I have to admit that I was floored when I read the remarks by Mayor Andrew Jakubeit as follows; “In the end we gave the community what the community wanted.”
Since city council chose to hire an engagement consultant, who I assume has training and experience in interpersonal relations skills, I would advise that she review future comments by the mayor prior to issue, to promote rather than hinder council’s stated objective of taxpayer engagement. This is just my opinion as one who is not trained in those interpersonal skills.
Let us examine the mayor’s brief statement in its two parts in relation to the Skaha Lake Park issue.
“In the end”: This statement encompasses a great deal of angst, divisiveness within the community and cost to the taxpayer — both legal and in relation to costly staff time (to first devise and then extricate the city from this signed legal commitment) with no apparent benefit.
We may eventually learn the extent of the legal costs based on a commitment by the mayor, which I seriously doubt based on past experience, but the cost of the wasted staff time will never be revealed.
We know that the number of senior staff at city hall has escalated exponentially in the recent past, and can only speculate on how much of the increase is related to the mis-allocation of staff time (working on projects that nobody but apparently city council wants).
In an idealistic sense the “new” engagement process is good, but whether it required a contract consultant is questionable. It is worth noting that although a proper engagement process was not followed in the Skaha Lake Park issue, the mayor and council had to have been aware of the major opposition of city residents to the plan (protest rallies, etc.). If they didn’t know, no amount of future engagement and taxpayer expense will solve that problem.
Facing this known opposition the mayor proceeded to ignore the input from the residents, and sign the agreement without any further consultation. The problem did not appear to be engagement, but lack of the mayor and council paying any attention to the wishes of the residents and taxpayers of the city.
I am afraid that any future meaningful engagement and the “moving on” that the mayor wishes will have to await an incoming and new mayor and council.
“We gave the community what the community wanted”: I personally did not want any of the irritation and costs noted above, and I question that most other residents did as well.
Claude Bergman
Penticton