Has Barrie city council changed since I first covered it?
I hope so, since that was 1988.
The late Ross Archer was just finishing his long tenure as Barrie mayor, and Janice Laking was about to begin her 12 years in the big chair.
I still remember the first thing Mrs. Laking said to me, of any consequence, once she became mayor.
“I could box your ears in,” she said, as I sat at the media table, wondering what I’d done to irritate the new mayor.
My colleagues from the other newspaper and the radio stations were understandably amused. The new guy was already in trouble. He wouldn’t last long. The mayor doesn’t even like him.
Apparently, I had quoted the mayor saying she had “no sympathy” for someone involved in a matter I can’t recall, when she had, in fact, been sympathetic to their cause.
I told Mrs. Laking that’s not how I remembered hearing it, but I would check my notes and get back to her.
Can’t remember if I ever did, but I do remember she never held it against me — or at least she never acted like she was particularly perturbed with me.
Or, at least no more perturbed than any other Barrie mayor has been with me.
So getting back to what’s changed since then, it’s a long list and I’m sure I can’t remember everything.
One, the media used to be on the Council Chamber floor, not that far away from the council table itself (reporters have since been moved up and back in the chamber, although there are plenty of places to plug in and the sound system is better).
So when one of the councillors said something significantly self-serving, or asked a question that was answered in the second paragraph of a staff report on the matter at hand, they could hear one or more of the media groan or chuckle or snort or decide enough was enough, and it was time to go home.
OK, I don’t remember anyone going home early, but you get the drift.
The meetings also used to be much longer then, frequently going to 1 a.m. — a time when everyone was having trouble keeping their heads up, their minds alert.
At some point someone decided this was a bad idea, that drowsy councillors could not make good decisions (and that sleepy reporters wrote poor stories about such decisions, if they were even still awake). So the 11 p.m. curfew was installed, unless there was a motion to extend the meeting to midnight, but no later.
The most frequently late meetings involved the annual budget. You know, that little document that sets the property-tax increase and service levels in Barrie.
Councillors used to debate it line by line. That’s not a typo; they did each line. Granted, the budget wasn’t as large then as it is now, in terms of pages or dollars. But line by line? By the end of the budget meeting — which sometimes stretched not only to Tuesday but Wednesday night as well — all involved had been bored to tears.
The councillors (or aldermen, as they used to be called) have changed, too. Being on council didn’t use to be anything approaching a full-time job, and certainly didn’t pay like one. Council members didn’t have cellphones, wifi or website expense budgets. They connected the old-fashioned way — by telephone or (gasp!) in person.
There didn’t used to be a Code of Conduct for Barrie councillors, either, just to make sure they knew how to behave, even though it was painfully obvious to their constituents. You can thank Dave Aspden for that, the mayor from 2006 until 2010. Enough said about that.
And political party affiliations used to be few and far between. Municipal politics were about local politics, and political parties need not apply.
I can’t really remember when that changed. Maybe when Mrs. Laking ran for the Liberals in the 1990s while she was still mayor. Maybe when Patrick Brown, Joe Tascona, the late Aileen Carroll and others used council as a springboard to provincial and federal politics.
Now you don’t have to look too far to connect the dots between councillors and partisan politics.
And councillors are much more visible now, as I guess they have to be to be heard, seen and read on Facebook, Twitter and whatever other social media is out there.
How important is being seen? Well, I once heard a rookie councillor ask Rogers Cable 10 which camera would be on him in the Council Chamber during the city council meeting, so he knew which way to turn when speaking. I kid you not.
Of course, the local political landscape has changed dramatically during the past seven months. A global pandemic will do that.
All the Monday — and sometimes Tuesday — night meetings are on Zoom, which works most of the time, for most of the councillors, but not all of the time. Sometimes they can’t see each other, sometimes they can’t hear each other, sometimes both.
But what are you going to do? There really aren’t many options.
It’s local politics, the level that really is closest to the people. And it must go on.
You can’t call your MP or MPP to complain about the pothole on your street which just swallowed your car’s muffler, the woman who won’t leash her dog in the neighbourhood park, the plowed snow at the end of your driveway no matter how much or little white stuff comes down, or why your property taxes went up again and you can’t figure out, for the life of you, what you get for paying more.
OK, you could call your MPP or MP about this stuff, but they won’t help you — other than refer you to your councillor.
So everything changes in municipal politics, but still does manage to stay the same.
Bob Bruton is a freelance journalist who covers city council for BarrieToday. He used to cover it in person, but now he tunes in by Zoom, just like everyone else.
