Council here received some poor grades and nothing approaching an ‘A’ on the first Township of Mapleton Council Report Card.
In October council members passed a resolution to conduct a survey aimed at obtaining feedback on their first year in office.
At the Jan. 26 council meeting CAO Brad McRoberts reported a total of 55 survey responses were received, of which 44 were completed online.
While a number of the questions aimed to gather information, some required responders to directly rate council, or council members, in various areas.
Just over 34 per cent of respondents said they had contacted council within the past 12 months. Of those, about 57% felt their concern was handled “in a timely manner.”
Just over 50% of respondents believe councillors are visible at public events, while about 42% aren’t sure and around 8% believe they are not visible.
About 78% indicated they felt it important for council to be at public events.
Asked if they felt individual council members were “accessible,” 67% felt Mayor Neil Driscoll was accessible, while 4% felt he was not and 28% indicated they “don’t know.”
Councillor Michael Martin, scored the next highest, with 39% rating him accessible, while 61% didn’t know.
Councillor Dennis Craven was rated accessible by about 37%, while just under 10% said he was not and 54% were unsure.
Councillor Marlene Ottens was considered accessible by 34%, while 4% felt she was not and 62% were unsure.
Councillor Lori Woodham was rated accessible by 31%, with about 6% stating she was not and 63% unsure.
Asked if they feel council is “open and transparent” only 33% responded yes, with 44% saying no and 23% unsure.
Some of the comments accompanying responses to this question (names were redacted in the report) included:
– “Why was our CAO fired?”;
– “Exactly what qualifications does director of public works have that would make him a good CAO?”;
– “Re: replacement of senior positions (director of public works). What accountable/transparent committee consists of the mayor and CAO only? … Is the municipality again going to spend thousands of dollars on an HR consultant (up to $20,000) to promote someone internally …?”;
– “No reasons/grounds given for the decision to double (and more) size of township works building; no reason/grounds given for the decision to go with a design that cost at least $2 million more than comparable facilities”; and
– “As a taxpayer I do not believe there should be any closed session meetings. My personal opinion is if it’s behind closed doors, council is not being open and transparent.”
When asked “Does council communicate with the public well?” 40% said yes, 42% said no, and about 17% were unsure.
In response to another question, 48% indicated they did not believe council is making decisions that are in the best interest of the community/public, while 36% believe they are and 16% don’t know.
Some of the comments accompanying the responses to this question included:
– “Taxes keep going up and up. We had a great CAO and for some unknown reason she was fired.”;
– “When council members are approving reports/allocation of funds perhaps they should insist justification for expenditures are provided and view the expenditures as (if) they were spending their own money and running a fiscally responsible business.”;
– “From what I have read in the Newspaper, it appears that council is basing some decisions on what is good for all taxpayers not just one person’s concerns. Feel there is a desire to spend money wisely.”;
– “I think it is making decisions best for rural public.”;
– “I would like to hope that they are.”; and
– “It’s hard to tell how council is doing as they all seem to follow whatever the mayor has to say.”
Asked to rate council’s overall performance, about 13% of respondents indicated they were very satisfied, 26% were satisfied, 34% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 19% were dissatisfied and 8% were very dissatisfied.
Final comments in the survey included:
– “Perhaps council should be more concerned with the fiscal responsibility which they have been entrusted with rather than the importance of seeing them out at public events.”;
– “All the money is spent in Drayton and Moorefield. The people in the country get very little.”;
– “I am a landlord who owns two houses in Drayton and pay property taxes to the Township of Mapleton. I live in Kitchener and never hear of any of the things you as a council discuss … do not even know when your council meetings are or where they are held.”;
– “They are trying to clean up a mess!”;
– “Quit wasting (money) on consultants – paying for second consultant to find works director after consultant for CAO?”;
– “Start taxing farms at the full value of property. It is obscene that farmers only pay 25% of the accessed value. Lobby the province to change this taxation formula … Farmers pay up! There are numerous millionaire farmers within Mapleton.”; and
– “You seem to be getting more done in shorter amounts of time. Bravo.”
In his report, McRoberts advised council to keep in mind when considering the results that the 55 respondents represent only 0.5% of Mapleton’s population and 0.7% of eligible voters.
Also he noted, “people who feel satisfied tend not to complete surveys.”
Driscoll said he felt the survey “was a great initiative,” adding, “If you do not ask you will not find out.”
“I enjoyed the survey I appreciate that 52 people took the time to fill it out,” said Martin. “For me it just shows we can always do a better job of communicating.”
“I can echo that. I don’t think there were any surprises in there to me,” said Craven.
With the majority of respondents perceiving a lack of transparency, Woodham suggested posting additional information and/or redesigning the township’s website to improve access to information.
Ottens noted local citizens seem to respond well to receiving information directly, as they did at the Jan. 14 budget open house meeting in Moorefield.
“When given answers to questions there was a lot of, ‘Oh I see,’ whether they liked it or not,” she commented.
Driscoll said he felt council should set aside time to review the survey results together and provide a response to each question raised.
Council received the report for information.
