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WHEN AN ELECTED LEADER IS THE CHAMPION, THE COMMUNITY BENEFITS: “By being an informed and educated elected leader, you are going to get the best decisions. But if you don’t know the lessons from the past, you risk unintended consequences. That is why memory loss is now a big concern,” stated Darrell Mussatto, former mayor of North Vancouver City

 

Note to Reader:

Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. Storylines accommodate a range of reader attention spans. Read the headline and move on, or take the time to delve deeper – it is your choice!  Downloadable versions are available at Living Water Smart in British Columbia: The Series.

The edition published on October 1, 2024 features reflections by former North Vancouver City Mayor Darrell Mussatto. This is the third instalment in a series of reflections that preview the SYNOPSIS for the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in Metro Vancouver (1994-2024). The release date for the Synopsis is November 2024.

 

 

When an elected leader is THE CHAMPION,
the community benefits

Experience in the Metro Vancouver region over the past three decades illustrates WHY AND HOW a set of cascading factors must ALL be in alignment to move a region forward. At the top of the list is political leadership.

 

What it means to elect community leaders who are trusted and understand what matters

“Politicians know how to get elected. But do they know all that other stuff that they need to know? Once upon a time, you had well-respected community leaders who everybody trusted,” states Darrell Mussatto.

“In the old days, voters elected community leaders to municipal council because those people brought certain skillsets with them. Today, the people getting elected know how to use social media to get people to vote for them. But do they know and care about what matters in local government?”

Who is Darrell Mussatto? 

He is the past mayor of North Van City. And he was a long-time chair of the Metro Vancouver regional utilities committee – yes, the group responsible for oversight of the Lions Gate wastewater treatment plant.

 

Local government is much like a crucible

“To ask the tough questions, you must be informed and educated about what matters,” Darrell Mussatto repeatedly stresses when he reflects on how to look back to see ahead..

“To be a better, more effective decision maker,  you have to understand how things work so that your decisions are in context with other issues…not just because I think this is right…or because it is my opinion or I am emotional about it.”

Counteracting memory loss

“We need more people in elected office who are talented, have done well, are passionate, and want to give back to their community. And who want to take on some of the challenges that are outside their own life. We need more people like that.”

“There will not be memory loss from one generation of leaders to the next IF politicians are informed and educated, are not just about a single issue, and want to do better than their predecessors. Politicians have to be smarter about what matters in local government to make better decisions.”

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT FOR BUSY READER

“On September 17th 2024, we kicked off a new season of Waterbucket eNews with Solutions to complex problems require deep knowledge. Today is the second installment in a series that will also feature a city manager, a regional planner, a provincial expert in water for food security, and a cabinet minster,” stated Kim Stephens, Waterbucket eNews Editor and Partnership Executive Director.

 

 

“All are thought leaders in their fields of practice. All have wisdom to pass on to the current generation of elected and aspiring leaders.”

WHOLE-SYSTEM VIEW: Design with nature to create livable communities and protect stream health

“The series previews stories behind the story of the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in the Metro Vancouver Region from 1994 through 2024. The tag-line for the Chronicle is…create livable communities and protect stream health.”

 

 

Organizational amnesia is the elephant in the room

“In November, at the conclusion of this preview series, the Partnership will release the SYNOPSIS for the Chronicle legacy resource. The target audience is senior managers who have limited time to absorb what they need to know to make informed decisions. The Synopsis addresses the SO WHAT question.”

 

 

CALL TO ACTION: Accept the intergenerational baton and build on lived experience

“Three decades and counting! Being in the room when ideas were conceived and decisions made is a core part of my lived experience. For the past 21 months, my time and energy have gone into interviews and writing the Chronicle, with the goal of distilling the history to answer a 2-part question:

 

 

“The Chronicle is a 500-page tome. This sweeping narrative is heavy on images and light on text. At the end of the day, my task is to distil 500 pages down to digestible bits and ultimately a single page around which to tell a story. That page is the table described next.”

UNDERSTAND THE PAST: Chronicle looks at the period from 1994 thru 2024 as four segments

“The history of the past three decades is defined by four distinct eras, with the period of time for each varying between 6 and 9 years. This is illustrated as the Table of Cascading Factors. In the image below the table, a defining statement characterizes each era.”

 

 

Cascading factors for success must ALL be in alignment 

“Being successful requires an appreciation for the factors that are critical to success, whether they are in alignment, and what would it take to coax them into alignment if they are not. “

 

 

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: When an elected leader is THE CHAMPION, the community benefits – extracts from a conversation with Darrell Mussatto 

When I interviewed Darrell Mussatto, five threads emerged from our conversation. And then it struck me that those threads define a set of five principles to guide the actions of elected leaders. And that is exactly how they are presented in this story behind the story.

