Article Written by Sandy Levin

Reviews are often useful. They can generate new ideas, particularly when there is broad participation in the process.

The previous City Council asked city staff to review the city’s advisory committees. The final recommendation from city staff will likely come by the end of this year as the current term of appointment to the City’s advisory committees ends June 2021. Meanwhile, only the London Advisory Heritage and the Accessibility Advisory Committee have been reactivated since mid-March.

Reviews are most useful when the goals and process behind them are apparent. One approach is to ask what is working well and what is not working well, in order to figure out the problem or problems you are trying to solve through the review. However, the city has not clearly communicated to the public or to advisory committee members why this review is underway and what criteria or methodology they will use to assess committees.

Maybe the issue, as was reported recently, is that Council would like to get wider input on issues through surveys or other outreach methods as opposed to through advisory committees. At least one member of Council has expressed this point of view, referencing a recent staff report to a Council committee and that committee’s action.

Getting wider input is also useful. The City already has a site to gather the opinions and input of Londoners. It is called Get Involved London (https://getinvolved.london.ca). Perhaps this has not been a useful site either because it is not well used, not well publicized, or another reason. While this site does allow for public input, a downside of this site is that it does not provide a random sample of opinions reflective of the make-up of London’s population. Even with a representative sample, an issue with surveys on complex topics is that it is difficult to give people enough information to make a thoughtful comment.

I would suggest that getting wider input and having advisory committees with content experts are two different things.

No one is well-rounded enough to be fully informed, trained or educated on all topics. Hence the value in having content experts on advisory committees to provide advice to the city, for free. I have served on a number of advisory committees. Between 2003 and 2006, I served on the Transportation Advisory Committee with three engineers, all from firms the city hired (and still hires) to do consulting studies on roads and traffic studies. I currently serve as chair of the Environmental and Ecological Planning Advisory Committee (EEPAC). (As an aside, I encourage people with content knowledge to apply - whether you’re a graduate student or a professor from Western University, a professional engineer who can knowledgeably comment on Environmental Impact Studies, or someone else who knows about ecological planning) . Our comments are provided to staff to assist in reviews of development applications, road widenings, stormwater management facilities and more with the intent that environmental impacts are avoided and where avoidance is not possible, restoration plans and monitoring are meaningful. I have yet to be told this input is not useful.

Have there been discussions with other committee chairs about the work of their committees?

Have Councillors had these conversations?

How many advisory committee meetings have Councillors attended?

Currently, these questions and many more about the intent and methodology of the review are unclear.

A review can be useful. If the goal is to improve what the advisory committees do, (a valid objective), wouldn’t it help to talk to the committee members or even the committee chairs?

Sandy Levin, a former Urban League president, is a current member and chair of EEPAC. He previously served on the City’s Transportation Advisory Committee and the Development Charges Monitoring Committee. He served on City Council from 1997-2003, the Library Board from 1997-2000 and the London Transit Commission from 1997-2006. He has been a Council appointed member of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority Board since 2014.

Editors note:

Recently we released a statement about our concerns with the current review of the City of London Advisory Committees (ACs.). Advisory Committees are an important component of citizen engagement that provides valuable ways for residents to engage with the City of London and bolster transparency and accountability to City and Council decisions.

We hope you enjoy this series, but more importantly, we hope it inspires action from you in a couple of ways:

Email all your City Councillors and the Mayor in support of Advisory Committees and the valuable work they do. Copy us at info@urbanleague.ca
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Environmental and Ecological Planning Advisory Committee Experience