Podcast

Peter Handley:
Hi there good day! Welcome to North Bay's Heritage Diary, listen up, and we shall weave for you tales of days and times gone by, which can inform today and show the way to tomorrow. This Municipal Heritage Committee podcast looks at our town, our people, and our stories. This time we open the diary of our voices from our shared past for a conversation with the late Bob Barton, North Bay City Clerk for 29 years. The city clerk is the voice of reason and authority and local governance, and Barton was known for his rapid fire delivery of items. This was originally recorded in 2002. As part of the Cogeco cable series, “Life Is.” In it, Bob Barton talks about various issues and people. Please excuse any dated references.

Peter Handley:
When did you start working for the city, Bob?

Bob Barton:
Well, I started in July of 1963. And worked in what was in then known as the welfare department, the Social Services Department worked there for two years and then went into the parks department in August of 1965. And I was in the clerk's department from August 1965 until I retired in December of 1994.

Peter Handley:
You never worked for the ONR?

Bob Barton:
Yes, I worked there 10 years. I started working for the ONR in 1953, and left there in 1963, and came with the city.

Peter Handley:
What possessed you to decide you wanted to work for the municipalities?

Bob Barton:
Well, at the time, it looked like it was to my interest to work for the municipality. It looked like a better job than what I had at the ONR, although I wasn't dissatisfied. But I suppose one is always looking to further one's career, at least at that time I was. And it looked like this was a good place to go.

Peter Handley:
Was it?

Bob Barton:
Yes, it was. The city turned out to be a great employer. The working conditions were great, certainly greater in later years than they were in the first few years I worked once we got the new town hall. But yes, in General Lee, the city was and hopefully still is a good employer.

Peter Handley:
What was your training?

Bob Barton:
It was mostly on the job because I left high school and in grade 12, and started to work. I was one of these people that was anxious to get out of school, which later I found was... if I had to do it all over again, as many of us would, we wouldn't do the same things the same way. I started to work at Ontario Northland because the railways were big employers in those days, always looking for people. And those days, the 1950s, you virtually had a choice of go to any of the three railways that were then in town. I'm not sure what it's like now. I was anxious to get to work. And that's what I did.

Peter Handley:
Okay and you appointed city clerk, what got you the job? What particular skill did you need at the time to get the job, a warm body?

Bob Barton:
Well.

Peter Handley:
Because it's an important job.

Bob Barton:
I mean, I made the comment one time about, you know, some immediate person asked me what they needed for a particular role in the council and I made some comment that, you know, you had to be warm or alive. One person told me that the defeated members of council would be wondering, how they didn't qualify. To answer your question specifically, I suppose my experience and I like to think that I was recognized as someone that could fill a role beyond what I was doing and at the time and was appointed as city clerk. And I hope I proved myself that that I could do that,

Peter Handley:
Was it details, are you good detail person?

Bob Barton:
Yes, yes, I am

Peter Handley:
Is that necessary?

Bob Barton:
Yeah, in some cases. Memory is another thing that helps not only in that job, but I suspect any job. The ability to be able to, I suppose, communicate with people the ability to be able to, I suppose, get along somewhat with people although, I suppose, like in any position or that you deal with a goodly number of people. You get along better with some than you do others. Not to say that all are not your friends, but I suspect that the relationship is different with like, in any in any organization, the relationship is different with some than others.

Peter Handley:
Did the job grow with you?

Bob Barton:
I think so. I thought about that, from time to time and you know, you know, you have job descriptions you have particular functions that are your responsibilities, but somehow or another it's the informal part of the job that also plays a large role in how one matures in a particular role or function. And I like to think that the job did grow with me. I'm told, although I don't know any details, but I'm told it's changed which is natural anyone that has a new people in a job, it would change. I've never asked how it's changed because my interest now is not the same as it was when I worked there.

Peter Handley:
The relationship as far as you could see it between yourself as a city clerk and they called it alderman then. They had a big hassle over changing that to counselors too, didn't they?

Bob Barton:
Yes they did. They didn't like the, I suppose, the generic reference with man at the end of alderman. Counselor is a more definitive position than alderman I suppose.

