Comment 107757

By RobF (registered) | Posted January 09, 2015 at 23:45:31 in reply to Comment 107717

I think this is a narrow, parochial interpretation of what it is to be a city counselor. These people are in council to be leaders, and sometimes that means telling your constituents that what they want is not right for them or for the city. You have to be willing, as a leader, to say "No, you don't understand the issue and what you want is not right."

It's my interpretation of how it works, not my view of how it should be. Ideally, we'd get rid of counselors and have direct democracy. But then again that wouldn't address the second part of your comment. I have very mixed feelings about your notion of leadership ... technocrats have used that exact line to inflict enormous damage on urban neighbourhoods in the past. We need to think beyond just what is convenient and fits our current issue ... i don't see much evidence that Whitehead isn't representing the wishes of his constituents, and to say that leadership is over-ruling them when we (elsewhere) think they are wrong or being parochial is a dangerous view of democracy.

In Bratina's case if you voted for him because he was pro-LRT you were free to lambast him all term for his switch and vote against him in the next election (if he ran for re-election, which he didn't). He evidently felt that the electorate city-wide wasn't going to punish him electorally for his flip-flop on LRT ... we'll see if helps or hurts him when he runs for the federal Liberals in Hamilton East-Stoneycreek, though admittedly the dynamic and issues will be quite different.

Comment edited by RobF on 2015-01-09 23:57:31

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