This week, HRM Regional Council will gather to review and finalize the 2016/17 budget, marking the end of one fiscal year and the slow march toward this fall’s general election. Come October you’ll be able to let the municipality’s 16 councillors and one mayor know how you really feel about their efforts, but who can wait that long?
The Coast wants your feedback right now. We’re once again opening up public voting for our 11th annual council report card so you can tell us how well council has performed these past 12 months.
What you judge the councillors on is entirely up to you. Voting records, political effectiveness, policy choices, community involvement, tweets—the choice is yours. Voting will close sometime in the next three weeks (we’ll let you know when). You can read last year’s report card here (previous years are to your right).
In the below table please offer a grade ranging from A+ to F for city hall’s 17 elected representatives (making sure to hit "submit" at the end).
As this is a rigorous, scientific undertaking, we kindly ask you to abide by a couple of ground rules. First, if you’re not familiar with a particular councillor’s presence in City Hall it’s better to leave that grade blank than throw off the average. Our past council coverage is located right here, in case you need a refresher. We’ve omitted newbie councillor Tony Mancini—who replaced now-federal MP Darren Fisher—from the list as he’s only been on the job a few weeks.
We also ask that you only vote once. An automated script repeatedly pumping out grades will spoil the fun and possibly make us scrap this whole endeavor. Last year we had doubts that the honour system would work, but you all proved yourselves a trustworthy bunch so we’re trying it again.
We’ll average out the public grade and print it alongside our own assessments in a few weeks.