Peter Handley:
You use the term get along with? Did you develop relationships with some of them?

Bob Barton:
Yes, I did. You develop relationships with all of them. Because you're close to them. You see them on a regular basis, not only Monday nights, but at times when they come into the office to ask questions or to look at various files or issues or whatever. You see the man and relationships do develop. I think that relationships can't help but develop when you're close to people over a number of years and there were there were members of council and heads of council that were around for a long time. You think of the late Mr. Dickerson, Jack Smiley's another one. Jack smiley, and I became good friends and are still good friends. He was on the council a long time. Dick Donnelly, Dick Donnelly was mayor for a time, never got himself elected as mayor, but was appointed as mayor and was a member of council for a long time. And Dick Donnelly and I were good friends. And I was happy about that. And essentially, though, most members of council were friends of mine. That seems to set some apart from others. I don't mean to do that. You know, you build relationships over the years. And as I said, it's difficult not to do that kind of thing.

Peter Handley:
You lived across the road from Dick for a while...

Bob Barton:
Well, yes. And later. That's right. We bought a house. Yeah. That was purely by accident. Yes.

Peter Handley:
You had a very good relationship with him

Bob Barton:
Yes I did.

Peter Handley:
He was a very tough guy. I mean, he was he had very strong views.

Bob Barton:
Very strong views. Very tough guy as you as you put it, and a very fair person.

Peter Handley:
But I've heard the opposite of that too.

Bob Barton:
Well, I suppose anyone in a position like, of authority and power, to some extent in a position of, you know a decision maker that affects the lives of the citizens. But there were times when decisions were made that all the citizens didn't agree with on. I think of couple issues like rink rates and door closing bylaw, which is a long time ago, which is ancient history, trucker rates, the snowplow trucker rates. There were heated issues because they affected the lives of the people. The decisions that the council made had a direct effect, like, I'm sure that you have found out the decisions that you make have a direct effect on the everyday life of a citizen. And people react and react differently, and sometimes with a bit of hostility to the decisions that the council made.

Peter Handley:
Tell me about it.

Bob Barton:
Yes.

Peter Handley:
Working on an administration side, I'm still sticking with Donnelly. Donnelly was the power on Council, is again what I've been told.

Bob Barton:
Yes, he was in a position of influence. He was the chairman of General Government for most of the time that he was on Council. I don't know what the Chairman of the General Government is like now, but then it was a very influential position. The major decisions of the council, other than Public Works, were the responsibilities of the General Government Committee, primarily the budget. How much more of a major decision can you get than the budget? A piece of paper that set the tax rate that tells the people how much money they're going to give the municipality each year. So by the virtue of the position, it became very influential. The other thing, Mr. Donnelly, I suppose, was not held in the same esteem by all of the members of council. But I can say this, that all of the members of council respected his view. And I think that you can respect someone and respect the view. And still, you know, not be willing to invite him for dinner.

Peter Handley:
That's what it's all about.

Bob Barton:
And that's what it's all about, you know, with the structure of the Council, which is, as people have said, from time to time, you know, Council is responsible for everything and really is not responsible for anything. That's individual members of council because you need a collective vote, you need six votes, and you need a majority to, for it to pass. So you've got to persuade five other members of council that your view is the one that will benefit most of the citizens. Keep it in mind, as you said, Dick Donnelly. And Dick Donnelly was very persuasive. I mean, his profession led him to be very persuasive. He was a well-known criminal attorney in North Bay. People were critical of Dick until someone needed some help, not only helping the courts, but other kinds of help financial help, for instance. For Dick you've said you've heard the opposite, but, you know, a very kind man. And he-

Peter Handley:
He had a very strong use of the language and it was were cutting

Bob Barton:
Very strong, very strong use of the language. As I said, as a result, he was very persuasive. But on the other side, also very fair to the citizens. The people that came to the council to make presentations to the council got a fair shake. Now he may not have agreed with what they said, or the position they were taking on a particular issue. But they had their date; they were able to address the council without notice. I mean, they could, as they say, in legal terms ambush the council. Come up without prior knowledge that someone could not go to the staff and say, "well, what about this," and get a point of view before the citizen came, the citizen could come and present without notice. And everyone was given a fair shake at the meetings.

