WOOLWICH MAKES SHORT WORK OF COUNCIL VACANCY

FORMER WOOLWICH COUNCILLOR JULIEANNE Herteis fills the chair left vacant by the resignation of Ward 1’s Scott Hahn. For the other nine applicants, thanks for coming out.

After a formal application process and something of an interview before Woolwich council Tuesday night, the candidates were treated to what seemed to be a foregone conclusion. With no debate and little input, three of the five councillors immediately picked Herteis, citing her previous experience as a Ward 1 councillor from 2010-2014.

For everyone else, it came off as something of a wasted effort.

Some of the candidates appeared to have put considerable effort into the process, rolled out after Hahn’s January resignation from council. But three councillors – Mayor Sandy Shantz, Coun. Murray Martin and Coun. Larry Shantz – took just minutes to select Herteis. The two others – Coun. Mark Bauman and Coun. Patrick Merlihan – stuck with their earlier contention that the seat should go to Dan Holt, the first runner-up in Ward 1 in the 2014 municipal election, who had applied for the job this time around.

That Holt won more than a thousand votes last time was seemingly offset by the fact Herteis had previously won the confidence of Elmira voters in 2010, serving one term before declining to run in 2014 when it appeared she might be moving out of town.

Her experience won over three councillors, the same bloc who opted at the start to go with a public application process rather than appointing Holt. A third option, a special byelection, was rejected off the hop. Under provincial regulations, simply leaving the seat vacant until the October municipal election wasn’t permitted.

The chosen option was less democratic than choosing the runner-up and, given the orchestrated feeling of Tuesday’s proceedings, a bit of window dressing in the end.

Yes, Herteis will likely get up to speed faster than any of the others – she’s been at the table before and is familiar with the process. That is a benefit when there are only a matter of months before council moves into lame duck mode and voters then go to the polls.

Where that could come in particularly handy is if she opts to use her experience to avoid the pitfalls that hinder the work of many first-time councillors: giving too much credence to bureaucrats and letting staff recommendations carry too much weight.

Over the years, council has become more administrative than political. More managerial than proactive, typically allowing staff to set the agenda to a greater extent than some other municipalities. What we’d like to see is a more active body, more political, if you will – a longstanding wish that has seldom been addressed. It’s not her first go-round, so Herteis should be able to recognize when bureaucrats aren’t acting in the public interest and then call them out on it. That’s the advantage of experience, though not perhaps what the council voting bloc had in mind.

Councils of late have certainly been administrative, more often dealing with staff reports than setting a policy agenda – we could certainly do with a different course.

Ideally, councillors would develop more policies and frameworks for making the ever-bloating bureaucracy serve the public, which will in turn shape what staff brings to council in terms of reports and recommendations (e.g. not more needless spending and regulations).

That’s a tall order, but citizens get to pass judgment later this year.