Thanks for your great summary of this process. I posted this to reddit:
I wrote to all councillors prior to the meeting stating I am a resident of Ward 10 and believed they should just appoint Stretch.
It's easy to day "democracy was not served", but a little harder to understand the particulars of what makes up this 'democracy' stuff.
It's interesting that the only 'delegate' to speak to the Ward 10 issue at council, who was in favour of a by-election, was also interested in running in that election.
In the main election, I volunteered with 3 or 4 Neighbourhood Associations to organize a "Meet your Ward 10 candidates" event at the DNA building. It took several meetings and individual work to hammer out the questions and protocols (we solicited questions on our websites from residents), to rent the sound equipment, survey the room, find a moderator (who did an amazing job) and more. I recorded the actual meeting and posted it up on YouTube where it had several hundred views. I seriously doubt that would happen again in a by-election.
Stretch and Clancy shared most of the same policies and the race was very very close. And of course turnout was only 27% and would probably be far less at a by-election.
So the "democratic" option would satisfy some people who are very ideological about it, but for practical purposes, I believe it would be -less- democratic than the original because fewer people would run, we'd be far less inclined to organize another 'all candidates' meeting, and fewer people would vote. And it would cost over $80,000 which could be spent on city programs and services.
The reddit tread about this had some strong opinions: https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/s/wnsobEjAgt
Thanks for your great summary of this process. I posted this to reddit:
I wrote to all councillors prior to the meeting stating I am a resident of Ward 10 and believed they should just appoint Stretch.
It's easy to day "democracy was not served", but a little harder to understand the particulars of what makes up this 'democracy' stuff.
It's interesting that the only 'delegate' to speak to the Ward 10 issue at council, who was in favour of a by-election, was also interested in running in that election.
In the main election, I volunteered with 3 or 4 Neighbourhood Associations to organize a "Meet your Ward 10 candidates" event at the DNA building. It took several meetings and individual work to hammer out the questions and protocols (we solicited questions on our websites from residents), to rent the sound equipment, survey the room, find a moderator (who did an amazing job) and more. I recorded the actual meeting and posted it up on YouTube where it had several hundred views. I seriously doubt that would happen again in a by-election.
Stretch and Clancy shared most of the same policies and the race was very very close. And of course turnout was only 27% and would probably be far less at a by-election.
So the "democratic" option would satisfy some people who are very ideological about it, but for practical purposes, I believe it would be -less- democratic than the original because fewer people would run, we'd be far less inclined to organize another 'all candidates' meeting, and fewer people would vote. And it would cost over $80,000 which could be spent on city programs and services.