Is it time to get ready for the next election?
It must be the darkness closing in, the cold air, the winter preparations in the streets that make me think about municipal elections. About those nights wandering the streets trying to read door numbers. (Why didn’t I ever carry a flashlight?) Those long conversations with neighbours about local life; sometimes they were way too long. But then again you met a lot of interesting people.
So, if you’re thinking of running for council in your town next year, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t, now’s the time to start getting organized. I don’t mean just thinking about it: If you’re just thinking about it, I can almost guarantee that you’re not a suitable candidate. Just think about it and have another glass of wine and dream about your trip to the Dominican Republic in January. You can always run five years from now.
It’s not just a matter of firing up your fellow citizens to vote for you. You have to start by igniting yourself and believing that you are a good candidate. You think it’s a bit premature? There’s a whole year to go be- fore the election. You don’t think you need much time to organize pamphlets, posters?
Surely in a small West Island community, for example, it would just be a question of going out at night in the fall darkness to meet your neighbours. Wouldn’t you be jumping the gun if you started talking about your candidacy a year before the actual election?
Would you be a good candidate? I was reading a neighbourhood blog in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue recently and one contributor was expressing his frustration at the lack of information available at the town’s monthly meeting. I think he’d be a good candidate for council. How, he asked, can a simple citizen be expected to ask for clarifications when the details of the various resolutions are not revealed until after the question period, which opens the meeting? After the question period, the public can no longer intervene. I think this way of proceeding must have evolved in situations of conflict and public discontent with local government. I always admired the great municipal politicians, like the veteran Yves Ryan of Montreal North who was able to explain complicated issues and to engage with his audience. It takes great skill as a communicator. Age and wisdom are useful, too.
My blogging candidate concludes his remarks by saying that only 20 people isn’t satisfactory in a town of 5,000 like Ste-Anne and everyone knows that politicians are always more likely to be on their best behaviour if they are being followed closely by a discerning and critical population. We should profit from the proximity of local government by being present and by asking questions.
I think he’d be a good candidate. I’m sure that he’d work hard to help improve the communications coming out of town hall, but it’s an uphill battle. I discovered that no one in a town ever knows enough. There’s never enough “communication.”
And I think that lots of people would be good candidates. They would be able to contribute positively to the public debate. Even if they did feel like their enthusiasm were being slowly strangled by municipal red tape.
Anyway, rest assured: Most sitting mayors and councillors are already making moves to position themselves for another run at council. As an outsider, you probably have to start by assessing the possibility of winning against an incumbent. And maybe you need to be in a coalition to multiply your forces. We don’t have political parties in small towns but our coalitions might just as well be political parties.
And, of course, you’ll want to attend council meetings. You have to start to understand how a council works, how council business is done, to recognize the difference between administrative obligations and discretionary decisions. Because 90 per cent of council business entails conforming to the tedium of municipal law. Many people think towns are just making things obscure when they are simply following the requirements of municipal law. Towns can’t operate like the private sector.
It may be close to the people, but a town is still “government.”