Mayor pokes council with HCI stick

If anyone thought the acrimony between city council and Mayor Marianne Matichuk was going away, a testy exchange at the May 28 meeting proved otherwise.

Matichuk was poking councillors with her favourite stick – the $50,000 in Health Community Initiative Funds each councillor gets to spend each year. At issue was the question of what happens when someone applies for money from the funds and is rejected.

While recent reforms brought in much stricter rules on how money can be spent, individual councillors can still reject applications without a specific reason.

Applicants don’t even have a right to be told they’ve been turned down.

While there has been much debate about the appropriateness of giving politicians control over money to spend as they wish in their wards, there are arguments in favour of the policy. If you put cynicism aside for a moment, remember local politicians run for office to make a positive impact on where they live.

There are no lucrative pensions or patronage jobs awaiting them, and the committee work, added to the functions they attend in the wards, can reduce their hourly pay to student wage levels.

Residents have greater access to city councillors than any politicians at any other level. And if you’re representing, say, 15,000 people in your ward, $50,000 a year can go a long way toward addressing front-line concerns.

Ward 11 Coun. Terry Kett devoted almost all of his funds over the last few years to build a dog park in Minnow Lake. And, it seems, nearly every playground structure in Greater Sudbury has been refurbished using HCI money. So it’s not hard to understand why councillors are determined, come hell or high water, to keep control of them.

The problem, as has been well documented, is giving direct control over spending to a politician creates the possibility of abuse of power. The new rules are intended to limit that risk by, for example, limiting how much can be spent in an election year.

What wasn’t addressed is what happens to rejected applications. Since decisions are made largely at the discretion of the individual councillor, it’s possible someone could be refused funding because the politician doesn’t like them, or because they didn’t help them get elected.

I certainly have no reason to believe that’s happened, but as it stands now, it could happen, even if a councillor follows all the rules.

Ideally, control of the funds should be returned to city staff. Failing that, an objective means of evaluating applications is needed. A points system could work — even first come, first served. Rejected applicants should be told why, based on that objective criteria.

So, if we assume the best of everyone, and assume HCI decisions are being made fairly, there’s no reason why objective criteria can’t be spelled out detailing why someone gets money and someone else doesn’t. And that information should be included in the quarterly HCI reports posted to the city’s website.

Those who are turned down won’t be any happier, but at least they’ll know — along with the rest of us — they got a fair shake.

Darren MacDonald is Northern Life’s city hall reporter.