Report Card

September is a "back to school" month, which brings about thoughts of report cards and the like. That got me thinking- wouldn’t it be interesting to host an online report card for city council?

You might be wondering how and why. In terms of the how, I narrowed it down to five key questions that I think will provide a good gauge of how things are going. You will find these five questions along the right side of this blog page, represented as a series of polls. Simply answer each question in the polls. You can also add  comments to this post,  to further elaborate on your poll scores.

Why? Well, I believe in accountability to the taxpayers. Here is a chance to express your assessment of how our local politicians are doing.

As long as we keep it fair, it should be a good exercise. This should not be a stone throwing exercise but it also needn't be a tea party. Fair and honest answers and commentary are encouraged.

I plan to record and store the poll results and once again repeat this poll in several months, and also, just before the next election. In this way, we can get a sense if the ratings have improved or worsened.

I know that this is not scientific polling, but nonetheless, it should result in interesting information.

 I usually email all of council and the Mayor, with a summary of topics found on The Hamiltonian. So, I assume they will be reading this report.

Rrrrriiiinnngggg   That's the accountability bell ringing; not the recess bell. ;-)

P.S.:  To make this poll as meaningful as possible, please advise your friends and networks of its existence and encourage them to visit the site and vote. Let's see how much participation we can get. Citizen empowerment is a wonderful thing.

Customer Service

I don't have occassion to call city hall all that often, so I may not have the best read of this. However, on those occassions when I have called city hall or other city services, about 85% of the time, I found the customer service to be good or better than good. Sure, I've had the odd experience where the person on the other end of the phone or counter, was either unhelpful or "cranky", or occasions where I found myself in voice mail hell, but for the most part, I think I've received good service.

What has your experience been? Do you have examples of good or bad customer service when contacting city personnel? Any advice or kudos? Note; may be best to describe circumstances rather than naming people.

Appropriate or Conflict of Interest?

Repeated delays may mean that Mayor Eisenberger’s proposal to provide rebates to individual election donors will not be in place in time for the start of the next campaign in January. Under debate since February, the reform measures made little progress at this week’s audit and administration committee.

CATCH has calculated that nine of the councillors elected in 2006 each got at least two-thirds of their reported funding from corporations. Five others, including Eisenberger, refused to accept money from either unions or corporations.

Corporations provided 53% of all the donations over $100 reported by Hamilton’s mayor and councillors, even though six of the sixteen collected none at all. That’s because nine of the other ten got at least two-thirds of their campaign money from corporate donors.

Maria Pearson topped the list, collecting 82% of her funds from corporations. She was closely followed by Bernie Morelli (80%) and Sam Merulla (79%). Dave Mitchell, Terry Whitehead, Lloyd Ferguson, Tom Jackson and Chad Collins were clustered in the 73-75% range, while Brad Clark got 69% of his financial support from corporate donors.

Margaret McCarthy, Mayor Eisenberger, Russ Powers, Brian McHattie, Bob Bratina and Scott Duvall were at the other end of the scale with zero donations from corporations. The first five also took nothing from unions, while Duvall got 45% of his funds from that source.

The remaining councillor, Robert Pasuta, got 40% of his funds from businesses, mainly incorporated farms in his rural ward, and the rest from individuals or his own pocket.

McCarthy took no donations of any kind, personally financing her entire campaign. Russ Powers paid for about three-fifths of his election costs, and got the rest from individuals. Bratina, Eisenberger and McHattie relied 100% on individual donors.

It is clear that corporate donations and the like are a critical source of funding for some councilors. Many of these councilors are also on the committee that is looking at this whole thing. Does this seem appropriate to you?  Would it not be better to have a third party body consider the options and report to the Mayor/Council and the Public, in a timely manner? (by the way, by Third Party- I don't  mean consultants.).

Special thanks to the good people at C.A.T.C.H. for doing great research on this.