Peter Handley:
Merle Dickerson

Bob Barton:
Yes.

Peter Handley:
Perhaps the most colorful, and single individual in North Bay politics.

Bob Barton:
Since I was there, he certainly was. In the earlier years that I was there. The later years like, like a lot of us, Peter, you know, present company excepted with you. But with me, you slow down after a while. And he slowed down a lot in the later years. But certainly, when I was first going to the council meetings, he was a colorful guy. And from our perspective, when I say our, I'm talking about the staff, and I don't want to include everyone but from most of the staff, a person that was well liked amongst the staff people.

Peter Handley:
Really?

Bob Barton:
Yes, he had, as a former mayor puts in, these aren't my words, and these are his words, that very disarming personality. And he had that. He could sit in amongst a group of people and communicate with virtually anyone. Whether it is a citizen in North Bay, or whether it be an investment dealer out of Toronto. Mr. Dickerson was able to communicate and communicate well.

Peter Handley:
And that's twice you've called him Mr. Dickerson. Any particular reason for that?

Bob Barton:
Well, I suppose I recognize the position that he held, I mean, a position that he was elected, and held in very high esteem I would think by the electorate, because you recall, he was turfed out of office by the courts, couldn't run for one term, come back and ran, and was successful. I've always, I don't know whether it's just the person. Some people you call by the given names. I certainly called him by his given name in the office when he comes into the coffee room or when he comes in to you to talk to you on a one on one basis. But, you know, you mentioned that when I think about it, I've always referred to him as Mr. Dickerson publicly, when I've talked to other people about the mayor.

Peter Handley:
They say part of his successes, "better the devil, you know, than the devil you don't know."

Bob Barton:
I've heard that expression before. Yes, I do. I guess in the early years, you know, I've been around North Bay long time. You read about things that happened about the, and these are matters of public record. I mean the bypassing of the hydro meters for his homes on McCloud Street and the dismissal of the then manager of the hydro Mr... I believe his name is Walter Shaw. This was before my time with the city, but I remember reading about things like that. And the property deals. I remember talking about that Mr. Dickerson; this just came to mind now. Mr. Dickerson mentioned to me one time just in the course of conversation, that he said to me that if I had to do it all over again, he said "I'd be a millionaire." But he said "now, I know." I guess the point he was making is the way he did things because there was always a, I suppose, the "Dickerson" way of doing things versus the other way of doing things. And I suspect there are a lot of people who are a lot more competent than I am to talk about the way he did things. The only thing I can talk about is what I've read in the in the media, and things that are public record.

Peter Handley:
And when I got here, he was the mayor, and

Bob Barton:
He was the mayor when a lot of people got here.

Peter Handley:
But he at the time, I mean, you might not know anything about North Bay or anything. But you might have heard of Merle Dickerson

Bob Barton:
I'm sure.

Peter Handley:
And there were more conventions and conferences and meetings here in North Bay for a period of about 10 or 15 years. And there have been since really, he did a lot of work that way.

Bob Barton:
Yes, he did. And one of the...just talking about meetings and conferences. One of the standing jokes around town hall was that whenever there was a conference that Mr. Dickerson had to go to, he'd have to go two or three days earlier than everyone else because he was on the executive. At least, this is what he used to tell us. We just take that as that's just the natural thing to say, without being critical of what he said.

Peter Handley:
Marley Dietter was your boss? Through most of the time period or through all of it, or?

Bob Barton:
No, I guess just the latter years. Chad Armstrong was my boss for most of the time that I was there. Marley Dietter was appointed administrator in the latter years with the municipality. Marley has now gone on I've been told running a condominium in Toronto. He's the chairman of the condominium board in which he resides in Toronto.

Peter Handley:
What was your relationship with him?

Bob Barton:
It was a great relationship. It was great professionally and great personally. Marley and I are great friends, and we were great friends when he worked for the municipality.

