Surviving Government: Surviving Government: Part Four - Political Integrity (ePub)

Surviving Government presents an understanding of Canadian local government for the individual citizen, and how each citizen can influence, modify, and survive the decisions, actions, and effects of government.

The work is in four volumes, each concentrating on one of four aspects of government: its powers, its functions, taxation, and political integrity.

Its purpose is to provide an overview of the impact of public service, and the difficulty, but not the impossibility, of progress in a political context, with illustrations, some technical and some biographical, of how meaningful progress can be achieved, and what value such progress has for citizens and their community.

The fourth book chiefly considers

• in part one, citizen engagement with democracy, population demographics inclusive of changes and inequities, community identity, the relationship between government and the private sector, characteristics of responsible journalism, and the accountabilities of the senior municipal administrator;
• in part two, citizen consultation and the interrelationship of heritage and community; and,
• in part three, the use and abuse and impact of political power, and the qualities of leadership.

The appendix in volume four follows in real time from the appendix in volume three to relate the professional and personal actualities experienced in my role as a municipal chief administrative officer.

Observations are presented on the nature of dynamics of people and especially of neighbours, politicians, and service providers. People can be very difficult, not to mention vexatious or malicious, even as they concurrently insist that the public servant understand every one of them immediately, and promptly remove their difficulties, no matter their origins. I also discuss the interaction between the provincial Legislature, and with sister municipalities. In summary form I conclude in outline what occurred in the second, third, and fourth years of my appointment, my resignation to take up a position on the west coast of the country, and my re-encounter with Richard Wagner.