“Live with it!” these words will echo in the minds of local Democracy Advocates for the next year and a bit – the time until a new Mayor is elected. The source of these to-become famous words was John Mascarin, the Town’s Solicitor, the guy in the pic.

In a Town Council meeting on August 25th the Mayor appeared in front of his Council, which had petitioned for the meeting to discuss his recent edict issued under his Strong Mayor Powers (SMP) which mandated a new Development Department and the promotion of the CAO’s Office Manager to the position of Director of Development. During that meeting, as recorded by the Cobourg News (read it here) and an article written by local journalist Cecilia Naismith (read it here) it was noted by some readers that SMPs are non-debatable, non-negotiable and called by others as inherently autocratic and authoritarian.

In that meeting the reports noted that Mr Mascarin told Council a couple of interesting facts, as he saw them as an expert in this field.

• One was the that Strong Mayor Powers now assign the organizational structure of the Municipality to the Mayor.
• The other one that is even more alarming is that there is no requirement in the legislation to post the directives that the Mayor has been posting.

So that means a dictatorial Mayor, acting alone, could just issue edicts and no-one would be the wiser until they come into effect.

In fact it should be noted that the SMPs being posted, in Cobourg, are being done as a favour, “We post every single one when it is issued, based on your determination when you would like it posted,” Municipal Clerk Brent Larmer said in the meeting.

So live with it folks because you can bet your bottom dollar that many more are coming down the pipe. The current Council, playing catch-up to the Mayor is lost in this arena. The Mayor has issued SMPs without talking to this Council prior to the issuance preferring to “talk to experts” despite a campaign promise to lead a team because he is a ‘teambuilder”. This Council is now irrelevant, serving only the purpose of ‘rubber-stamping’ whatever comes out of the CAO’s office or being humiliated by the Mayor and his SMPs.

The BurdReport is now putting the position to the Citizens of Cobourg that if this situation of ‘Democracy Lost’ because of the failure of Representative Democracy, as the current incumbents have failed to be Representatives due to the SMPs and the lack of a working relationship with the Mayor then new Representatives should be looked for.