In politics, as is life, timing is everything. With that in mind the days leading up to Christmas might not be the best time for city councillors to talk about giving themselves a raise.

But that’s exactly what’s going on. Council is in the beginning stages of a process to review how much they are paid, including a look at their expense accounts.

Some extra coin in their pockets might warm their hearts, but it could leave taxpayers cold, especially if they take a serious look at what they are getting for money already paid out.

While it’s arguable the expense accounts are woefully inadequate, the same can’t be said for annual compensation of $28,623 plus a maximum expense account of $3,000, based on first-year performance results.

The mayor makes $86,000 a year, one third of which is tax-free, and has an expense account of up to $6,000. He says he’s well paid and any review shouldn’t include his salary.

Based on his record as mayor, this might be a wise course of action for him to take. He’d be hard pressed to come up with any kind of convincing argument that he deserves more money. Let’s hope the second year is a lot more promising than the first.

To be blunt, council has been leaderless since taking office a year ago. The blame for this rests squarely at the mayor’s door. His job-related judgment has been atrocious.

The OPP continues to investigate the mayor in regards to the ‘China trip’ in April, and this week Aspden avoided a full-blown Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services (OCCPS) investigation by admitting he was wrong to write a letter in support of a police office who had been found guilty of discreditable conduct.

The mayor wrote the letter shortly after being elected chair of the Barrie Police Services Board, itself a controversial move as a mayor normally doesn’t lead the board, although he/she does serve as a member. (See Aspden admits he did wrong, elsewhere on this site)

These situations are merely the most visible of the concerns about Aspden’s performance. His absence at key provincial meetings, such as the recent Large Urban Mayors Caucus of Ontario meeting at which the mayors of Ontario’s largest cities agreed to lobby Ottawa for more money, led council earlier in the year to develop a protocol for covering important sessions skipped by the mayor.

When asked why he hadn’t attended the LUMCO meeting, Aspden said he had other obligations but declined to elaborate. He should. Residents have a right to know why the mayor doesn’t attend such an important meeting.

The rest of council deserves credit for keeping the floundering ‘good ship Barrie’ from crashing into the rocks, but damage control seems a poor rationale for arguing for more money. Raises are usually merit based, outside of annual cost-of-living increases, and nothing this council has done in the past year supports a raise.

Most, if not all, of the major initiatives, including the return of the GO Train, downtown projects such as the parking garage, and efforts to curtail student partying in the east end, date back to previous councils.

This council did pass a budget with a tax hike of less than three per cent, but that was only accomplished by borrowing against reserves – a kind of stealing from tomorrow to pay for today approach. You may recall the mayor voted against his own budget.

To be fair councillors have likely been overwhelmed trying to steer a ship without a captain. It has forced them to be narrowly focused in planning horizons – not a lot of time for visionary thinking when you’re just trying to make it through the day.

But that’s hardly a ringing endorsement for a merit-based raise.

For more on this go to www.simcoe.com and access Laurie Watt’s municipal affairs blog.