Here's an exchange over at The Hamiltonian. The article is about the legality of muzzling citizen complainants to the Integrity Commissioner. But the topic veered almost immediately to fedupedness, then to the always-standing-in-the-wings 'term limits'.
Yves DubeauMay 3, 2012 09:53 AM
What became obvious to me this morning while listening to the Bill Kelly talk show is that council is not listening to the taxpayers of Hamilton. I have yet to see any type of support for the councilors on the radio or blogs. It occurred to me that council does not recognize bloggers as taxpayers and call-in radio shows are only white angry males and once again not tax payers. They have the audacity to tell us how good of a job they are doing and how good public servants they are thus justifying the present system ( no term limits), now that the public has spoken damn the torpedoes! They have to be reminded that they are elected to serve the electorate not the other way around.
Reply-
Term Limits NowMay 3, 2012 10:30 AMMr. Dubeau. Ask yourself as well, why other media are afraid to cover term limits.
Term Limits Now -
I think they're listening...reading blogs, reading comments at The Spec, etc...but they don't agree. Period. Now, this is where the 'You Think You're The Center of the Universe' reality comes into play...and I'm not talking about Council. I'm talking about online commenters.
There are over half a million residents in this city. How many commenters do you figure are making disgruntled noises about 'term limits'?
Regardless of what the count is, the truth is that 11 councillors got re-elected in the last municipal election. (Two others were defeated, one moved up to Mayor and one ward went uncontested.) So why should they worry? When hardly more than one-third of eligible voters vote, and when they do, they return almost all incumbents?
2) "I have yet to see any type of support for the councillors on the radio or on blogs." Well, people who are 'OK' with Council's performance aren't going to be stepping up to the plate. No matter how much a constituent may approve of/support their councillor, very few will take the time to show this support. Remember, only 40% of those able to cast ballots, did so. That's hardly indicative of 'fervor'.
3) "It occurred to me that council does not recognize bloggers as taxpayers and call-in radio shows are only white angry males and once again not tax payers." Again, I don't think this is true. At all. (See point #1, above.)
4) "They have the audacity to tell us how good of a job they are doing and how good public servants they are thus justifying the present system ( no term limits), now that the public has spoken damn the torpedoes!" Well, they do tend to get a little myopic and construct self-deceiving, denial-blinkers. They often can't see their own arrogance, or that they're framing things inaccurately. That being said...11 incumbents were voted back in...
5) "They have to be reminded that they are elected to serve the electorate not the other way around." Absolutely. But comments on blogs and calls into radio shows aren't going to bring this truth home. It's not enough. Because 11 incumbents- Oh, you get the message already, I'm sure.
6) "Ask yourself as well, why other media are afraid to cover term limits." Actually, I'd love to hear the answer to this. I suspect it's not a question of 'fear', but practicality: ire inspired by less-than-savoury behaviour by Council (regardless of how valid the judgement is) doesn't mean that covering something as paradigm-changing as term limits...especially given the odds of it moving forward...is worthy of coverage. So I'd be inclined to reject the 'fear' theory. Or that the 'complicit in the conspiracy' one. The truth is that as much as a very, very, very infinitesimal number of grumblers go on about 'term limits', it's just not as relevant an issue as they make it out to be. As I've said elsewhere, they're projecting their frustrations about local governance in general onto an idea that just doesn't have a hope in Hell of being enacted by any provincial government. And what media outlet wants to cover what amounts to an esoteric cause?
M Adrian Brassington
