Councillors wanted

[Colin May]

Want to be an HRM councillor ?

Want to make a difference or do you enjoy banging your head against a brick wall ?

Think you can do a better job ?

Leaving HRM council : Dalrymple, McCluskey, Watts, Rankin.
Thinking about leaving : Walker, Karsten.

$78,000 and full benefits

[Keith P.]

But in order to get elected you need to pretend to be interested in youth soccer, minor hockey, church suppers, and all those other things that have nothing to do with running a city and everything to do with creating a profile and currying favor.

[portapetey]

Yikes. That's a lot of responsibility and frustration and profile (mostly public scorn) for a pretty lousy salary. No thanks.

[Antigonish]

Originally Posted by portapetey

Yikes. That's a lot of responsibility and frustration and profile (mostly public scorn) for a pretty lousy salary. No thanks.

$78,000 seems pretty decent for doing not that much.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Antigonish

$78,000 seems pretty decent for doing not that much.

They do so much behind the scenes that we never see. I mean people call their councillor if they see a trash can overflowing in a park for goodness sake. They deal with a lot of inanity from their constituents which leads to a lot of the inanity we see from meetings. $78,000 is a decent salary, especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses, but I'm with portapetey on this one. No thanks.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

They do so much behind the scenes that we never see. I mean people call their councillor if they see a trash can overflowing in a park for goodness sake. They deal with a lot of inanity from their constituents which leads to a lot of the inanity we see from meetings. $78,000 is a decent salary, especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses, but I'm with portapetey on this one. No thanks.

".... especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses"
They claim expenses, usually mileage.
The calls can vary from reasonable to really weird. It is surprising how people remember the small things you did for them.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Colin May

".... especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses"
They claim expenses, usually mileage.
The calls can vary from reasonable to really weird. It is surprising how people remember the small things you did for them.

My bad on the wording. I meant to type claim instead of write off. Score one for proofreading...

[someone123]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

They do so much behind the scenes that we never see. I mean people call their councillor if they see a trash can overflowing in a park for goodness sake. They deal with a lot of inanity from their constituents which leads to a lot of the inanity we see from meetings. $78,000 is a decent salary, especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses, but I'm with portapetey on this one. No thanks.

Yep. I think you could be a bad councillor and not do much work aside from elections and gladhanding but it would be hard to be a good councillor and reconcile those things with making a meaningful positive difference. A really good councillor is able to communicate effectively with constituents, basically educating them a lot of the time, make hard decisions, and still get elected.

I've always thought that it's kind of a weird job, and that it doesn't select for the kind of people who can actually make good decisions. The job isn't going to appeal to many people with strong careers for example. Halifax politicians often used to be prominent businessmen, doctors, lawyers, etc., but you don't see as much of that these days. The job of councillor used to actually be part time so it was open to more people. It's a bit counterintuitive but I think it's often more democratic to have better-paying elected positions with a lighter workload. Otherwise you just get career politicians and the quality scales down with the pay grade.

[IanWatson]

Part of me would really like to see municipal political careers (minus the mayor) limited to one term in a row, so that it would encourage more people doing it as "a service to the city" and fewer people doing it out of self-interested (though I totally recognize that many councillors are indeed in it to make a difference currently). This would also prevent a lot of the boneheaded decisions that are made because politicians don't want to piss people off before the next election.

To compensate for the fact that part of a councillor's very first term is learning, you could make terms six years instead of four, so they'd have four or five good years of being a knowledgeable councillor.

You'd also run into the problem that if every councillor was new, you'd lose institutional memory and experience. To fix that you could offset elections in each district so every year was an election year, but only in two or three districts. This would also prevent the distraction and reduction in government function that currently happens during a municipality-wide election year.

[spaustin]

Well, for better or worse, I'm taking the plunge. Running again in Dartmouth Centre, just this time Gloria is retiring so the seat is open. We'll see if I can build on my good result from 2012. Kickoff is Sunday at the Findlay Centre.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1679188492332343/
Have some stuff up on the website already including a transportation piece and links to all my past Spacing articles and media appearances. Will eventually have a development focussed policy brief. Stay tuned.
http://www.samaustin.ca

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by spaustin

Well, for better or worse, I'm taking the plunge. Running again in Dartmouth Centre, just this time Gloria is retiring so the seat is open. We'll see if I can build on my good result from 2012. Kickoff is Sunday at the Findlay Centre.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1679188492332343/
Have some stuff up on the website already including a transportation piece and links to all my past Spacing articles and media appearances. Will eventually have a development focussed policy brief. Stay tuned.
http://www.samaustin.ca

Best of luck! I can't vote for you, but I think you would be a welcome breath of fresh air on a council that definitely needs some different voices and perspectives.