I'm continually amazed that new councillors often don't have the slightest clue what's going on. You saw it during the campaign-- many candidates weren't aware of the controversial issues that were splashed across the newspapers every day, or even had passing knowledge of fundamental council governing documents, like the regional plan or the transit capital plan.
Every new job has a bit of learning curve, and you can't anticipate everything---the most difficult aspect of being a councillor would be building relationships inside City Hall, and there's not much you can do to prepare for that. Still, if someone wants to run for council, they should probably attend some meetings, read the agendas and documents produced by council and staff and so forth. With a couple of rare exceptions, I didn't see many of the candidates doing such.
Regardless the new council will be sworn in tomorrow, 6pm at Halifax West High School. I won't be there; I want to pay attention to something mildly interesting going on south of the border, but I wish the new councillors well.
