{"id":9337,"date":"2014-12-17T16:31:39","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T21:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=9337"},"modified":"2015-01-07T22:22:26","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T03:22:26","slug":"politics-as-usual-chair-appointment-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-chair-appointment-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Chair Appointment Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I attended the inaugural meeting of York Region Council and witnessed the appointment of the Chair first hand.
\nI thought I knew what to expect, but I was wrong. I was expecting the three council member candidates (one just retired) to make a brief statement, then the vote to be called and \u2013 abracadabra – appointment complete.
\nHowever, that is not what happened.
\nThere were a few added twists to the \u201celection\u201d that shocked me. Suffice to say that if there was any question about the relative dearth of democratic elements to that process, those questions were answered.
\nThe first shocker was the motion put to Council as to whether they wanted to have the vote in public or by secret ballot.
\nThink about that: not only do we have no idea who the candidates for Chair are until we actually get to the meeting, and we have no idea how the candidates have come to be formally \u201cnominated\u201d; we even have no knowledge of, or control, over how and by whom those nominated candidates end up appointed!
\nCouncil members can choose to deny us even that small sliver of the democratic process.
\nIt is unclear to me why the voting process isn\u2019t iterated in the procedural by-law. Why isn\u2019t the method made clear before the meeting?
\nWhy is it a question put to the floor during the meeting?
\nIt was odd to sit there and wait for our elected representatives to decide whether they would vote publicly or secretly. Remember, they sit on that Council as our representatives \u2013 they work for us, so we should see how they vote \u2013 on every vote. How else would we know whether they have met our expectations?
\nThey chose to vote publicly, by the way.
\nThe second shocker, was the \u201celection\u201d itself. The process was as follows \u2013 each of the nominators and seconders spoke about their candidate and why their colleagues should vote for him and then the candidates pled their cases too.
\nHearing from the candidates made sense.
\nElection speeches are necessary as they inform us about what the candidates intend to do and why they are the best choice for the job.
\nHearing from the nominators and seconders made no sense.
\nFrom a procedural standpoint, I found it quite bizarre. I have concerns about the nomination process, but even greater concern about the fact that the nominators and seconders are afforded the opportunity to \u2013 in essence \u2013 interfere in the voting process.
\nCouncil members represent the interests of their municipality, not themselves.
\nThus, they should vote independently. Having two members state how they are voting in advance of the vote and then attempt to persuade others to follow suit is inappropriate in my opinion.
\nIt also lays bare the notion that the appointment process is an open one.
\nThe process is highly flawed and needs to change. Full stop.
\nGoing forward, I believe that we should take a closer look at what happens at the meetings of Regional Council. Get engaged, get involved.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas I attended the inaugural meeting of York Region Council and witnessed the appointment of the Chair first hand. I thought I knew what to expect, but I was wrong. I was expecting the three council member candidates (one just retired) to make a brief statement, then the vote to be called and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2qB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 08:29:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}