Last week saw Halifax Regional Council assemble amid snowstorm and sickness to hash out municipal matters. It seemed like every second councillor had some sort of flu, with mayor Mike Savage in particular barely able to speak. So no judgments on anyone’s dedication as we present HRM council’s attendance records for 2014.
It’s Brad Johns at the top of the list with the most missed meetings last year. The Middle/Upper Sackville-Beaver Bank-Lucasville councillor didn’t attend 25 assemblies in total, missing six Regional Council meetings spread out over five different months. Johns also missed six appeals standing committees throughout 2014, and five meetings of the executive standing committee.
At 18, Linda Mosher has the second-highest amount of meetings missed, but virtually all of those came from the Halifax West Armdale councillor’s medical leave as she recovered from surgery. Otherwise, she missed audit and finance committee meetings on May 21, June 5 and October 15. The June special meeting was only six minutes long, and Mosher was present for the joint special meeting with community planning and economic development that happened immediately afterward. One could argue that’s late, not absent, but the councillor did miss out on a vote to recommend an increase of $313,057 in the marketing levy special events reserve, so we’ll count it.
Tim Outhit attended all Regional Council and committee of the whole meetings, but somehow missed out on 13 standing committee agendas. He was on the audit and finance and community planning and economic development committees, and is still a member of the transportation standing committee.
Reg Rankin missed a total of 14 meetings, nearly all of which were during his two-month paid leave after being arrested in March for impaired driving.
Highest attendance went to Russell Walker, with only one standing committee session missed. Mayor Mike Savage also only had one absence (a committee of the whole meeting) in all of 2014, but Walker had more meetings to attend because of community council.
During the last calendar year there were 58 standing committee, 45 community council, 19 committee of the whole and 24 council meetings.
| Councillors | Regional Council | Committee of the Whole | Community councils | Standing comm. | Total | ||||||||
| Brad Johns | 6 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 25 | ||||||||
| Linda Mosher | 5 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 18 | ||||||||
| Tim Outhit | 0 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 15 | ||||||||
| Reg Rankin | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 14 | ||||||||
| Bill Karsten | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 13 | ||||||||
| Darren Fisher | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 10 | ||||||||
| Barry Dalrymple | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 8 | ||||||||
| Gloria McCluskey | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 8 | ||||||||
| Lorelei Nicoll | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 5 | ||||||||
| David Hendsbee | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||
| Jennifer Watts | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| Matt Whitman | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||
| Stephen Adams | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Steve Craig | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Waye Mason | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
| Russell Walker | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Mike Savage | 0 | 1 | N/A | 0 | 1 |
Regional Council and committee of the whole attendance.
Standing committee attendance.
Related Stories
Welcome to the 2014 City Council Report Card
Let’s take a look at Halifax council’s expenses
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2015.
Please note this sub-heading is misleading. For clarification purposes, with the exception of meetings I missed due to surgery, in the past year I missed one Regional Council meeting, one Committee of the Whole, one Community Council, and two sub-committee meetings for a total of 5. Also, not sure where you received the attachments but they are inaccurate, they were preliminary+I request you post final. Second, you posted a link to my back surgery in 2010, this is not accurate, the year was 2014 and it was an entirely different surgery. Thanks Linda
Hi Linda,
I clarified things a bit more in the paragraph about you, based on your concerns. I’m counting the June 5 special audit and finance meeting. That may be a technicality, but as far as I can tell it counts. If you were present and voted but it wasn’t recorded in the minutes, please let me know. I have no reason to think these forms were inaccurate, but if I receive further information I’ll update things accordingly.
Sorry about the bad link. It’s been switched to a Herald article about the correct surgery.
-Jacob
Thanks. As per the minutes, I was present for June 5th meeting. Interesting how you are now manipulating the facts! Re: cte mtgs, Jan 17th I was in hospital prep for surgery, Oct 15th was not supposed to be scheduled as Halifax held a graffiti+crime prevention conference (with international speakers @ no charge to taxpayers) which I was in charge of+had to MC.
Seriously, I take offense that you are using the fact that I had surgery for a serious medical condition to make your headlines.
Hi Linda,Â
As I wrote, virtually all of your absences are related to your surgery and recuperating from it. You were certainly justified in taking that time off, but it would be inaccurate to not include those dates in the year’s totals. I assume every councillor had valid reasons for missing any meetings last year. But this is a list counting absences, and that’s all it is.Â
If you were at the June 5th meeting, the record needs to be corrected. Can you take it up with whoever’s inaccurately typing up the standing committee minutes, and then let me know when the change has been made? I’ll be happy to correct the numbers in my story, and explain that there’s been a correction, but I can only go by the official documents the city publishes.
Best,
Jacob, as much as I dislike Ms. Mosher (based on her idea to have the City handle the snow, and only for that reason), you are indeed being unfair in comparing her to the others, given her situation. If this were an employment situation, you could discipline Mr. Johns for poor attendance but to discipline Ms. Mosher for the same would be illegal. Think of it that way…
Actually, Meaty, given that she (according to the city’s data) missed the second-highest amount of time and that virtually all of that was related to recovering from surgery it was our view that it would be utterly unfair to Linda not to mention her medical leave. We also mentioned Reg Rankin’s for the same reasons.
Those were the only two leaves of absences noted on HRM’s attendance documents. I know Gloria McCluskey missed some time in the summer from foot surgery, but I don’t know if she officially received a leave of absence. It’s been my experience that councillors take their jobs seriously, and would only miss a council or committee meeting for important reasons. This data doesn’t list who had good reasons or not to be absent. It’s simply who was, and wasn’t present.
It does render the information pretty much useless from anything beyond a cursory ‘who attended what and how often’ point. Unless you have access to every councilors information and footnote the info for all to see I don’t see how this data is relevant in any way.
I truly hate all the fluff ultra-liberal BS the coast prints weekly. However, they’re second to none in taking city council to task and I fully respect Mr. Boons journalistic integrity in this case. I’m sure Ms. Mosher has valid reasons for not being present due to surgery but missing that much time, regardless of the reason, makes me question whether or not she is fit for the job she’s accepted. As someone who has experience managing staff, there’s ALWAYS a reason to not show up for work. Some valid, some total bullshit. I’m in no position to pass judgement on which category Linda Mosher falls under, but in my experience, generally, the higher the rate of absenteeism the less likely its justification is valid. Sorry but when you’re an elected city official your actions and inactions are subject to public scrutiny, that’s the only way a democracy would work, and you have a responsibility to adequately represent your constituents.