The webmaster requested, by submitting an FOI Request (Freedom of Information), and paying the $5 application fee, a copy of the proposal submitted by Linton Consulting. They won the contract for $46,104.

Attached below is pg 2, “2.0 Approach & Methodology”

You will note the area I have hi-lighted in yellow. I will retype it here, large enough to read:

“Meaningful Community Engagement. It is important that the community has a meaningful opportunity to be involved in the strategic planning process. Resident and stakeholder input both informs and legitimizes strategic priorities and actions. The final Strategic Action Plan will have a significant “What We Heard from You” section that synthesizes key themes from this community engagement effort.”

“informs and legitimizes strategic priorities and actions“ There are two significant points being made here. 1) The input from “residents” and “stakeholders” INFORMS the process. This assumes that the input is the information that serves as the content of the strategic plan. One might hope that Linton means that it is the “residents” who are the source of content, goals, actions, concerns, that will be outlined within the strategic plan.

Of interest, and worthy of follow-up clarification with Linton, is, “What is the disctinction between residents and stakeholders? How are they different? Residents are the people who live in Wilmot, the citizens, but who or what are the “stakeholders”? This can’t be a redundancy, meaning the same people (citizens) but using two words to describe them. Linton is an experienced consultant and thus there must be a reason for the distinction. A reader must assume that there are two different groups being referred to: citizens, and some other unknown group – who are the others?  Without clarification, that distinction is critical to clarify.

Linton states that input “legitimizes” the process. In other words, if there is input from residents and stakeholders, the resulting plan, written by Linton, must be valid, worthy, without dispute.

However, the RFP describing what the CAO’s Office wants, the word citizens is not used – only the unknown “stakeholders” are mentioned, and these “external stakeholders” are listed last, and thus potentially of least importance to the data collected.

“The Township of Wilmot is seeking the services of a strategic planning and engagement expert and facilitator to work with the Wilmot Corporate Leadership Team, Township Council and internal and external stakeholders.”

There is no such body as the Wilmot Corporate Leadership Team. There is the Council, which per the OMA is the CEO (Mayor) plus the Executive Board (Councillors). The CAO’s office is describing itself as the corporate leadership team, when it is really part of the “administration team of Directors”, accountable to the Council. In any case, the RFP places the senior group of administrators as the prior group to be consulted, the Council is secondary, then come internal stakeholders which one might conclude is the rest of the staff at Castle Kilbride, with the unknown external stakeholders coming last in sequence. Words have subtle ways of conveying meaning and probable intent.

The yellow hi-lighted selection above has all the appearances of an efficient and effective process – if all actions described are conducted in a transparent, fulsome manner – fulsome being the foundational criteria for an “informed” and “legitimate” process.

You may have noted that the only opportunity for individual citizens to contribute is on a carefully structured questionnaire using questions provided by the consultant and with restricted opportunities for individual concerns to be expressed. If you close the questionnaire, and tehn think of something you want to add or change, you can’t get back into it – you’ve had your one chance, no opportunities to think further and add or amend the original. It makes sense to prevent people from completing more than one questionnaire, but to prevent amendment to the original is to cut off communication, “You’re now talking to the hand!”

The webmaster contacted kelly Linton and requested an hour of his time to describe my concerns and suggestions for amending the existing strategic plan. I’ve repeated his email July 25, 2024 response to my request below, but here it is:

• “Hi Barry. I am on vacation for the next two weeks.
  Since you have FOIed my proposal, you’ll know that my methodology included 1 on 1 and group sessions with management and members of council, an online community questionnaire, a staff questionnaire, and community focus group sessions.
  If you want to send me anything, feel free.” [Note: I don’t just “mail-it-in” as my standard for completing a task. Professionals who do that get fired!]

It is apparent that his methodology did not permit individuals to provide detailed input. His company was in the process of conducting several strategic plans for several corporations simultaneously, and a carefully controlled process of input, eliminating detailed individual submissions, was his methodology. It is understandable in the context of the original RFP from the CAO’s office. That was what was requested – “external stakeholders” come in last.

This is a failure in this consultation process.