One city councillor took to social media to voice his concern over the state of London’s many city committees.
In a tweet Wednesday morning, Coun. Phil Squire wrote, “Over 2 years ago I was appointed to a committee at city hall that has never met.”
“Frankly, it shows you that sometimes we form committees and we have no idea what they’re going to accomplish. But we do know we’re going to sit around and chat,” Squire told Global News Radio 980 CFPL.
“I don’t want to go to a meeting where we’re just chatting,” he said.
“I want to go to a meeting that’s concise, that has actions points, that gets things done, that moves things onto council.
“I think we’re getting to the point now where that’s not happening,” Squire said.
In his tweet, Squire called city hall “committee crazy” and called for some re-evaluations.
“We really need to take a look and say, ‘What committees do we absolutely need? What are their jobs going to be? How are they going to get work done?’ And let’s see what we can do,” Squire said.
“It’s almost comical for me sometimes at city hall to go to meetings when I know that we’re not going to accomplish anything.”
Squire suggested possibly combining committees that are similar in nature, such as the city’s multiple transportation committees.
“Let’s just put those people all together. Let’s put a bit of an onus on them to come up with ideas that they can move forward,” he said.
“But I’ll be honest with you, right now, if someone has an idea that they want to move forward at city hall, I would never tell them to take it to a committee,” Squire said.
“It will probably die there.”
Squire said committees often waste valuable time for councillors and are rarely used for their intended design — to provide answers to key city issues that city council can then vote on.
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