The vignettes and insights shared by Darrell Mussatto underscore the wisdom in learning to look back to see ahead. As Darrell illustrates, it is the only way to avoid unintended consequences when we don’t know what we don’t know. Darrell makes the case for restoring trust and respect in local government and making informed decisions.

PRINCIPLE #1: When there is trust and respect between politicians and staff, good outcomes for the community are more likely to result

“My goal when I was elected mayor in 2005 was all about climate change. After the first month, I organized a meeting with the top 40 staff to share my vision.  Part way through my presentation, some staff put their hands up and said…Darrell, we are there with you, we are there.”

“It was an aha moment. I did not have to convince them. Wow, we are in this together, I realized. How can we work together to make this a more sustainable community, they asked. This is not just about climate change, they said. The real issue is how we treat our environment, they explained.”

 

 

“When staff do not feel intimidated, they can be bolder. When elected leaders have a trust-based relationship with their senior staff, and everyone works together to make the community a better place, that is when you really get things moving in the right direction.”

PRINCIPLE #2: Become educated about how local government works, and make informed policy decisions that improve quality of life

“It would be a bonus if people came into elected office with background on what matters to the operation of a local government. But most will not have a clue. Especially when it comes to infrastructure. That is why they need to educate themselves about how to develop informed policies.”

“But what I am see as being prevalent right now is populism: Find out where the people are going so that I can lead them there. Or, what is it they want and I will deliver it to them. Or, I am the boss and have the majority on council so I am going to do things the way I want. That is not leadership. Be informed. Become educated. Politics is about giving back.”

 

 

“We need people who get involved in politics for the right reasons. And are willing to put time into learning about infrastructure and all the other things that make local government work for the greater good.”

“To aspiring elected leaders, I say tell me what your passions are. Tell me what you see needing improvement. Tell me what you would do to make the built environment more sustainable. Tell me where you see the city and region going and what the priorities should be to make this a better place.”

PRINCIPLE #3: Support community-minded people who step up for the right reasons because they believe in a livable region

“A reality is that no one is at high speed all the time. There will always be peaks and valleys. Some municipalities go through valleys after they have been at peaks. But then with good people in leadership roles they do come back.”

“It can take a decade or longer to build a culture of trust and respect. And then it can be undone within a year. We see examples of that around the region. More than ever, we need good people putting their names forward.”

 

 

“And we need community leaders who say what is best for the community. You cannot always tell people what they want to hear. Sometimes you have to tell them the tougher news. I do hope those leaders emerge because we need them more than ever.”

“I believe those people who want to give back are out there. Every once and a while you get those true leaders who want to do it for the right reasons. And when they do step up, we must support them.”

PRINCIPLE #4: Move past reactive problem-solving, and be visionary in getting us to where we really need to go as a region

“I look back at Johnny Carline’s time as chief administrative officer with Metro Vancouver in the 2000s when his leadership resulted in a suite of management plans. We came together on the regional board because we believed our decisions were in the interests of a livable region. That was good, really good.”

 

 

PRINCIPLE #5: Ask the tough questions to make the tough decisions, all the while shining the light on what is affordable and effective

“Elected leaders need to provide the proper leadership so that we do look at the big picture and we are not forgetting the things that we might think are small now BUT are really important.”

“There is always going to be a battle for funding. And taxpayers cannot afford financial disasters like the Lions Gate wastewater treatment plant. The unintended consequences illustrate why elected leaders must ask tough questions so that they can make better decisions.”

 

 

Reflect on what it means to take responsibility to get to the right decision for the community

“Lions Gate demonstrates the consequences of planning a project poorly and then doing it fast. And I have to take some responsibility for what happened. I was the chair. I could have and should have made better decisions. I should have asked tougher questions…in a respectful way, of course.”

“A good leader educates themself to become a good board member. That is what I have since learned from the director’s training that I have taken as the Metro representative on the Vancouver Fraser Ports Authority.”

“With Lions Gate, the federal government wanted us to fast-track a design-build. With what I know now, we should have spent more time on planning to do it right and then build fast,” concludes Darrell Mussatto,

 

 

Living Water Smart in British Columbia Series

To download a copy of the foregoing resource as a PDF document for your records and/or sharing, click on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: When an elected leader is THE CHAMPION, the community benefits.

DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/09/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_Darrell-Mussatto_reflections-by-an-elected-leaders_2024.pdf

 

About the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC

Technical knowledge alone is not enough to resolve water challenges facing BC. Making things happen in the real world requires an appreciation and understanding of human behaviour, combined with a knowledge of how decisions are made. It takes a career to figure this out.

The Partnership has a primary goal, to build bridges of understanding and pass the baton from the past to the present and future. To achieve the goal, the Partnership is growing a network in the local government setting. This network embraces collaborative leadership and inter-generational collaboration.

TO LEARN MORE, VISIT: https://waterbucket.ca/about-us/

DOWNLOAD: https://waterbucket.ca/atp/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2024/01/PWSBC_Annual-Report-2023_as-published.pdf