Staff left idling

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star - June 11, 2008
Vernon council chambers reminded me of an airport Monday. At times there were staff grounded, waiting for their report to come up on the agenda. While there were moments where some employees were circling — coming into chambers frequently to check on the status of their item and then leaving again. During the five-hour extravaganza that was regular council, I counted the presence of 17 different employees. Some of them, like the clerk and chief administrative officer, had to be there for the entire session, but others only had a single item waiting to go before the politicians. But many of those 17 people were left twiddling their thumbs for hours. By 5 p.m., many eyes were glazed over and arms were regularly propping up weary heads. And the reason for this situation was the size of the agenda — 391 pages — and the number of meaty topics on the plate — everything from the western bypass and closing Suicide Hill to cramped conditions at city hall and Okanagan Valley governance. Such hot button topics get the juices flowing and the council members can go on talking forever.

There has always been some unpredictability to council meetings because no one knows how long the debate is going to unravel. Monday's session, which ended at 6:30 p.m., was a rarity, with most generally ending by 5:30 p.m. at the latest. You may question why staff even needs to be at a meeting, but there is good reason for it. All of the reports before mayor and council were drafted by staff and any policy recommendations are theirs. If a councillor has a technical question, the relevant employee will hopefully have the answer. But with 17 individual senior administrators and rank-and-file staff sitting in chambers Monday, I was left wondering who was minding the store? Were there not other things these employees could have been doing? How much paperwork or e-mails piled up during that time? How many subordinates went without direct contact with management? Case in point was Steve McVarnock, the RCMP inspector, who was left cooling his heels for hours before a report on new office space was discussed. And certainly the situation was no fault of McVarnock's. He had to be there to answer any possible questions, and because the pace of meetings are unpredictable, he had no way of knowing when his particular issue would actually rise to the surface.

I also felt sorry for Ed Stranks, a municipal development technician, who had made himself available on the matter of Silver Star Road upgrading. But by the time he got from his chair to the podium, council had approved his recommendation with no questions asked. I have no easy solutions to a problem that has plagued all municipalities for decades. But there has to be a more productive, effective way of utilizing staff while at the same time addressing the needs of council. One would think that with the technological age that we live in, there must be a simple way of informing an employee to appear in chambers just a few minutes before they are needed. Perhaps the answer is the BlackBerry council and staff have strapped to their belts. Not that I know how to do it, but I've heard text messaging works quite well. I found it rather ironic Monday that part of the council discussion revolved around the lack of space in city hall and the need to rent offices off site. With all of the bodies sitting in chambers that day, there was probably enough elbow room for everyone else