The voter is always right
Voters can be a finicky lot.
They can want more development in the city to see it grow and succeed. And they can also simultaneously hold the opinion that a weed-covered lot next to the country’s busiest highway, hotels, restaurant and a car wash isn’t a good place for a development.
They can demand a high level of public services and at the same time be just as forceful in not wanting to see taxes rise.
This paradox is as true as when Cleisthenes established the Athenian democracy two-and-a-half millennia ago as it is today in Medicine Hat.
But you don’t need to be an expert in democratic principles to know you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
Yet, Medicine Hat city council appears to think otherwise.
Unfortunately, that’s not its worst transgression.
This council blames voters for not wanting to eat a steaming pile of excrement that – try as they might – they want to convince Hatters is not so obviously indigestible.
Where Jane and John Q. Public sees unfairness, it shouldn’t be too much to ask an elected official to show at least a basic understanding of the concept of the tyranny of the majority.
Coun. Darren Hirsch’s comments at Tuesday’s council meeting stand out for their level of ignorance.
“The ferocity and spite of a few in this community to discredit so many has sown the seeds of distrust in this institution,” said Hirsch from a figurative perch too high to see the ground.
It is councillors like Hirsch who planted and nurtured the grains of distrust in the community and yet now that he is reaping what he has sown, it’s someone else’s fault.
Not one to be outdone, Coun. Robert Dumanowski went further and stood higher on his moral high horse elevated by the bad decisions he’s dodged accountability for, suggesting Hatters might appreciate council’s actions.
“The public either enjoys it because it gives them something to talk about – I hate to say it because on one hand, it creates conversation – but it has sown issues of trust and bitterness in some,” said Dumanowski.
And how many times do Hatters have to hear Coun. Andy McGrogan speak of humility before it becomes clear he doesn’t know its definition nor understands the spirit of the virtue.
This council was elected on a platform of changing how city hall operates and didn’t. It failed to act in a timely fashion in addressing skyrocketing utility rates. If councillors wanted to curb the mayor, they failed at backing the citizens’ petition to do just that last year. If it needed a signal there might be a need to request a provincial audit, then it failed by ignoring the red flags being raised internally and externally for so long.
Council appears ready to point the finger of blame at the public, its own policies, each other – everything except their own collective inadequacies in running a city.
If this call for a provincial government investigation into city hall operations is aimed at proving council isn’t doing anything wrong and it is Hatters who are the problem, it’ll be an epic waste of money and time. And yet another failure.
