City Hall’s Track Record Is Abysmal: BENN

09/13/2025

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Another week of politics as usual down at city hall. Not so good.

Sometime during late August, city manager Wendy Stephanson advised council that she was calling all staff back to the office five days a week effective the beginning of January 2026. When asked about this, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe indicated this was within the authority of the city manager, not council. On the surface, this sounds straight forward. Council should stay in its lane.

Except that some councillors, most notable of which is Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper, objected. Leiper wants council to debate the topic. The same Leiper who voted in favour of delegating authority over the $100-million-plus reception centre for the asylum-eekers and refugees program. Why? Because he agreed with most of the rest of council that this was a political hot potato. They preferred to reserve the opportunity to point the finger of blame at staff.

The lack of proper oversight of staff has been an ongoing problem. It is not limited to the preference of council to delegate authority on hot topics. It includes not asking probing questions of staff at committee and council meetings.

Why hasn’t staff been asked to provide a detailed reconciliation of the material differences between the staff report on the financial prospects of Lansdowne 2.0 and those of Ernst & Young and the city auditor general.

Why hasn’t staff been asked to explain how it chose to award the Trillium Line extension contract to a proponent that failed the technical requirements twice?

Why hasn’t staff been asked to explain how the New Way to Bus has resulted in a profound drop in service levels.

All of these are legitimate areas for a council tasked with overseeing the decisions and performance of staff.

Instead, we are seeing another example of standard operating procedure for petty politicians. Avoid political hot potatoes when it is to their advantage. Embrace controversial issues only if it might embarrass an adversary. The adversary in this case being Sutcliffe. Why? Could it be, just possibly, because Leiper is probably running for mayor?

Hypocrisy is not a virtue, except for self-serving politicians. For them it is an art form.

Rather than starting with a long discussion that will quickly devolve into little more than pandering to a select but small self-interest group, why not ask the city manager some pointed questions?

Are there any key performance measures regarding the key reasons she cited for calling for a return to a five-day work from office?

Can she provide reports that present data from before the pandemic to post-pandemic. Say for the five years before 2020, to the five years after the pandemic-induced shift to work from home. Perhaps a little insight into the period that was not in the office to the hybrid work week. Any reports that compare the effectiveness of those who returned to a five days in the office to those who chose to stay with the hybrid work week?

Did productivity improve or regress? Objective data preferred.

Has the quality of mentoring less experienced staff better or worse? Objective data being a challenge.

More to the point. Has productivity of staff ever been measured? Has the quality of mentorship ever been measured? If not, why not?

Which brings us to the real problem. There is library full of examples that bring in to question the quality of the city’s senior management and that of council. This latest political tempest appears to be but another chapter.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.