I had a little conversation with Ray at our local swimming pool.
Dave: So are you running for Brooks City Council again, Ray?
Ray: Not sure yet. I’ve got a couple of weeks to submit my nomination.
Dave: Well, we just got you trained out. You need to put in another term.
Ray: You’re right. The first year was pretty hard trying to figure out how the various parts of the city worked together. It was better for me to keep my mouth shut and listen to the more experienced councillors.
I let a little pause happen.
Ray: I came into this job believing I could change some things. When I realized that there were things I could not change, I tried to figure out how to change the things I thought I could change. I’m not sure I changed much.
I did not say, but I was thinking: “Ray, you should have known better.”
I met Ray 30 years ago
A marriage connected Ray and I. We became in-laws of in-laws of each other. I saw Ray several times a year at family gatherings.
During the Personal Computer revolution in the mid-1980s, employees who figured out how to work the DOS operating system became more valuable to their employer. Ray jumped on the DOS challenge. He was an “IT specialist” before this term was invented.
Somehow Ray turned his knowledge of DOS into running some surveying software. He took those skills into becoming an environmental consultant. In brief, Ray would be hired to take soil samples of a contaminated site, ferry the samples to a laboratory, and put the lab results on a map. He gave that map to decision makers, who would then make their decision. Ray got paid quite well for this important work because there were not many people doing it, especially in our rural area.
Ray was also a handyman. As he was fixing his house, he was contacting his many friends in the trades to get their insights. Carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and other construction trades all became part of Ray’s life skill set. He turned this knowledge into becoming a home inspector. Prospective home buyers would contract Ray to provide an assessment of the prospective house.
I envied Ray because he was the penultimate free-lancer. He had two good income streams. He controlled much of his time. He supported his family financially. He was coaching kids’ sports teams and sitting on community boards. He had a great social network.
The Nature of Politics
When Ray said that there were things he could not change, he was right. There are forces that resist change.
For example, the parliamentary rules to make decisions at the City Council level are much more intense than decisions at volunteer boards, which use watered-down versions of Robert’s Rules. It takes a while to learn those advanced rules.
As well, decisions in Alberta’s cities are monitored by provincial bureaucrats in Edmonton, our capital city. Local decisions can be overturned by someone faraway. I suspect Ray ran into a few roadblocks in this way. In essence, Ray could not do a quick sell job on his fellow councillors, get a motion passed — and expect it to stick.
And as Ray learned, there were good reasons for some of the supposed silly ways of the City of Brooks. Ray had to move to the inside to understand that some things should not be changed.
And many issues on city council are rather mundane. For example, the current council is spending time on reworking policies for managing the cemetery. This issue was not part of the last election.
Ray probably learned that it was better for the city workers to solve many problems than the Council. For example, when a water line broke, Ray probably got phone calls from complaining citizens who like to complain. But the workers were probably already there, applying their skills to fix water lines, which always take some time.
Maybe there was a proactive approach to reduce the number of broken water lines. But to get people onside for this kind of construction is hard. If Ray pushes too hard, he could lose credibility on other matters. And maybe the situation needs to become more serious, the bureaucrats in Edmonton, who are overseeing many localities in Alberta, have a better handle on this matter. Or maybe they don’t. I don’t know. Ray doesn’t either.
Ray’s Change of Career
As time passed, Ray’s environmental consulting became less and less. I suspect the decision makers were looking for a more technical approach to contaminated sites. Ray’s credentials and techniques were no longer satisfactory.
His kids left home, so he could have sustained a reasonable lifestyle with home inspections. But when the job came up to manage the local landfill, he took it. After many years of being a free-lancer, Ray became a salary slave! I suspect he still kept free-lance hours, leaving the work to capable employees.
And after his retirement from the landfill, he threw his hat into municipal politics in 2021. He did not campaign that hard for the job. He put up a few small “Vote for Ray” signs. He showed up at the candidates’ forum. He got most of his votes by people who actually knew him.
Ray is friendly and knowledgeable and has a way of framing issues. He had great life experiences to put into politics.
Ray: If I do run again, it will be mostly to give my experience to the newer Council members, like advising them what they can and cannot do, what they should and should not do.
Ray did not run again. I suspect the lower energy that comes with old age was a factor. But we got only one four-year term out of him.
Nonetheless, he still should have known better. His work and volunteer activities had him interacting with politicians for many years.
Newell Recycling Association
Ray and his wife Florence were founding members of the Newell Recycling Association in 1992. They moved into an underutilized city building and set up some used balers to handle cardboard and paper streams.
The response from the community was overwhelming. Within two years, this building was running at 110% capacity. The association really could not expand operations. Ray and Florence were writing grant letters for many years to get a new facility.
Ray convinced me to join the board of the Association in 2008. I got an inside look at the operations.
The recycling center greeted visitors with a battered cardboard baler from the climax of the last horror movie you saw. When a cardboard truck dumped its load, there was not enough room on the floor to change anyone’s mind. The workers knew they had to clear the area for the next cardboard truck — and all other work had to stop. Besides there was only enough electricity to run one machine at a time — and a few lights. The manager’s office was a cubicle that kept out half the dust and none of the mice. At a battered desk, the manager paid suppliers, did payroll, and had staff meetings. The place sure reeked of a non-profit operation.
