was concerned, was a line in the letter which suggested that not supporting the funding request and “risk jeopardizing (the centre’s) success is tantamount to recklessness.”

Full disclosure: since the letter came from someone else, the Post contacted McDougall Sunday evening to confirm she was OK with her name appearing as one of the signatures. There was no hesitation in her reply and the rest, as they say, is history.

Clarke, who already was miffed about a recent television interview during which McDougall not only criticized his recent trip to China but also said there is a division on council, had clearly had enough. Furthermore, when it comes to rules and regulations few politicians know which cards to play better than the former Speaker of the House in the Rodney MacDonald government.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, he cited CBRM’s code of conduct that all councillors sign when taking office and pointed out that it is not appropriate to question another member of council’s integrity or intent.

But did the use of the word “recklessness” seriously bring into question the integrity of other councillors? We don’t believe so and if any councillors felt otherwise we haven’t heard from them.

Clarke also said that councillors affixing their names to documents with the purpose of influencing a decision while a matter is still before council and not recusing themselves from the council discussion or declaring a conflict must be reviewed in relation to the code of conduct.

And it is here is where the life of a politician must get a little confusing because elected officials no doubt attempt to do plenty of arm-twisting behind the scenes and via strategically timed news conferences prior to major decisions being decided upon. These are methods designed to help produce a certain outcome but how are they measured in terms of breaching any code of conduct?

For her part, McDougall doesn’t believe she breached any code of conduct rules and doesn’t plan to issue any apologies.

Clarke says the matter has been dealt with and doesn’t plan to take any further action.

And we’re left to wonder whether this dust-up accomplished anything other than prompting our elected municipal officials to take cover more than ever when pursued by the media for their views on pressing matters.