During the May 1st meeting of CBRM Council, Mayor Cecil Clarke did an outstanding job demonstrating why his focus on his PC leadership campaign is distracting him from his duties as our mayor.

The revelation occurred during an excellent discussion kicked off by Councillor Kendra Coombes. She eventually would successfully get her "Put Up or Shut Up" memo unanimously approved in a motion to take action on Equalization instead of just talking about it.

During her turn to speak, Councillor Amanda McDougall noted the relationship between the audit the council thought they requested from the Province back in February when the motion for it passed.

She then asked about its status.

In a moment of apparent awkwardness, Mayor Clarke immediately passed the question off to CAO Marie Walsh to answer the question. Walsh, with a giggle, stated that the motion was for the Mayor and Council to send the letter to the Province and she didn't know if it was done or not.

Eventually, Mayor Clarke would call it an "oversight", suggesting that the CBRM clerk sent him the "memo", but he didn't realize it needed to be sent on to the province by him.

How do you forget something like a heavily discussed motion for an audit in a municipality starving for increased funding for its needs?

As the Equalization discussion continued, the audio picked up chatter from the Mayor and CAO Walsh and/or the clerk talking while the councillors took their speaking time.

Eventually, in some form of apparent damage control, the mayor essentially made an attempt to suggest that not sending the audit request after months of Council believing it had been sent, wasn't such a big deal.

Why?

Well... according to the mayor, it was because there was an exchange from Municipal Affairs (aka Minister Derek Mombourquette) who communicated to ask about the motion that passed. The mayor suggested they were "cleaning up the language".

Is it ok for a motion passed by Council is somehow subject to revision after the fact and without their knowledge? Should Mombourquette get to have input into the wording of the motion before it actually gets sent to him from the CBRM?

As it turns out, the CBRM did finally send the letter on to the Province the next day, May 2nd.

Since months had passed without any action, it's quite certain that this would not have happened at all until Council actually followed up.

If Councillor McDougall hadn't asked, none of them would have known.

If Mayor Clarke was actually forgetful or committed some other form of "oversight", this situation leads to a couple of reasonable questions:

1. Does the Mayor need to be micro-managed by Council to make sure that he's completing the tasks that are required of him by motions of the Council?

2. How much is Mayor Clarke's PC leadership campaign taking away from his ability to perform his duties as our mayor?

Several people have pointed out that his PC leadership campaign would interfere with his ability to continue as our mayor. 

The Council is too forgiving.

Councillor MacMullin, the originator of the motion for audit, wasn't impressed and noted her "anger" at discovering that the request wasn't sent.

But no council member actually asked the mayor if he felt like he was able to keep up with his mayoral duties. 

Councillor Paruch did request that the mayor champion the cause of Equalization in his PC leadership campaign across the province.

The mayor's response to that suggestion was no response. And that lack of response or commitment is likely a result of a fairly limited set of reasons. Mayor Clarke either:

1. Doesn't support more Equalization resources for the CBRM (just as he opposed it as an MLA in 2004) despite presiding over our decline, or
2. The mayor cannot commit to making it a part of his provincial PC leadership campaign because it would be a... conflict of interest.

At this point, at the very least, a strong CBRM Council would pass a motion to have the mayor take a leave of absence while he runs his campaign.

And if they were really strong they'd pass a motion of no confidence requesting his resignation from the role.

One of the worst performing municipalities in all of Canada cannot afford to have a Mayor who is more interested in another job, to the point where he's not fulfilling his responsibilities.

NOTE: The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more