The councils that get themselves in trouble are usually the ones that don't have a good 'read' for what their constituents want or think they are ' in charge' and can do whatever they choose.
I used to go out to every community hall and have a meeting every spring and fall, and discuss what we were planning in the budget and get ideas on what the priorities were among my constituents, then I went back and fought like hell to ensure that at least some of those priorities were addressed .
The mindset of some members of council when I was still a member was to promise paved roads to everyone and you would get elected, then when you couldn't deliver the pavement you blamed it on the spending priorities of the rest of council or administration !
I would never play that game, even though it cost me votes when people would meet me at the door during the election campaign and demand that their road be paved and tell me point blank that they would vote for the first candidate that would promise to get the pavement for them !!! That is where you find out just how selfish some people can be, no thought to priorities all across the municipality, just past their own backdoor !!!
I used to go out to every community hall and have a meeting every spring and fall, and discuss what we were planning in the budget and get ideas on what the priorities were among my constituents, then I went back and fought like hell to ensure that at least some of those priorities were addressed .
The mindset of some members of council when I was still a member was to promise paved roads to everyone and you would get elected, then when you couldn't deliver the pavement you blamed it on the spending priorities of the rest of council or administration !
I would never play that game, even though it cost me votes when people would meet me at the door during the election campaign and demand that their road be paved and tell me point blank that they would vote for the first candidate that would promise to get the pavement for them !!! That is where you find out just how selfish some people can be, no thought to priorities all across the municipality, just past their own backdoor !!!
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