Written about Toronto

but easy to apply to many other locations.

Real leaders don't engage in government-by-stealth.

When there's bad news, they deliver it themselves, lay out their plans for corrective action and accept responsibility. That's how a competent civic administration acts.

You do your job, make a decision, stand up to receive criticism or kudos from the public and trust voters to be fair at the end of the day.

You don't stumble from crisis to crisis in a fog of your own making.

Good government is about people actually living up to that popular motto of a famous hotel chain: "No surprises."

Sadly, what taxpayers are getting far more often from the mayor and his minions these days is government by chaos theory. And that act is getting pretty old and tiresome, pretty fast.