Quote:
Originally Posted by bigguy1231
All voters to one extent or another look out for their own interests. Most are happy with their local councilor as long as they take care of the basics and most councilors are very good at doing that. Thats why they get re elected over and over again. Municipal politics is pretty basic. See to it that roads are plowed and garbage is picked up and all will be good.
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I know that this opinion is very common (that’s why turnout is so low municipally- “municipal politics is pretty basic,” so it’s not a big deal if I don’t make it out), but it’s dead wrong. Firstly, most councillors are not “very good” at doing the basics. City staff is fairly good at doing the basics (because the basics are basic! And cities have been doing them for a long time.) Councillor so-and-so is not out troubleshooting waste collection when it’s garbage day in his ward.
Secondly, the elementary nature of much of what we traditionally associate with the municipal level of government is no longer even close to the only thing a municipality does. I think that, in a city of any size (even much smaller than Hamilton), it would behoove us to realize that budgets have become very large, and the breadth of different services very wide. We need much more professional councillors than we have here in Hamilton, and to get them we need to regard them as professionals who are managing much more than “basic services.”