Peter Handley:
Was that a help or a hindrance?

Bob Barton:
Well, I suppose like anything, it's arguable whether that was a help or hindrance. I like to think it was a help, because I choose to argue that way. But I realized there's an argument on the other side, that it couldn't be a good thing, because all the reasons but I found that that was a good thing. Marley was objective, in his, at least I always found, in his decision making process with employees and because you were friends didn't mean that you were looked upon more favorably than someone else. And he was respected for that. I think it's safe to say that people that worked for Marley thought Marley was a good administrator. You didn't hear people bad mouthing Marley Dietter. But yes, he did a fine job. And as I say, he and I are great friends. We still communicate, once a year I send him a letter at Christmas time telling him about, I suppose the things people our age are interested in, who died during the year. And not so much what happened at the Council because I think other people tell him that. And I must admit, I am not as much interest as probably I should have in the council because I've been out of it now for over seven years and

Peter Handley:
Been there done that.

Bob Barton:
Yes, that's right. And I have other interests now. Mind you, not a great number of them, but I have other interests.

Peter Handley:
What was the most exciting time for you from 1966 to 1994? Would you say?

Bob Barton:
Well, I suppose you're talking about job related excitement, of course, the issues that that the council dealt with over the years and Public Affairs at the local level Some were divisive some weren't. I think of divisive issues such as the just after annexation, the council got into a really quite an acrimonious discussion and quite a divisive issue in the municipality over store closing. Now one might think nowadays store closing? Well, why was that an issue? Well, at the time the province saw fit to give municipalities’ permissive legislation to, as some of the members of council said close up the stores. And at annexation, the part of the condition of the board, the municipal board order, at the time was that the bylaws of the existing municipalities would remain in effect until changed by the new council. Well, I think that the city of North Bay, the then city of North Bay as it was known before 1968, had store closing bylaw. I think either that or everyone agreed that we close up the stores at a certain hour. I think it was the store closing bylaw. The Council decided that it was a good thing to extend that to what were known then as the townships of Widdifield and West Ferris. The citizens... There were Junior department stores, there was a Kmart store, Kresges, or whatever it was down in the North Bay mall, and there was Zeller store down in Ferris as well, and grocery stores outside of the boundary of the city before 1967 or 68, rather. And the council was going to pass a bylaw to close the stores at certain hours. And the citizens just absolutely were opposed to it. They came to the council and expressed those opinions in opposition to the store closing and eventually the stores did close up. The junior department stores did close to show the council what effect it would have and as a result, all the employees came to the council meeting and said to the council, "Look at your affecting our livelihood, because our salaries have been reduced." The other issue, Peter. Is one that you people have dealt with not very long ago is the snow machine bylaw, or snowmobile or whatever they call those? Well, you know, at that time, and indeed I was one of the people that owned a snow machine. At that time, Margaret and I had as a matter of fact, we had two of them. And the snow machines were allowed to run all over the streets, which we thought was a great thing, because at that time we lived in Alexander road and we could just go down to the end of the street and go off into the bush. And where there is no bush, you know, you could run on the road to get access to one and we thought that was a great thing. Well, one of the members of council was driving home one night and someone on a snowmobile went across in front of him that was late Jack Trussler. And he came back to the council and said, "We’ve got to do something about this." And the council did. They did something about it. And that was a divisive issue in the town because the people thought that they should be allowed to run on the streets. Yes. That has since changed but...

Peter Handley:
It has changed and it's coming back a little bit. But it's been a different form. It's a planned business.

Bob Barton:
And the other issue of divisive issues, of course were... and it wasn't so divisive amongst the citizens, it was divisive amongst the council, was the expansion of the North Gate. You know, with the two department stores that were going to go into North Gate at the time, the Sears and the Eaton’s. You know what happened with that. The new council was elected in 1980. Absolutely, the first action they did was passing a resolution to send the deposit check of $250,000 back to Cadillac Fairview. That Cadillac Fairview had sent to council to redevelop the downtown with a Hudson's Bay store as the anchor of a downtown. They sent the check back to and started this business of the expansion at Northgate with Sears—Sears and Eaton’s. Very divisive issue amongst the council not amongst the citizens because the citizens.

