The new Mayor has dug himself a bigger hole for himself with the Council meeting of 28 Feb. In that meeting two item’s,  illustrate the political problem he has created for himself.

Prior to the meeting the problem of a Council ‘split’ emerged due to his comments made at a protest about the proposed Council salary increases. Read about that event here.

Two items, there may be more, where the Mayor has voted, in isolation, against the rest of Council stand out. One was the budget where he decided that the increase proposed was bigger than what he wanted and the other was a letter from the Cobourg Police Services Board that stated that the CPSB did not support any of his remarks about a Regional Police Force made at a recent County Council meeting. Read a report written by Cecilia Naismith here this article tells all including a huge amount of ‘backfilling’ by the Mayor to justify both his support of the CPS and his motion at County Council.

In the case of the budget, which is his now, as he took control of the budget from the traditional budget-maker; the Deputy Mayor, he has to defend the document and process as Head of Council and chief spokesperson. Therein lies his problem. If he continues to keep saying “I voted 30 times against the budget – it was those other dudes who raised your taxes”, he risks ridicule if he can’t control or lead those other dudes. As a self acknowledged expert on “leadership” and “team-building” he has a huge challenge with the rest of Council.

We at the BurdReport look forward to the Lucas Cleveland 2.0 reboot. The expression “may you live in interesting times” comes to mind.

Note:

“May you live in interesting times” is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is normally used ironically; life is better in “uninteresting times” of peace and tranquility than in “interesting” ones, which are usually times of trouble.