I’m going to take a break there from my first meeting double-header. I might come back to it, I might not. I think you’ve got the gist of what was going on: a lot of paper, a lot of voting, and a lot of important, yet somehow seemingly unimportant, decisions to be made.
Although perhaps unintentional, I felt patronised and sidelined by the idea that a new councillor couldn’t possibly get their head around it all. It wasn’t about gender or age, it was universal. We were “the newbies,” and the unspoken assumption was that we wouldn’t understand.
But while it’s still fresh in my mind, I’d like to talk about another really strange dynamic at play in the world of Town Councils: strategy vs operations.
Before I joined, I assumed being a councillor was a bit like sitting on a board. Now, I’ve never actually sat on a board, but I’ve worked with them in several of my roles, so I thought I could wrap my head around it. I’m a hands-on person with lots of ideas, but I also like strategy. I like a reason for doing things. I like objectives, goals, and the sense that everyone is pulling in the same direction.
How and when that sort of strategy planning would happen, I wasn’t sure. But with a new council, five of us were newly elected, (over a third of the chamber) I assumed we’d shape something together. In business, you rarely do anything without knowing why you’re doing it, right? Even if the reason is simply to make money.
What I stand for…
When I stood for election, I had a clear mandate. And, I want to do what I said I would for the people who elected me. Of course, I also know I am just one councillor among fourteen, each representing a different slice of the community. The challenge would be bringing all those ideas together into a strategy for the good of the town as a whole.
For the four of us who stood together, our shared priorities were:
- Community involvement -creating open forums where everyone can have their say.
- Transparency – making council decisions easy to access and understand. (This one caused a stir. Yes, technically all decisions are made in meetings, and yes, minutes are online. But our point was: people shouldn’t have to dig around to find them. If something affects you and your street, you should know about it, clearly and directly.)
- Collaboration – working with residents on real issues like housing, sustainability, and local business. (Admittedly, much of this isn’t within the Town Council’s direct control. But we can at least understand the problems, explore solutions, and lobby on behalf of the town.)
Three months in, these are still my guiding principles. They feel like the groundwork for being an effective councillor. I’ve kept my election Facebook page going, I share snapshots from meetings, promote upcoming agendas, and ask questions of the public. With a marketing and comms background, that side of it comes naturally.
It hasn’t been universally popular, though. Sometimes I get the sense that others think I’m grandstanding, or trying to take the credit. That it’s about me. But it isn’t about me, it’s about making sure people can actually see what’s going on. And with no one else doing it, I’m just filling a hole.
And the meetings…
But the meetings themselves? They don’t seem to operate at a strategic level. Recently we voted on whether to clean some signs. Signs! Meanwhile, when I asked about the council’s objectives, I was told they had already been set in February, before I was even elected, during a strategic review. Not just for this term either, but stretching halfway into the next.
An election year seemed like a weird time to carry out a strategic review. Like the election meant nothing. Like there would be no change and everyone would just carry on. To me, it seemed logical that strategic objectives should be set at the start of any new term, not inherited from the previous lot with a smile and a nod.
Of course, objectives can develop and evolve. But it still felt odd to me that I’d been elected on a mandate, only to discover the direction of the council for my entire term had essentially already been decided. And when I thought back to those first leadership elections, where the chair and committee roles were settled almost instantly, it made sense why. A course had already been charted.
And so, I couldn’t help but wonder: what exactly is my role here?
Leave a Reply