Letter: City leadership continues to spin its wheels

We are 16 months into a new municipal council, made up almost entirely of new representatives, all of whom ran on platforms of accountability and most importantly on change.

Sudburians had become fed up with the dysfunction of the previous council. But this far into this mandate, what change has this council actually brought?

We’ve seen some of the city’s most senior management leave. But that in itself isn’t necessarily the change voters were looking for. In fact, some of these departures were marred by controversy and finger-pointing. This would seem somewhat parallel to the dysfunction of the previous council.

And frankly, this council seems busy running in circles, revisiting the same old issues, engaging more consultation, and essen-tially moving very little forward toward that goal of change. We have a city being run without a permanent CAO.

We see many debates at the council table, but too many are repeats of debates we have witnessed far too much already.
And we’ve seen this council take from various segments of the community to meet campaign promises that were easier said than done.

It seems that voters may have sent a group of thinkers to the council table, rather than a group of doers.

Leadership is about making decisions, implementing them, and then proving their benefit with evidence afterwards.

Leadership is not about exhaustive consultations and recommendation reports. And while these are useful, they are sadly over used here in Greater Sudbury. There are as many reports and recommendations sitting on shelves collecting dust, as there are is-sues holding our city back.

Nothing is being resolved.

There are bigger fish to fry than spending money re-vamping the Tom Davies Square courtyard. I spit coffee when I read this was something that was being looked at. Especially after a summer of inadequate city landscaping — some communities had little if any attention to this.

And then we have the Maley drive extension debate, which has been going on for decades — decades.

Why is this still being debated, and consulted upon?

Good decisions and good leadership do not result in constantly revisiting the same things time and again.

Decision-making gets things done. It does not waste human resources and salaries engaging city staff in report writing and rec-ommendation making. If the plethora of reports and recommendations are not being acted upon, then clearly there is still a great deal of dysfunction at Tom Davies Square.

Chris NerpinSudbury