All 14 provide an e-mail address - 11 are personal and 3 are City-of-Nelson staff-addresses (@nelson.ca), the latter used by currently serving council members, running to be re-elected.
The mayor and 2 other councillors - all 3 running again as well - use personal e-mail addresses. This is appropriate: seemingly to avoid the public perception that they are using their current office (and its resources) for the benefit of their re-election efforts.
The appropriateness I see in their decision leads me to look at: why - for election purposes - choose to either stay with the City-provided address or switch to a personal e-mail address.
The 3 councillors - directly using their current official e-mail addresses for said purposes - do not seem conflicted by having their current official construct-as-is overlap with a future personal construct-as-envisioned. Admittedly - this may be a grey area, but - to be prudent - the emphasis here ought to be on wanting to be elected: as in future-staff, not staff-now! The clincher - they may not get back in!
Use of these contact-addresses within the given scenario also could have a domino effect.
The City's e-mail system provides councillors with a programmed personalized ending to messages they send.
When using this official address - there is no difference between the ending of a directly council-related message sent by a now-councillor and a message dealing with non-council re-election issues by the same incumbent as wannabe-councillor.
Double-Use Ending:
Novembra Election
Councillor
City of Nelson
Ste 101 - 31 Ward Street, Nelson BC V1L 5S4
Phone: (250) 352 8263 Fax (250) 352 2131
E-mail: nelection@nelson.ca web: http://www.nelson.ca/
This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the information contained in this e-mail is prohibited.
Line-By-Line Look At The Above:
1. It seems inappropriate for the candidate - within this re-election context - to here call him/herself "councillor" so directly - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
2. It seems inappropriate for a candidate to make the City Hall postal address his/hers for personal use - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
3. In a re-election message the e-mail address should be a personal one - instead of that provided by the City of Nelson - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
4. In only 2 of the 3 incumbents' City-of-Nelson e-mail endings a personal phone number is given - regardless, all 3 list the City's phone- and fax-numbers. If Joe Elector were to mail, phone or fax candidates at the City's mailing address or numbers - he could only do so through the support of City personnel/equipment/material. This official support could be substantial (and costly!) - what with all of these re-election mail/phone/fax communications having to be received, redirected, printed, recorded, filed, and conceyed by City-staff, while a candidate addressed - a part-timer at City Hall - is on the re-run out there somewhere - or maybe having a nap at home! Surely a multi-level concern - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
Confidentiality Statement
This statement at the very end of a re-election communication in his/her City-provided e-mail-address construct may seem rather too James-Bondish, but it could raise a seriously real question - within this context - if the candidate has to make the password of the account available to a campaign worker. I mean - how's the worker to know whether a message received is - for instance - a reply to a reply to a reply of/to a Council hush-hush-message or the offer of a bake-sale fundraiser. Unless the message is opened.
And copying, disclosure or distribution of information contained in the e-mail is prohibited by whom? Context!
Also - surely significant here - the programmed ending in total of an e-mail message may look impressive to Joe Elector: it comes from established authority, from City Hall! And because generally superficial public perception in politics usually outweighs facts - re-run candidates could have a substantial edge because of that over first-time challengers!
A big PLUS here! As in: there is no rule/law in place, dealing with incumbents utilizing a city hall's manpower, equipment, material for his/her personal gain - which could be one interpretation of running for public office one more time.
The Ministry of Community, Sport(!!!) & Cultural Development - in charge of electioneering - says that There are very strict rules regarding the conduct of local government elections to ensure that they are fair, open and honest and promptly fails to address incumbents on the re-run, who know their way around the system much better than do first-timers and could conceivably use it to an advantage over them. Fairly, of course! Years of in-house exposure vs. an orientation meeting.
Nobody local is officially locked-in to say yes or no electionwise, because the BC government is calling the shots here (even by not calling them!) in the election-sport of running; a city hall has little say in what can/can't be done in its own local election, unless it is the reinforcement of a BC-dictated rule: like a basic advertising matter or a who-can-run-and-what-money-sort-of-thing. What follows - be still, my heart! - is that the lack of re-election-specific rules and the inability to make decisions locally then would - democracywise - also apply/be applied to first-timers. Except - who's to know!
Provided they all do know this - can't you just see incumbents and first-timers re-running and running their campaigns (and against each other!) totally at/from/through City Hall! With staff freely(!) available for hands-on stuff. Yes, yes, yes, of course this is hypothetical - but just because it hasn't happened before does not mean it can't happen ever! Theoretically and legally (simply because not made illegal!) doable! There is a real Canadian movie in all of this!
Apropos real Canadian movie: some time ago, on a CBC talk-fest the host said that Mitt Romney looks the way an American president would look in a Canadian movie. Great mirth all around!
Anyway!
Right now - under the given (or not given!) circumstances - it's a matter of personal responsibility acknowledged. Only! And as far as the e-mail-address issue goes: the mayor and 2 councillors - using off-City-Hall e-mail addresses in their re-election efforts - show some of that.
Although!
When sent there - these 2 councillors also respond from their City-originated e-mail address to election-specific concerns focused on them personally. Convenience superseding!
My concerns here may seem like splitting hairs to some - a tempest in a coffee-cup! But in Nelson - a small town aiming to become a big town - even proportionally small "City" things can/should be building-blocks. After all, if allowed - minor bad habits now will grow into major bad habits later. That's how the bad-habit-thing works!
Ethical wink-wink practices should not become socially acceptable just because there is no law against them.
Hesitant steps steadying into sustainable strides.
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