Email from DON MACAULAY (Feb 1 2022), Re: Changing View Royal Council Size
Resident expressing disappointment with perceived bias in the staff report regarding voter intelligence.
Changing View Royal Council Size
From: DON MACAULAY Sent: February 1, 2022 8:35 AM To: Mayor And Council Email mayorandcouncil@viewroyal.ca Subject: Changing View Royal Council Size
Mayor and Council,
We are disappointed with the bias shown in the staff report, Consideration of Increase to Council Size, which is to be presented at the February 1st Council Meeting.
In reviewing the public engagement options on the topic of council size, staff dismissed the ballot non-binding opinion poll option as potentially invalid because of “status quo bias.” In other words, if the residents of View Royal were to vote down the change to council size, it would not be because they don’t choose change, but because they are not intelligent enough to make the “right choice”. Therefore, Council must make that decision for residents. How undemocratic. Is maintaining the present number of council members not an option for residents?
As voters, we also take exception to the statement at the end of this section of the report that suggests that voters lack the “nuanced and visionary consideration” needed to deal with the topic of council size.
The staff report concludes that, for the past fourteen months, there have been discussions and information sharing focused on the topic of council size. That may have happened within the Community Development Advisory Committee and Council “bubble”, but not amongst View Royal residents. The public involvement process only truly started in November 2021. With fewer than 100 resident responses, the public engagement processes were not a success on any level. A truer statement in the report would have been: “Council sought public feedback through two open houses which were widely promoted but poorly attended.”
The statement, ”Council now has the information to make a decision,” strains credulity, when such a minuscule number of residents have participated in open houses and phone-in/meeting opportunities, in addition to letters submitted. It gives the impression that the Mayor and Council already had their “beliefs around the future direction and vision they feel the Town should be headed for” in place. Many residents, however, may not agree with this vision, nor agree that council size is an important View Royal issue in the time of Covid. A ballot non-binding opinion poll, a democratic representative process, would dispel the appearance of opportunism.
Regards,
Donald Macaulay Barbara Macaulay 296 Bessborough Avenue