Elections
How important is it for Council to work with specific goals and targets for each City Department at the beginning of each year? How would you ensure this happened?
Responses to the question: "How important is it for Council to work with specific goals and targets for each City Department at the beginning of each year? How would you ensure this happened?"
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13 Candidate Responses (top)
| Ward 07 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Brief Response | Full Response |
| Bradshaw, Philip | Yes | There should be no question. Of course it is important. I do not believe it is farfetched to hope that each department meet with Council and bring forth their views and their plans for the year at hand and have a discussion with members of Council, in order to implement the ideas that will work. This starts with community engagement.
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| Farraway, Doug | Yes | Council needs to make it clear to its senior management that the business of Hamilton needs to be conducted like a business. I have worked for massive corporations (Rogers) and for a non-profit (Neighbour to Neighbour) and the same rules for conducting business have applied in both situations. Performance reviews are predicated on manager and employee discussions that set reasonable goals and targets to achieve by years end with quarterly updates on progress. We know that severe weather events could impact on targets especially in Public Works, but that doesn’t mean that these conversations shouldn’t take place. From the top down the bureaucracy needs to understand that they serve the taxpayers of Hamilton. |
| Gordon, Tim | Yes | It is essential that our council sets specific goals that are measurable, outcome-focused, and time-bound. These goals need to be written actively to address the many efforts that are required of City Departments independently and collaboratively. I have a lot of experience working on varying boards of directors. My experience is that creating active goals in this way is to the benefit of everyone involved. I will use my experience and influence to encourage working relationships in this way, creating a balanced effort to address important goals. |
| McMullen, Geraldine | Yes | It is important for any organization to have a strategic action plan with goals to serve as the basis for day to day work and City Council is no different. First you must establish the criteria by which progress is measured. City Staff must be tasked with quarterly reports to Council.
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| Nicholl, Anthony | Yes | It is extremely important for council to collaborate with the City departments to strategically develop clearly defined goals and objectives. By doing so at the beginning of the fiscal year and developing a sound budget with the goals and objectives in mind, the collaboration would ensure improved services and programs for our community. |
| Pacey, Jeanne | Yes | Establishing goals and targets for the city, and all its departments are crucial. City Hall has a responsibility to ensure each department is reporting and updating their status on a regular basis. Department reports should be presented, reviewed and approved by City Hall. |
| Qureshi, Uzma | Yes | I have always embraced goals and targets. I know our staff want to do a great job. Objectives are not created to catch people doing something wrong. They should, and must, be aspirational. They become our contract with ourselves and with our residents. So yes, I will work with my Council colleagues and with the City Manager to ensure that we establish clear objectives for what we plan on achieving in the coming year. |
| Rabb, Howard | Yes | I come from the private sector. Everything you do requires goals and targets. Whether it's a sales target, a goal of how much you want to grow your advertising by, or a target for how many customer support issues you want to resolve. Perhaps you want to lower wait and hold times. All of these require goals and targets.
The goals and targets tell you if you are actually making any progress. In my own experience I had years where I exceeded my targets, and years where I didn't. By looking at these outcomes and analyzing what happened, you can start to see why they happened. You can then course correct, and set a new target for the next year. If you don't do this however, you never have any sense for how you are doing. Are you getting better? Worse, staying the same? Are you losing ground to a competitor? This data is the lifeblood of a business, and it should be the lifeblood of our city government. |
| Skelly, Donna | Yes | Hamilton council has trust in its city manager to make positive changes for the city. Working with him, identifying concerns such as the unnecessary red tape facing businesses as pointed out earlier, is one way to move projects forward while respecting professionals within the city workforce.
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| Starr, Damin | Yes | I believe goals and targets are essential to establish and meet expectations. I would recommend a unique committee to monitor, measure, and report regularly on Council directives to City Departments including accountability of senior management to meet expectations. |
| Vecchioni, Louis | Yes | Specific goals and targets are important to be able to be successful in government or any endeavor. Use specific programs, run by an appointed city hall personnel, qualified in statistic control. The new city Charter, developed by the Hamilton Engaged Committee, would give city counsel ( if approved ) an excellent template to guide Council in making decisions. |
| Young, Robert | Yes | It is very important and requires delegation. Break down the current committees to focus and target polarized sectors such as:
1) Property taxes. 2) Infrastructure. 3) Parks. 4) Accessibility to bus stops. 5) Bus routes to cover more area on the mountain. 6) Housing and long term care of the seniors. 7) Overspending of tax and other revenues. |
| Zuriel, Hans | Yes | It is very important that Council have very specific goals and targets for all City Departments at the beginning of each year. It takes tremendous political will to ensure that all staff working at City Hall fulfill their social contract with the residents who employ them.
I will work with communities to establish service level agreements between city and residents. To ensure that the specific goals and target for each City Department are met, I would advocate for monthly reports on service level agreements. To address any service levels not being met, action plans will be employed, i.e. remediation plans. |
Response Summary (top)
| Brief Response | Count | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 13 | 100.0% |
| No | 0 | 0.0% |
| Maybe | 0 | 0.0% |
9 Candidates Have Not Responded (top)
| Ward 07 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Bolton, Robert | ||
| Burt, Shaun | ||
| Charters, Bob | ||
| Danko, John-Paul | ||
| Heroux, Chelsey | ||
| Hetu, Luc | ||
| Murphy, Glenn | ||
| Nagy, Paul | ||
| Shahrouri, Mohammad | ||
