It is a given that the Mayor represents the
community.
To me this means the Mayor or
Board Chair are in many ways an ambassador and this leads to many
ribbon-cuttings and sod-turnings. I also
believe you have to take the good with the bad and that when something goes
wrong, you have to step up and ‘take one for the team.’
When a road project went over budget or when a
bridge took far too long to complete, I always felt I had to take
responsibility and represent the municipality. Perhaps not with too much
enthusiasm, but I believed you can’t take credit when things go well but then
point fingers when they don’t.
In the case of the Admirals Road bridge that took
months longer than originally announced to complete, I was steaming inside and
let staff know that I was extremely upset that the contract allowed this but
publicly I agreed to the interviews and provided factually updates.
Nonetheless, I had no interest in a ribbon-cutting and instructed staff to let
traffic across the bridge the moment it was safe. Not only had the delay
been a tremendous inconvenience for thousands of residents, it had cost
merchants thousands of dollars and I just couldn’t shrug that off.
Some of my more challenging times in representing
‘the team’ was while I was Chair of the Saanich Police Board. It is one thing to take the good with the
bad, but in policing the ‘bad’ can be very, very bad. Police shootings, murder investigations and
aggressive arrests can be the topics of briefings from your Police Chief. In this case the Board Chair has a duty of
oversight and confidentiality so public comments are limited if made at all
although I rarely used the ‘no comment’ excuse.
If something had happened on ‘my watch’ then I would at least explain
why I shouldn’t comment, describe what role the Board and I may have in the future
and refer media or sometimes a citizen to the appropriate source of
information.
Early in my time as Police Board Chair, we had a
columnist from Vancouver book one of our libraries for a meeting. Unfortunately, this columnist had a
reputation of being a holocaust denier.
Today I hope our hate speech laws allow for such rentals to be rejected
but in the late 1990’s this didn’t seem to be the case – in fact, I didn’t know
about the event until after the fact.
Predictably the event attracted protesters but our
police presence was lacking and at the very least, there was some pushing and
shoving as attendees entered the building.
The organizers retained a local lawyer who always seemed to represent
people with such views and he made a good case that our police department had
not properly prepared for the event.
So, what to do?
The Police Chief had worked out a
solution – all it would take to satisfy the organizers and have them withdraw
their official police complaint was for them to meet with the Mayor and Police
Board Chair and receive an apology. This
was not a solution that I would have chosen and I pushed back at first by
suggesting they meet with him and get their apology – after all, this was an
operational issue. But they wanted the
apology from ‘The Mayor’ and shutting down this formal complaint was valuable –
certainly I didn’t want our organization to be distracted with a public hearing
where they were in ‘the right’ and we were in ‘the wrong.’
A meeting was scheduled and I prepared. I’m sort of a neat and tidy guy and my desk
is always quite organized, at least what you see on top. But for this meeting I cleared off my
calendar, calculator, pens and tire shop memorabilia and had a totally clean,
clear wooden desk – except for one thing.
I bought a paperback copy of the Diary of Anne Frank. The lawyer and his client walked in, sat
down, and I stated my brief three sentence apology. I looked up with just my book between us and
asked ‘is there anything else’ – they said ‘no’ and got up and left.
I fulfilled my duty to represent; and I still have
that paperback to remind me how I did it.
Frank Leonard …
was Mayor of Saanich and Chair of the Police Board from 1996-2014 after serving
as a Councillor from 1986. While in public office, Frank chaired the Municipal
Finance Authority of BC, was President of the Union of BC Municipalities and a
Director of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. He has also served as
Chair of the Capital Regional District, the Hospital District and the region’s
Housing Corporation.
With a
unique blend of private and public sector experience, that is a unique resource
for clients, Frank Leonard provides strategic advice for local governments, and
about local governments. Check out his website at http://frankleonard.ca/.
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