They were elected but will they show up?

Despite the fact that sitting on Newmarket Council is considered part time work, I am still hesitant to write about attendance at council related meetings as a measure of a council member doing his or her job.

We've seen in the past Council members who have a perfect attendance record yet they contribute so little towards the debate of issues that their attendance doesn't matter.  What's the point to being at a meeting if the council member doesn't contribute anything?

Conversely, we have seen council members who have missed a couple of meetings but their commitment towards their constituents could not be doubted.  These members are engaged in debates, table motions, and come to every meeting prepared for the business at hand.

And yet, attendance can be a measure of the council member's attitude towards the important work before the town.  Attending or not attending meetings is one facet of a council member's job and I recognize that there is work being done outside of these meetings.  But the work done outside of the meeting isn't being recorded by anyone whereas we have records to refer to regarding attendance at meetings.

We should be able to reasonably extrapolate that a member of council who regularly skips meetings may not be particularly attentive to other aspects of their job.  After all, if you don't show up when people notice you are absent, how can you convince anyone that you are working hard at the other times?

Here is a summary of meetings scheduled in 2015 for Newmarket Council:

• Council meetings:  12 meetings (but 10 have minutes posted on line)
• Committee of the Whole meetings:  13 meetings (but 11 have minutes posted on line)
• Special Council meetings:  5 meetings (but 4 have minutes posted on line)
• Council Workshops:  11 meetings (but 10 have minutes posted on line)

So over a twelve month period, there are approximately 41 council meetings (or about one per week with the summer months scheduled off).

For the purpose of my review, I am only considering the meetings with minutes posted on line.  Therefore my review will only consider 35 meetings in all.  I am only considering absences but during some of these meetings, a council member may have arrived late or left early.  For the purpose of my review, those instances are considered "in attendance".  

Of the 35 meetings, the Mayor and Councillor Broome-Plumley have perfect attendance in 2015.  

Council members Bisanz, Kerwin and Taylor have missed 6% of these meetings.

Councillor Vegh missed 9% of this year's meetings

Councillors Twinney and Hempen missed 20% of the scheduled meetings.

And Councillor Sponga has missed 26% of the meetings.  

Newmarket residents interested in determining how well these politicians are serving the community should look at absenteeism as a problem.  I know many of my readers are managers or business owners.  How tolerant are you of an employee who misses work once every 4 or 5 days?  What if 33% of your employees were absent from work at this rate?  Could your workplace manage with this kind of absenteeism?

In the case of Newmarket Council, it is a rare occasion when all 9 members are present at any given meeting.  On a frequent basis, two or more council members are not present while important issues are being reviewed and key votes are being missed.  

Out of curiosity, I looked at the Library Board and the Central York Fire Services committees because they drive a large portion of the Town's budget each year.  As luck would have it, Councillor Sponga sits on both of these important committees.  

Between them, the Library and CYFS committees have met 18 times this year but only 15 meetings have minutes posted on line.  Councillor Sponga missed 7 of the 15 minuted meetings for a 47% absenteeism rate.