For What Did Francis Apologize

Whoop-dee-doo. Mark the date on your calendar.

The Mayor who never admits he ever did anything wrong admitted that he did. Sort of. He actually took the blame. Sort of.

His actions that he disclosed at Council and for which he apologized: he did not uphold the Procedural By-law properly and he did not stay "focused" on the issues.

My suspicion is, although he did not specifically say so, that the only Section of the Procedural By-law that concerns him is the one dealing with Council behaviour:

• "PART 14 – CONDUCT OF MEMBERS - BUSINESS OF COUNCIL
  14.1 Members of Council shall:
  
  b) not use indecent, offensive words or insulting expressions at any time toward other Members of Council, Civic Administration, delegations or members of the public
  
  d) speak only to the subject under debate."

In other words, he apologized only for being a lousy Chair, not anything more.

He did NOT apologize for

1. not having a "discussion" at Council with citizens re WUC as he had said he would
2. not allowing people registered to speak as delegations at Council an opportunity to do so
3. causing mass confusion with the ever-changing WUC story relating to "politics," levy diversion and the 1,000 customers including the Council whiteboard presentation
4. not allowing Councillor Halberstadt's Motion to take precedence as the Procedural By-law sets out
5. not leaving the Chair when he introduced his Motion as the Rules require
6. not withdrawing his Motion given the uncertainty around its validity
7. calling up the Auditor General and having a private conversation with him
8. not giving citizens an opportunity to discuss the Terms of Reference of any Ministry inquiry
9. allowing the Clerk to "rule" on Councillor Halberstadt's Motion and whether it was a "reconsideration" prior to hearing any arguments
10. for allowing the CAO to intervene in the Council debate and to be heard and not seen. Frankly, who cares what he has to say on the subject
11. for not leaving the Chambers at both Council sessions since, according to the City Solicitor,
    "Your Worship and members of council, if the issue is, as to a position of conflict that individual councillors who serve on either the Enwin or under the WUC boards, may or may not have, then my opinion, they should not be debating, they should not be moving, seconding or participating whatsoever in the discussion of the issue."
12. for trying to put the blame on Council when he was the WUC Chair by muddying the waters saying that Councillors were shareholders of WUC when he knows that is not the case.

Frankly, based on the above list, why should I accept the Mayor's apology since he did not apologize for anything significant.

Clearly he did not intend to do so. All he wanted was the word "apology" out there as we saw in the Star headline, "Mayor issues apology." I wonder if this was another Eminence Greasie idea designed to protect the Mayor.

Oh where is a City Councillor like the former Councillor Zuk. We need someone to say out loud, as she said to Mike Hurst

• "If you can't chair the meeting according to the rules then step aside for a councillor who will!"