2009 grade: C
2008 grade: D
2007 grade: D
Brad Johns is the nutty councillor for Sackville, famously the rawkingest place in the universe thanks to the Weir Rocking concerts. Johns’ low-rent suburban appeal doesn’t carry a lot of currency among snooty urbanites, but I gotta say I find him delightfully his own person. He’s a great councillor for Sackville.
And Johns scored on a few counts this past year. He took aim at the development industry’s undue influence on council by proposing a specific prohibition against developer contributions to council election campaigns. It was an inartful proposal from a legal perspective, but dead-on nonetheless; it was eventually rolled up into a request that the province ban all corporate and union donations to municipal campaigns---exactly the same law that applies to provincial campaigns, and a good move all around.
Johns also got a policy change such that in the future all budget line items become part of the public record, and has been urging the city to find its own pyritic slate disposal site, which could save millions.
More problematically, Johns sometimes lets his mouth get ahead of his head, as when he flippantly cursed bike lanes and suggested businesses be given a tax break to move off the peninsula. I don’t think he honestly holds either belief, but you get such pronouncements from Johns occasionally.
How to improve: Trooper, Weir Rocking 2012.
