Last month I had the dubious pleasure of attending a meeting between Mission City Council and the Mission Heritage Association to discuss the new Heritage Park governance structure.
We got off to a bad start. Council originally would not agree to an open meeting that citizens could attend and the MHA had already made it clear that it would not participate in a closed meeting.
Shortly before the meeting was called to order City Council decided that we could attend an open meeting.
Mayor Hawes opened the session with a long diatribe, which left no room for questions, debate or clarification. Mr. Hawes went through his catalogue of items he did not like and ended his judgments on what he found particularly offensive with a bellowing phrase, “bad decision” directed at Mr. Antonson, MHA president.
Well, let’s look at some of your recent decisions, Mr. Hawes.
I understand that 19 days after you were sworn in you delivered notices of termination and started to make major changes to park management – bad decision.
Take time to think things through.
Did you consult the many stakeholders? MHA Board members, MHA staff groups, parking attendants, gardeners, Rotary, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Knights of Columbus, park users to name just a few. If you did not consult these groups, bad decision.
Did you consider the negative impact on the various individuals who received termination notices without warning or discussion? If not, bad decision.
Recently, our local newspaper held a poll to see if the community would prefer to have the park managed by city council, or by the MHA. The results indicated that 82 per cent of respondents preferred our present system. To ignore the results of the poll was a bad decision.
Bill McAuley
MHA Past President