Councillor Trevor Thompson did not hold back Monday night when discussing his feelings on a “councillor report card.”
“I can’t understand how someone can possibly say it’s administrations, or councils’ job to grade other councillors, that is concerning to me,” said Thompson.
The ward 2 representative, who is not running for re-election, kicked off the Monday night meeting by pulling for discussion every one of the night’s motions in response to fellow Ward 2 representative Ryan Doyle’s motion, which asked administration to compile a report of each councillor’s involvement in council meetings. One of the metrics proposed was number of motions pulled for discussion.
“You can game the system, it’s what I did tonight. All of these motions should count for me tonight. I am governing to a KPI (Key Performance Indicator), I am governing to a metric. That is no way to govern,” said Thompson.
“The number of motions you bring successful or otherwise, does not impact your ability or your quality of governance. And ultimately if I’m doing a bad job or another councillor is, that is up for the constituents to decide.”
“In no way shape or form do I think that this is all of what we do,” said Councillor Doyle. “I do a lot of other work outside of here just like everyone else does. This was to be a starting point to give some data back to the community.”
Other council members voiced why they would be voting against the motion, with staff time needed to complete the project, and the work done outside the chambers a large factor.
“Measuring a municipal councillor’s effectiveness solely on the number of motions introduced, or agenda items pulled really creates a misleading picture of what their impact has been over their term,” said Councillor Lauren Anderson.
Councillor Brock McGregor referenced a resident who created their own wiki using artificial intelligence using council meeting minutes and video.
“He puts onto his app: council descriptor only, does not measure councillor effectiveness, workload, policy impact, or community service. I think that is a great qualifier that he has added to that work,” McGregor said.
The motion failed 14-3, with councillors Rhonda Jubenville and Michael Bondy voting in favour alongside Councillor Doyle.
