The problem with the Utilities Review Board’s solution to the problem of municipal council is that its solution won’t solve the problem.

The URB decided the 23 current Halifax Regional Municipality councillors should morph into 16 after the 2012 election.

Why 16? The URB “attributes significant weight to the polling results, which express the public’s overwhelming desire to have a much smaller council.”

Huh? And was this “overwhelming desire” based on a thoughtful assessment of how many elected officials are actually required to run our sprawling urban-rural agglomeration of cities, towns, villages, farmland, rock and lake, sea and brush?

Our current knee-jerk, less-is-better fixation assumes our elected representatives don’t do much. Hence the overwhelming desire.

Having covered municipal council before amalgamation, cellphones and Frank complicated the job, my sense is that even the laziest councillor works much harder than most of us.

How’d you like to be called in the middle of the night because somebody else’s neighbours were having a party? Or a constituent got a ticket for parking outside their house in a snow storm?

Or …

While 16 may indeed be the right number of councillors, anyone who thinks a smaller council will be less dysfunctional is … dysfunctional if not delusional.

Our “council problem” is not numbers, but quality.

How do we ensure that more, better candidates seek public office?

Perhaps it’s time for the city – or non-partisan group – to set up a wannabe-city-councillors’ school.
Interested in serving your city?

Come out and learn how your city works.

Get briefed on issues and options.

Maybe it’s time our political parties became more involved in municipal politics – not necessarily to run slates of candidates but to encourage their own young best and brightest to test themselves municipally before running for the big(ger) show.

Current local MLAs Howard Epstein and Andrew Younger, for example, are both municipal council grads.

And it’s past time to begin encouraging candidates we think will be better than the incumbent-Mike Savage? Howard Epstein?-to consider running for mayor.

And then ask them what they’d do if we elected them.

In the end the problem with our council is not size, or “them.” It’s us.