EDITORIALS Nanaimo council gets failing grade
Midterm polls indicate that more Victoria and Saanich residents approve than disapprove of their councils and mayors. It’s not a predictor of what will happen in the next election, but is useful food for thought as officials continue to guide municipal operations.
The poll taken in Nanaimo, however, seems to indicate that city’s residents are growing weary of how the mayor and councillors conduct themselves in meetings.
The Times Colonist commissioned Oraclepoll Research to take the temperature of voters in Victoria, Saanich and Nanaimo midway through the four-year municipal terms. The Victoria poll showed Mayor Lisa Helps has the approval of 47 per cent of the respondents, with 42 per cent disapproving and 11 per cent undecided. In Saanich, Mayor Richard Atwell is seen as doing a good job by 48 per cent of the people surveyed, with 40 per cent disapproving.
Victoria city council didn’t fare as well as the mayor — 44 per cent of those surveyed approved of the overall job performance of city council and 48 per cent disapproved.
Saanich council did better than the mayor, with 53 per cent approving of the council’s performance and 40 per cent disapproving.
Having slightly more of the public approving of your performance than disapprove might not be a sterling achievement, but it’s a passing grade. And in the field of public service, it’s about par for the course. If you don’t have someone mad at you, you’re likely not doing your job.
Not everyone can be a Naheed Nenshi. He was a comefrom-behind candidate when he was elected as Calgary’s mayor, but his approval ratings have consistently been in the 70s and 80s.
He has not been immune to controversy, however. Budget debates, development pressures and bike-lane issues have taken their toll, and a survey conducted in June showed Nenshi’s popularity shine had dimmed to 57 per cent.
Considering what Helps inherited — the Johnson Street Bridge fiasco and the endless sewage saga — and with the tent-city issue thrown in, she has fared relatively well. Those are tough items.
And considering how Atwell’s term began, his rating, too, is commendable. He took office amid a flurry of controversies, including the departure of the municipality’s chief administrative officer, an improper relationship with a campaign worker and his refusal to work from the mayor’s office because of fears that spyware had been installed on his computer — fears which turned out to be true. After all that, Saanich is sailing ahead on an even keel. But the stormy seas in Nanaimo have less to do with normal municipal challenges and more to do with acrimony in city hall, which is probably why Mayor Bill McKay got an approval rating of only 38 per cent, with 47 per cent disapproving.
Council’s rating was even lower — only 30 per cent of respondents said they approved of the council’s performance, with 59 per cent disapproving.
The past two years have been marked by conflict, including senior staff leaving amid allegations of harassment and discord, accusations from council that McKay violated the Community Charter by failing to properly declare gifts he received while on city business, police called to council chambers to help keep order, and a confrontation in which a councillor told the mayor to “bite me.”
The city has spent $50,000 on a consultant to help officials do what they should have learned to do in kindergarten: to get along, to discuss differences civilly, to disagree without being disagreeable.
The polls indicate the Helps and Atwell have room for improvement, some course corrections to make, but they show that Nanaimo’s mayor and council need to find a new direction altogether, or let someone else steer the ship.