Then one day, the government grants realigned themselves. Ray’s and Florence’s grant letters that couldn’t get past the reject bin finally found an audience in the halls of power in Ottawa and Edmonton. Ray and the manager already had some building plans drawn with Ray’s surveying software, showing what they wanted in the next building. These amateur plans were useful for the architect. A year later, a million-dollar facility was up and running, mostly from a collision of powerful interests in Ottawa and Edmonton.
The lesson here is that sometimes things happen in government just because stars line up. The need for a new building and grant letters were two of those stars, but other stars outside our control needed to move into place. The new recycling center did not happen because of any campaign issue.
The new building found many new efficiencies. Cardboard could be stored for a few days before being processed. Three big machines could run at the same time. Employees were working in safer and cleaner conditions. They had a real lunchroom. The manager had a real office.
When new operations had settled, I thought the building was under-utilized. We had the ability to handle more recyclables, we just needed to be more aggressive in finding them. I seemed to be at odds with the board and manager. I got tired of pushing my agenda, and it was time for me to leave.
Looking back, I should have gone more with the flow — and waited for the opportunities that were going to come with or without me. Time seems to have found increased usage of the building. New streams of recycling were being handled: motor oil, paints, e-waste, light bulbs, batteries, etc.
I should have known better.
In some ways, board members are mostly caretakers of previous operations, making sure what worked in the past is still working. Occasionally, they will be called to address new opportunities and resolve new challenges. Effective boards can rise to the occasion, but they are still mostly caretakers.
Similar to city councillors. Ray should have known that.
Ray’s tenure as councillor
My interactions with the Brooks City council were minimal. I never had any request or concern for the Council. While many of the Council meetings are open to the public, I had little interest in spending a spare evening to listen to people work mundane issues with parliamentary procedures. Don’t get me wrong here: these issues are important to resolve for a city to function well. I will leave this job to those people elected to do them.
Sometimes there are big issues. One such issue was the city being investigated by the province for a “toxic work environment.” Things must have gone to a bad state to warrant such an investigation. The newspaper’s articles were not sufficient for me to understand the situation. I never asked Ray for more information, and he never volunteered. All I will say is that one senior bureaucrat is no longer working for the city.
Knowing Ray as well as I do, I’m pretty sure that he would have preferred not to have dealt with this issue. He and the fired employee likely had a good relationship before. But Ray would take his responsibility seriously and provide a level sounding board for the rest of Council to find their solution.
I bring this story up for two reasons. First, managing “a toxic work environment” cannot be a campaign issue in any way. And the ability to handle such a difficult situation was also something that can never be proven in a campaign. But difficult situations do happen — and need resolution. Luckily the 2021 election had, in my opinion, elected at least four mature minds on Council to deal with the issue in a wise and professional manner.
Second, we have to wonder why the Council was not on top of this situation before the province stepped in. There may have been good reasons, but they were never mentioned. As well, forces never arose to make the Council accountable on this issue. If there were such forces, the public, not being on the inside, would not be in a good position to understand the situation well enough to pass a credible verdict on the Council. We really cannot make our politicians accountable, and it is time we stop pretending we can. At best, we can only hope that we have elected wise politicians.
Besides there were many more issues — many mundane and some controversial — that the Council had to deal with. Judging the Council on only one big issue casts aside whatever good work they did on the many other issues.
Ray & The TDG
I have written about how a future Brooks TDG (Tiered Democratic Governance) might be constructed.
Briefly summarized, Brooks would have about 75 neighborhoods, each electing their own neighborhood representative. These 75 representatives would constitute the first tier. They would then elect a seven-member Council, which is the second tier. This is an indirect election, a salient feature of the TDG. This second tier makes most of the big decisions.
Ray would have likely been elected into the first tier of the TDG, probably in his 30’s. He is sociable, likable fellow. He has acquired some great life skills. He is community-minded and listens to people. He has the occupation where he could juggle other life events to attend the two or three first-tier meetings each month. He is not addled with an addiction or rigid political ideology.
While working with his first-tier responsibilities, he would have been learning about the second tier, the Council. I estimate it would have taken Ray about five years to move from the first tier to the second tier, the Council. He would have been prepared and had realistic expectations. He probably would have stayed in the Council for 20 years, using experience earned in the first 10 years to guide the Council in the last 10 years. New councillors would have learned a lot from Ray.
I expect that this TDG Council will have a more proactive culture than what Ray experienced in the current Brooks Council. Ray would find this culture more rewarding — and would not question whether to stay if the voters wanted him to stay.
And if he ever found himself “not elected,” he would not be bitter for his “loss.” He would find other life adventures to embark on.
Ray is the kind of person we need in governance — and for more than one four-year term.
Published on Medium 2025
Why is Science Fiction Holding Us Back?
What is Your Political Legacy?