Peter Handley:
It was crucial to wasn't when you come right back to where you've just expressed. It was of interest crucial to the downtown.

Bob Barton:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well you saw it happen for years. I mean, it was what 20 years before we got a major department store? And that, you know we had the junior department stores like Zellers and Kmart. But 20 years almost before we got a major department store, and it was Sears that just came here last year.

Peter Handley:
You were also Chief Returning Officer. I understand.

Bob Barton:
Yes. Returning Officer. Yes. I was responsible for the conduct of the municipal elections. Yeah.

Peter Handley:
Just municipal election? You didn't do any provincial?

Bob Barton:
No. Just municipal elections. Now I had enough trouble running. No.

Peter Handley:
What do you think of the machines we've got?

Bob Barton:
Oh, dear. Well, my experience with machines was not good.

Peter Handley:
That's right. You had one. Well you did it twice.

Bob Barton:
We did it twice. I didn't mess it up well enough the first time. I thought, well, we've got to give this another crack, because we'll do it better the next time. Well, Peter, it was a bigger mess the second time than it was the first time. But I understand from Mrs. Harrison, that things went well in that last election. And that's good to hear. I must admit, had I been there. I would have resisted machines, because how long can you do that kind of thing without being in real trouble? I mean, I did it twice, and managed to escape being in real trouble, but I would not want to try it the third time.

Peter Handley:
You worked with one half dozen mayors over your time period?

Bob Barton:
Yes, I suppose it was a half a dozen. Yes.

Peter Handley:
Each one individual?

Bob Barton:
Each one individual and each one brought his own individualism to the council. Each one, of course, being the Head of Counsel, had ways that he, and I use the term he there were no she's as Mayor, thought that there was ways that things should be done. And used what influence that person had to persuade the other members of council that his way was the way that should be done, unfortunately, in our system, and this is a discussion for another time. We have a system where the mayor is popularly elected and is the Chief Executive Officer. But Peter had very little executive powers. That's nothing to do with the individual but has very little executive powers. And in order to carry out what the Mayor wants to carry out. He needs five other votes

Peter Handley:
Yeah he's one vote out of office.

Bob Barton:
Yeah, one vote out of you know, the, as I say, a discussion for a whole other time, but citizens had difficulty deciding who's in charge.

Peter Handley:
Yeah, yeah. Do you miss all the Hurly burly of City Hall?

Bob Barton:
You know, if you ask me that question on the street, I'd say no. But when we sit here, and we start to talk about things like that, and I think about things like I've just put to you about the weak Mayor system. Now, again, not the individual position, the weak Mayor system versus a strong Mayor system. Yes, I do miss them. Because I have strong opinions on things like that, and not so strong opinions on other things that I don't mind expressing and at times like to express that in times people don't agree with them. And sometimes they don't like them. But I liked doing it, and particularly now in this situation, when I don't work for the municipality any longer. And my only connection with the municipality as being a ratepayer and a receiver of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System benefits. It's a great thing to be able to sit here and express opinions to you.

Peter Handley:
Very good. Well, many thanks for coming and talking with us

Bob Barton:
Oh you’re welcome!

Peter Handley:
This edition of our Heritage Diary voices from the past with the late Bob Barton which was originally recorded in 2002 for the Cogeco cable TV production, “Life Is,” and is rebroadcasted in this format through the courtesy of Cogeco Your TV. Thank you for spending some time with us and listening to our stories. These productions are put together by the North Bay Municipal Heritage Committee, not only to retell old tales, but hopefully to kindle interest in area history. Local lore is important to any community. We shouldn't let it go unremarked and unremembered. Views expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the corporation of the city of North Bay, or its employees. Join us next time, when we flip another page of the diary of our shared past. You can reach us at Peter.Carello@cityofnorthbay.ca. Production – Casey Monkelbaan and Peter Carello. Pete Handley speaking.