There was some discord at Monday evening’s operations and administration committee meeting, at several points but most pointedly towards the end of the meeting. Councillors were discussing a resolution brought forward by Ward 5 Coun. David Neumann. The resolution is embedded below— Note that it was amended from this version to include expanded Brantford council membership on the social services committee.

At the peak of discussion between members of council, with Mayor Chris Friel in the chair, Friel cut off Ward 4 Coun. and finance committee chair Richard Carpenter’s mic off and called on Neumann to make his closing comments so councillors could proceed to vote.

The comments and exchange are viewable on the RogersTV archived livestream, starting at approximately the 3h31m mark. The exchange between Carpenter and Friel takes place at approximately 3h53m. Viewers at home on Monday and of this livestream don’t hear anything Carpenter said after his mic was off, but those in the room may have heard him utter clearly unparliamentary language. Not a vulgarity, but language that clearly offended Friel.

I wasn’t taking notes of the entire exchange, so I’m not going to indicate what I believed I heard Carpenter say.

Here’s what I understand at this point about the exchange, which is good background (particularly as I wasn’t working at the Expositor when this council took office in December 2010) for the discussion held Monday night:

• The city has a finance committee. Its enabling legislation is Section 15 of the Brantford municipal code. That is council’s procedural bylaw, laying out how council functions and governs itself. The finance committee sections start at Sec. 15.2.13.
• That committee is usually comprised of the mayor plus one councillor from each of the city’s five wards, appointed annually at the end of November. If a particular ward councillor is absent, the other ward councillor is permitted to attend and fully participate in committee meetings.
• In 2010, due to availability of Ward 4 Couns. Richard Carpenter and Dave Wrobel for the daytime meetings of the city / county social services committee, council agreed it would appoint Ward 5 Couns. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith and David Neumann to social services and both Ward 4 councillors to the finance committee.
• Neumann’s resolution is, he explained, an attempt to address the peculiarity above since when appointments for December 2011 to November 2012 were completed the situation above was perpetuated for another year.
• Though the operative clause of the resolution doesn’t say so, the ‘whereas’ clauses refer to this peculiarity of not having one ward represented on finance. The operative clause requests council add “any additional councillors who so indicate their desire and willingness” to the finance committee (later amended to also include social services).
• Neumann insisted this was meant to solely and exclusively add a Ward 5 councillor to the finance committee.
• Finance committee vice-chair and Ward 3 Coun. Dan McCreary told me Monday this is being seen as an attempt to stack the finance committee with councillors to, in my paraphrasing, ‘water it down.’
• Carpenter has added this to a list of things council has considered in the past year that are “usurping” the authority of the finance committee.

There’s more to this issue, but it’s buried in layers and layers of the rifts and disagreements between members of council— some of which are well known and undoubtedly some of which are well hidden from the broader public (or at least this desk).

Finance Committee Resolution

The “usurping” items include resolutions such as Friel’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which some have argued should not have come to council or estimates in the fall but gone to the finance committee first. It currently is within the finance committee, whose chair, vice-chair and the mayor are preparing to take it out for broader public consultation.

That feeling may also be served by discussions during the 2012 budget process, where there might be a feeling amongst some that the estimates committee (a committee of all members of council) considered and discussed items which should have received fuller consideration by finance first. From the finance committee’s mandate in the bylaw:

The Finance Committee shall advise Council on matters relating to the finances of the municipality, including without limitation the development and implementation of the City’s long-term strategic financial plan, service delivery reviews, internal and external audits, budget policy, budget monitoring, tax policies and policy direction and prioritization relating to financial matters and budgets. The Finance Committee shall also serve as the audit committee of themunicipality, but shall not perform the tasks of the Estimates Committee.

As a committee of council this body is always beholden to any direction, referral and override imposed by council as a whole. I’m struggling to see how it’s been usurped, but understand the concern that an open invitation for any willing councillor to join the committee as a voting member means its role within the city’s governance will change.

Which leaves me curious to see what happens with this resolution at the Feb 21 regular council meeting, when councillors review the operations and administration committee report and give final approval to Neumann’s resolution.