It’s a legitimate & typical Q that most councillor candidates ask about … and the answer is … it depends – and likely varies with who you ask! For me, for the city, it’s *usually* 15 – 20 hours per week incl. scheduled council meetings, chairing of assigned committees, touching base with residents and prep beforehand for all of that. The analogy of a rookie politico getting up-to-speed on key files being similar to trying to drink from a fire hose is more than apt. Reading & consulting on background aspects is full-on time consuming at the start. It’ll likely take a year or so for this initial phase. The time commitments didn’t change that much for me even after I managed to get a handle on core files. The hours simply transferred to more fully understanding other key issues of interest or emerging importance. The hours do change a titch depending on the time of year as well. They rarely go down. Budget deliberation time incl. prep often takes days – and that’s amidst all of the regularly scheduled meetings.
The red highlights are direct city-based meetings, inservice or input sessions. The green are my regional district commitments and the orange is mainly related to meetings with individuals. The different months are a good snapshot of my time spent.
So, Mondays are pretty well full-on afternoon council meetings (1pm for a few hours and sometimes 7pm for public hearings) or Planning time (8am- of varying length – usually 1 -2 hours). Mid-weeks for me are often touching base with staff, residents or prep’ing for other sessions. Your mileage may vary for sure but this is my typical weekly shift. Community events during the week and the weekends aren’t reflected here either.
