While there is no official statement on this matter, an email
written by Hogarth indicated that she enjoyed working for "some"
of the people at City Hall. That is quite a revealing comment
for a Chief of Staff.
As we proceed towards the municipal election on October 27,
2014, some difficult questions are going to be asked about
budget and how our tax dollars are being spent. For example, the
Chief of Staff, Hogarth, and the Mayor's communication officer,
Mike Whitehouse, took turns driving the mayor to her various
commitments. While we all know that the Mayor's job is very
demanding, the time may have come for the next Mayor to consider
driving him/herself to his/her own appointments and perhaps
doing his/her own communications.
This is not just something that needs to be looked at in the
Mayor's office. With staffing costs taking up a huge amount of
the annual budget, we may have to examine if there is truly a
need for so many people to do run the City. We do not want to
chop jobs because people working for the City contribute to our
economy and are also ratepayers, more efficiency may result in
our tax dollars accomplishing much more than they are now.
The big question is do we have a lot of people working at
City Hall right now who do not contribute anything of
significance to the running of the City. Do some staff have too
much time to fulfil their responsibilities? Moreover, are
Councillors and senior administrators forcing City Staff to run
around like chickens with their heads cut off doing meaningless
tasks and reports that could be done with fewer people and in
less time?
All of these things need to be considered in light of the
public announcement of 8 people quitting just one small
department, the Mayor's Office, in less than four years.
