Editor's note:
Mayor Dave Augustyn brought forward a motion at last Thursday’s Regional Council meeting to curtail the use of tax dollars for promotion of regional business by individual councillors.
The Voice reached out to Augustyn, and to those councillors who had recently sent constituent communications, offering all parties an unfettered platform to state their case.
Mayor Augustyn declined the offer, citing a shortage of time.
Do elected officials have an obligation to communicate with their constituents?
That is fundamentally what the latest exaggeration at Niagara Regional Council is all about.
In line with the freshly approved "Councillor Expense Policy," and at minimal cost, we recently issued a series of one-page information circulars, newsletters or flyers informing residents of the great things that have been happening in Niagara Region over the past four years.
This spurred accusations that the three of us are somehow "lacking integrity,” “wasting taxpayers money,” and “engaging in blatant self-promotion and electioneering.”
These are all great tag-lines and labels in an election year, but there’s one problem: none of those claims seem to be coming from residents in any of our home municipalities. Quite the contrary, our constituents have been appreciative and have seen our newsletters as a good thing.
But why let real facts get in the way of a good story.
We believe that elected officials have a duty and obligation to communicate with their constituents about issues of the day (no different than what MPs, MPPs and Mayors do regularly) to explain how your money is being spent, the reasoning behind the different votes we cast, and impacts of policy changes.
And while there are different avenues we can all utilize, some with no cost associated, like social media or news releases or radio appearances, the reality is that for those 
of us representing some of the outlying local area municipalities, most of our older population doesn’t use social media, the consolidated newspapers do not highlight the representative Regional councillors, and radio relies on a live audience at a specific time in areas that have coverage.
Some communities like Fort Erie and Port Colborne lost one of their local community newspapers altogether, while Grimsby’s covers two other municipalities.
We believe the goal of all elected officials should be to try to communicate in the most efficient, effective, and reasonable way possible, and we must be open and transparent about the expenses incurred as part of those communication efforts.
In our case, all our expenses are published quarterly and every single one of our constituents can make their own determination as to whether we have been effective stewards of the public purse.
Keeping residents informed about the progress a council is making on important issues that are relevant to their community, is a fundamental principle of good government. It’s sad that some would characterize those efforts as “self-promotion” rather than what it really is—a dialogue with our residents.
Taxpayers have a right to transparency by knowing how their hard-earned dollars are being spent and who is doing the spending. It’s difficult to understand why certain councillors find that obligation offensive.
What we all find absurd and hypocritical is that we can do that in years one, two and three of our terms, but not in year four?
Funny how none of these “concerns” were raised at any other time during our collective terms. Notwithstanding similar spending has occurred at the Region for decades but those councillors doing it were okay.
We’ll take no lessons from the Mayor of Pelham on how to keep our residents in our home municipalities informed. He and those who wish to change Regional Council have very self-evident goals: Control the message—Don’t let anyone talk about the good things that have been accomplished this term of Regional Council; encourage policy that actually promotes residents be kept in the dark or allows facts to be manipulated; and make sure the message is controlled by only one or two media sources. That way the Mayor of Pelham has a path to victory when he, or one of his allies, seeks the Regional Chair.
His arrogance is astounding, that he would assume how best we should communicate with the residents of Fort Erie, Grimsby and Port Colborne—this, from someone who continually tells the Region to mind its own business, is beyond the pale and, quite frankly, ridiculous.
We’ll all continue to use every available platform at our disposal, whether it’s social media, radio, live-streaming, phone calls, flyers, newspaper ads or face-to-face conversations.
Residents in Fort Erie, Grimsby and Port Colborne have a right to know as much as possible by as many platforms as possible, and not just by the headlines one newspaper tries to continually spoon-feed them.
Sandy Annunziata Regional Councillor for Fort Erie
David Barrick Regional Councillor for Port Colborne
Tony Quirk Regional Councillor for Grimsby
