Learning from mistakes: Week One

Jane Jacobs

In a rambling, passionate address Jane Jacobs gave in 2005, she said: “if people could just look at their mistakes, and be honest about them, and learn from them, what a lot we could get done.”

So that's the theme of my blog for some weeks to come.

First off: the April 30 meeting was about a hundred times better than I expected. Congratulations to Councillor Bravo and her team for choreographing that gathering so nicely. Sean Conway, the facilitator they hired, was evidently not only a brave man but also a capable one. Lots of park friends came, and a great many things were said.

One theme that was often repeated: dismantle the barrier between parks & rec staff and everybody else. Open up!

Another one: bring back all the former programs.
A partial list of recommendations at the meeting is here. (Additions welcome, send what I missed to mail@celos.ca and I'll post them too.)

Back to learning from mistakes.

I’ll lead off: Mistake #1, by me. On March 24, I wrote in this blog: The councillor can talk to me, and to the direct managers of Dufferin Grove programming. And she can follow up those conversations by offering guidance to city staff – from the people they work for (citizens).

It turns out I was wrong.

When the Integrity Commissioner tells Councillor Bravo that she can't talk to me -- about the issue of a rink guard claiming that I had assaulted him at his workplace -- the legal position goes sort of like this: a Municipal Council operates essentially as a Board of Directors and takes no role in operations. To use a navigational metaphor, they chart the course for the boat, but do not steer or row and take steps to avoid any perception that they row or steer and/or that they are interfering in any way with the actual rowing or steering.

Which is why it's better for us park friends to talk to one another, and then let the "board of directors" know that they're going off course. And that's what the councillor and the Parks and Rec directors were told, in spades, at the April 30 meeting.

Mistake #2, by recreation management. They had no idea, as it now appears, that for the past 9 months (at least) an expanding group of frontline Dufferin Grove staff were not working anywhere near the city's work standards. They also had no idea that during this winter, some staff may have been involved in criminal activities while at "work." This meant that the rink guard's story that I had assaulted him was taken as truth, or at least as only a "he said/she said", resulting in me being banned from the park building for over two months.

Eventually the lies unravelled. At the April 30 meeting, tales of bad experiences with the rink staff came from so many of the participants. An investigation into possible criminal activities may now begin.

Mistake #3, by recreation management. In 2010 management labelled what has been called the "improvised and continuously renegotiated cooperation between citizens and staff that allowed Dufferin Grove to flourish for about 15 years" -- as a conflict of interest by staff, to be eliminated. In the years that followed, rec management put up so many barriers to good work that they gradually lost the good staff. That's why the rec managers' reassurances -- that the good programs would resume after their "Northwest Corner Revitalization" was done -- can't be carried out. Under the current system of staffing, there can be no return to what worked so well before.

At the April 30 meeting, Dave Hains was introduced as the new recreation supervisor. Dave says he doesn't want to dwell on what happened at the park until now. But he needs to do just the opposite -- to take Jane Jacobs' advice and "look at [city staff's] mistakes, and be honest about them, and learn from them."

More about that in next week's blog.