Cross-posted from Spacing Votes
The confetti’s been swept from the campaign room floor, but a whole new mess awaits Toronto’s new city councillors. While their terms won’t officially start until Dec. 5, the rookies are busy getting the lay of the land so they can hit the ground running.
For Gord Perks, newly-elected to Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park, that means a whirlwind tour of local community and business groups.
“Invitations are coming in at the rate of, oh, one every 15 minutes or so,” he said last Friday evening.
For many new councillors, meet-and-greets will be the primary initiation into their new job. Aside from a few orientation meetings at City Hall, which take place this week, there is no formal briefing process established between the former incumbents and their successors, and no guarantee any of the community’s paperwork will be passed along.
Amiable discourse isn’t always guaranteed. In his case, Perks ran against John Colautti, the executive assistant to outgoing councillor Sylvia Watson.
“If I’m lucky, I’ll have a [chance to chat with the former councillor and her assistant]. If I’m unlucky, I’ll go in and there will be nothing left but lightbulbs and paperclips.” Perks said. “I may not see a single piece of paper.”
According to one of Watson’s assistants, although there is no official process in place which would dictate the crossover, Watson is interested in “serving the community,” and will help out in any fashion, should Perks request it.Both her City Hall and constituency offices are open until the end of November.
Perks is handling his scheduling and administrative duties solo for now, as councillors won’t receive a new budget for constituency staff or lodgings until Dec. 1.
“I’m begging, borrowing, and stealing corners of people’s desks to manage things,” Perks explained, adding he’ll likely hire one person temporarily in December to help with the formal hiring process.
“But I’m quite lucky in that I’ve had some very good advice from sitting councillors, and current City staff,” Perks said. “It’s going to be a steep learning curve…. I haven’t been this excited in five to ten years!”
Adam Vaughan, newly-elected in Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, is also musing over his soon-to-be constituency staff. While he said the applications “are flooding in,” he hopes to chat with Desmond Cole and Chris Ouellette, who both ran against him in Ward 20.
Councillors’ teams consist of essentially three positions, he explained: “Someone has to be able to handle the legislative agenda; someone who is an administrative assistant — who is the eyes and the ears in the office, chained to a desk more or less; and then you have a constituency person, and that person can be broken down into one, two, or three positions.”
He is also contemplating a rotating location for his office.
“The rent is so high in Trinity-Spadina, and the budget is set city-wide, so it sort of makes it harder for a downtown councillor, who has complex communications requirements because of language and because of the diversity of communities,” Vaughan said.
Vaughan, like Perks, also ran against the executive assistant to his ward’s former councillor — Helen Kennedy, who worked for current area MP, Olivia Chow.
“Jack and Olivia both phoned, and I’ve talked to staff already. The crossover is significant in the fact that there are ongoing files and new files that need to be picked up every day.”
Diane Silver, special assistant to Ward 20’s interim councillor, Martin Silva, said she did not wish to speak about the transition process, on the grounds that it was an “innappropriate” topic.
photo of city council chamber, Old City Hall.
From Toronto Archives: series 372, subseries 41, item 430
