Lest Londoners, who have been waiting patiently but hopefully for the dawn of a new era in the local political process, get too excited, one should remind council’s actions only dealt with terms and committees.

There will be no deputy mayor. He or she (actually it’s they since there will be three of them to serve in rotation) will be known, after Dec. 1, as the acting mayor. Which hardly matters. The important questions are how will they be selected and for how long? Will every member of council get a shot at the jobs or only an experienced or favoured few? Will ‘acting’ carry additional pay and, if so, how much? So far we don’t know.

As recommended by the Governance Task Force, the three new standing committees of city council will be: (1) The finance and administration committee, which will be chaired by the mayor and which, more or less, will handle work formerly conducted by board of control; (2) The built and natural environment committee, which will handle work formerly conducted by the planning committee and partially by the environment and transportation committee; and (3) The community and neighbourhoods committee, which will handle work formerly conducted by the community and protective services committee and partially by ETC.

We know that each council member must accept a committee posting and that each committee will have five members (currently they have six). But we don’t know how committee members will be selected (currently board of control solicits requests) and how long they will serve.

At the moment committee members are supposed to rotate; some, like Bernie MacDonald (Ward 3) seem to sit forever on CAPS which generally has a lighter workload. So will every councillor now rotate every year, or every second year? And how will that be enforced this time?

This is a critical question for two reasons: One, the Governance Task Force urged rotation to ensure everyone on council got exposed to all the issues council faces; and two, committees need continuity and context, which can only be ensured if some members remain the same each year.

The new city clerk, Catharine Saunders, indicated at the last council meeting other changes recommended by the Governance Task Force will soon be tabled. We hope so. It’s not just council that needs to kick the tires and slam the doors on this new model of civic democracy – it’s all of us.

After all, the primary recommendation of the task force was for a system of governance that was open and accountable to the citizens of this city. We haven’t seen much of this yet. And, personally, I’d say 14 months is a very long time to wait for a small crack of an opening in the doorway to open and accountable.

It’s now only seven months to the next election, after which this council will be the lamest of ducks and unable to make significant changes. The summer months, when council does little more than meet a couple of times, are just ahead. This is an issue which needs to be marked ‘Urgent’.