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A London city council effort to push city-funded agencies to not use taxpayer money for budget pitches has fallen flat.
In a 10-5 vote on Tuesday evening, city politicians sitting as the strategic priorities and policy committee endorsed denying the push stemming from the controversy of the London police board spending $104,000 to help sell the public on its record four-year, $672-million budget ask.
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“This is really a motion that maybe feels good, maybe has some virtue-signalling to it from my perspective, but actually doesn’t accomplish anything,” said deputy mayor Shawn Lewis.
Councillors Anna Hopkins, Sam Trosow, Corrine Rahman, Skylar Franke, and Hadleigh McAlister voted for the request, while everyone else, including council’s police board members, voted against.
The police board paid Navigator, a Toronto-based crisis communications firm, $104,662 between Jan. 4 and May 15 to help craft its communication plan and provide material for the board’s proposed four-year police budget, documents obtained by The Free Press through a freedom-of-information request show.
Franke and Rahman wrote a letter asking their council colleagues to prohibit city-funded boards, commissions and agencies from using taxpayer money for lobbying efforts. However, they acknowledged that they don’t have the legal ability to mandate it.
“My understanding is that it’s not prohibited, but that being said, people had concerns that now other agencies, boards, and commissions would engage in the same kind of behaviour,” Franke said.
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Added Rahman: “In some ways it wouldn’t have even mattered the amount, because residents are really concerned with how we’re spending every dollar right now.”
Politicians, including those sitting on the police board, were quick to push back. Some argued that they are lobbied constantly, and that it’s standard for communications firms to be hired for certain initiatives, including by city hall.
Coun. Steve Lehman, one of council’s police board appointees, said communications is an important part of any governance structure, and that council wasn’t “tricked” into supporting the police budget.
“Be careful what you wish for here folks, we can’t do everything ourselves, neither can all the boards,” he said. “Outside agencies are important, and so is advocacy.”
Several politicians pointed to other lobbying efforts from the city’s agencies, boards and commissions, including the bus advertising and social media campaign from the London Transit Commission for more funding.
Mayor Josh Morgan, another police board representative, said he wants engagement from outside bodies during the budget process in whatever form that takes.
“We get lobbied every day on everything,” he said. “I actually want to know what people are thinking leading into a budget process, and I have no problem with them using their networks.”
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