What happens in a marriage when there's no genuine ongoing dialogue between the partners? When activities and the day-to-day practicals aren't really discussed so much as announced, then implemented? (Then reacted to. Oi vey!)

What happens in a family when there's only perfunctory communication between the parents and children? How is the familial dynamic affected?

What happens in the workplace when there's a dearth of back-and-forth between employer and employee? What happens to morale, what happens to productivity...what happens to the viability and success of the business?

As you know, I've been blogging for nearly a year now about 'increasing the relationship of engagement between residents and Councillors'. The gist of these editorials has been to imagine a different local governance landscape, one that's about as far away on the continuum from 'the resident votes every four years and then gets on with their life' and 'the Councillor is voted in and is left alone to do their job...without having to be worried about their constituents 'bothering' them'. 

What's been unfolding on the GO/LRT front has been setting off alarms for me in this regard. So not only is there seemingly (please note my generous slant) a decided lack of visionary, confident leadership, there's some pretty crap communication going on. (Anyone read the 'response' from Mayor Bratina to the Durand Neighbourhood Association regarding LRT?)

So here I am, a needle chronically stuck in the groove, the whiney, yammering voice bullhorning his belief: we need 'town hall meetings' regularly going on within the city. For each ward, and for the community-as-a-whole. Ones that are streamed online, ones that are posted on YouTube. Put on by every Councillor, as well as the Mayor. (I see no reason why they can't be hosted by The Hamiltonian, Raise the Hammer, Urbanicity as well as the usual MSM bunch.) Issues such as LRT, GO, and as raised by a commenter on The Hamiltonian, the Barton Street Pan Am Games Stadium Clean-up, all of these need to be part of the general, ongoing discussion that a thriving, functional City must sustain in order to qualify as being 'functional'. 

Solid marriages, families, organizations need healthy dialogue; why do we believe a municipal relationship should be any different?