I have written several stories about the recent ward changes approved by Windsor City Council. Just a quick recap for my readers: Windsor has gone from 5 wards with 2 council members each, to 10 wards with 1 council member per ward. In this change, the number of elected officials stayed the same and Council designed most of the wards to be similar in size. The ward system had not been changed for over 30 years, and due to population growth and shifting neighbourhoods, some of the wards were quite large.
Council last week started to reduce the size of its executive management; the number has gone from 5 to 3. This is a big change! Some Council members have also indicated that the size of government for Windsor is too large and not sustainable due to slow population growth and the fundamental change that has taken place in Windsor's economy.
But when it came to their own members, Council made sure that 10 equals 10. At the time, my recommendation was 6 council members plus the mayor. The reporting by the Windsor Star on this issue was half-hearted at best. Where was super snoop Dave Battegello when we needed him? He seems to be able to do a lot of important research when it interests him. Just look at his terrific and skilled reporting regarding the recent departure of Windsor CAO John Skorobohacz. As an important side note, Skorobohacz is one of the most capable public servants I have ever worked with and that includes my time as an Ontario cabinet minister, where I worked directly with 3 Deputy Ministers in various portfolios.
Back to the size of council. I wrote about Edmonton, which has a population of almost 800,000. They have 12 council members. I would like to add another comparison a little closer to Windsor and very similar in size. Let's look at Kitchener with a population of 205,000. Guess how many council members there are in Kitchener? Indeed: 6 plus the mayor. They had no trouble dividing Kitchener into 6 wards. The city seems to be well run.
This information was too difficult for the Windsor Star to find. And I don't remember it being talked about at Windsor City Council during the "great ward debate".
