How CBC News graded Windsor city council

Why does one councillor get an A, and another a C? What kinds of things did CBC News consider when deciding Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens deserves an A- halfway through his term?

You're no doubt asking questions like this if you've had a chance to check out our mid-term report cards.

We didn't pick the grades out of the air or base it on how much we "like" each politician. We collected as much information as we could, poring over the minutes of council and committee meetings, accessing publicly-available reports from the city, and analyzing all the news coverage over the past two years.

But you should also know these assessments are not an exact science either, and we had discussions about intangible criteria, and how much weight they should carry.

Here are a few of the key indicators:

Attendance. We tallied each council member's attendance at the 55 council meetings between their swearing-in on Dec. 1, 2014, and the meeting of Oct. 3, 2016. This included special meetings and budget meetings. We also counted attendance at every meeting of executive council and standing committees up to the most recently-available minutes. The city clerk's office was also helpful in forwarding its records of attendance at all meetings of agencies, boards and advisory committees, up until this past summer.

While politicians do have legitimate reasons for missing some meetings, such as being away on city business, or having a conflict between multiple meetings, an expert on municipal politics said this is still important to look at.

"Attendance is a necessary prerequisite. If you don't show up, you can't vote, you can't participate," Martin Horak said. He's the director of the local government program at Western University.

Horak adds just being in your chair doesn't tell the whole story though.

"Attendance isn't everything, because it's also about the quality of participation, and quality of participation is about being prepared, and having down your homework on issues, and that's a little more difficult to assess."

Voting records. We logged each vote at those same 55 council meetings, noting the number of times each councillor disagreed with the majority, and with the mayor. We were looking for evidence that the councillor is able to vote with their conscience, and in the interests of their ward.

Communication. We measured this by doing a survey of each politician's use of social media. Horak says this is relevant, as part of a bigger picture. He says council members also need to holding face-to-face meetings with constituents, be available to take phone calls and respond to email.

At the same time, Horak said, there is a balance. "Time is limited, and if you as a councillor are not reading the background reports for council meetings because you're too busy giving people the blow-by-blow of what you've been doing on Twitter, then there's a problem there as well."

Public statements. CBC News is there for each council meeting, and we regularly cover other stories that involve of the mayor and city council. We revisited every story since the election which quoted Drew Dilkens or any councillor.

This gave us an idea how active each person has been in speaking out on the important issues of the day in the city, and in their wards. Horak says both are important.

"If your ward councillor is really good at serving ward interests, then you'd probably rationally go, 'I'll re-elect this person.' I would however argue that they are really only doing half of their job, and that the public as well has to think about, 'Is my councillor contributing to the big picture debate? Because that is part of their job as well," Horak said.

In Mayor Drew Dilkens' case, those news stories revealed a series of controversies, but they were all related to policies and priorities. Horak said that should actually be seen as a strength, as long as he can pull his council together on the important issues.

"A mayor who proposes bold new ideas, even if they bring about some controversy, is doing his or her job as a mayor," Horak said.

"It's part of a mayor's job to propose new policy solutions and to float them and then to see if this consensus comes about or not. If it doesn't, then it won't happen. That's very different from getting embroiled in questions of unethical behaviour."