Watching the saga of the Mayor, and his autocratacism, in the debate about the Police budget, he is obviously tilting at windmills in his efforts to be the big cheese. If he succeeds in his effort to get a 4% increase as he autocratically decreed a couple of months ago, as opposed to the 20% increase that the Chief of Police says he needs to run efficiently he will have done two things. Firstly he will have defeated an unpopular, in his mind, Police Chief and secondly he will have struck a political blow to a perceived Mayoralty Candidate – Adam Bureau who just happens to be the Chair of the Police Services Board. BTW the 4% edict was not only unrealistic but very silly considering the average budget increases for Police Services was easily over 10%. But most importantly he will have proved to his political supporters and the anti-Cobourg Police constituency that he is the Boss and has proven to be the Clark Kent who steps out of the phone booth to to deliver miracles.

Just to recap the Mayor tells the Police Services Board (PSB) that they had better not bring a budget of more than 4% or else he will do things. The Police Services Board brings in a budget of 20% doing two things first of all annoy the Mayor and secondly set off a howl of red-hot comments on the CobourgBlog that demand the head of the Chief, the immediate installation of the OPP and give the Mayor the perceived legitimacy he thinks he has in the form of public support.

The Mayor and Council then send the 20% budget back to the PSB for “revision”. The PSB will not change a thing and suggests to the Council that ‘conciliation’ or ‘arbitration’ maybe the answer. Well on Monday December 1^st the Chief will be before Council at a Regular Meeting to discuss the situation.

So how do we talk everybody off the ledge? It will not be easy but probably could be done:

• Firstly the Mayor has to be convinced that his SMP was a very silly thing to have done
  • Problem is that who’s task is it tell the Emperor that he has no clothes? Who is is his confidant, who does he listen to?
• Secondly the Police chief and the PSB will have to move off the 20% figure
  • That will be tough as most of the costs are mandated and he only has 11% of his budget that can be called discretionary
  • But he has to look at cutting costs
    • Do we really need as many police vehicles as they have somedays you can count over a dozen in the parking lot – cut cars cut running expenses.
• Thirdly if the Police Chief wants to play hardball give the Mayor a 4% budget and outline the cuts to service that bring the budget into 4%. Perhaps the Province will then step in and say that the proposed cuts cannot ensure a proper Police Service and aid his case.

Bottom line, nobody wins here and you cannot declare winners and losers – good heads have to prevail but unfortunately the Mayor will never acknowledge that he provoked this situation and doesn’t recognise that he lacks the people/political skills to get himself out of it. We just hope that someone in the Council Chamber recognises the problem and will work a ‘backchannel’ to compromise and settle.