Council Clearly Considers Clark's Request Unwarranted

Medicine Hat - In a heated city council meeting last night, it was clear that council considered Clark's request for detailed report on spending, severance and staffing changes, unwarranted at best and vindictive at worst.

Clark stated her "request was to have the information come forward" and "provided the background as requested" and she was "entitled to the information both as a councilor and a member of the public" so that "we can discuss the information" and "wasn't asking permission of council to receive the information that I am entitled to".

Councilor Robbins spoke to the request first and questioned the reason for doing so and was it a good use of taxpayer money to do so as the CAO had indicated this would take significant time of city staff to do so and have a cost. Robbins also indicated that she needed to hear from the chair of the Audit committee, Councilor Hirsch, as to the checks and balances that are already in place before she would agree to going down the path that Clark has requested.

Clark conceded that she would be willing to amend the parameters of the request that would only include the time this council has been in office and not earlier as outlined in her request, stating the request was to establish what "was normal" when it came to spending at city hall. COA Mitchell stated, "we have stayed under policy and stayed in budget" and did not "have a problem getting this information to council".

Councilor Dumanowski had the most powerful statement of the night regarding Clark's request. He stated, "the recent requests under the guise of transparency and accountability have instead started to sow the seeds of discord and mistrust, and it is my concern that this request is rooted in nothing less than baseless accusation and supposition. He also stated that it "undermines trust and cohesion within our organization".

Councilor Hirsch stated that it "reinforces my underlying concern on this whole request is we're sowing the seeds and creating a spectre of doubt and mistrust in our administration" and "that of fellow council members". Councilor Van Dyke was next and reiterated some of the same concerns and stated that a briefing note as indicated by Councilor Robbins would be helpful to understand the time and cost it would take to meet Clark's request for information and if it was a good use of staff time and taxpayer costs.

At this point Clark supports became vocal and Acting Mayor McGrogan took to the gavel and requested members of the gallery to not speak out during this discussion. Stating "you may not agree with the dialogue that it is not your place to actually have people here disrespected". Security was asked to speak to the offenders and warned them that outbursts will not be tolerated. Council then took a brief recess to allow the issues in the chamber to be addressed.

When council returned from recess, councilor Van Dyke finished her position on the matter. At that point Clark was allowed to speak and being visibly upset, stated that she "vehemently object to the accusation by Councilor Dumanowski and others that this was done for any reason other than my role as a councilor, the suggestion that was based on a political agenda or personal gain is a very serious accusation and I completely object to that."

Councilor Robbins then proposed 3 motions addressing parts of the request that Clark had made. 2 of the 3 motions made by Robbins were defeated and the motion to get more information on the time and cost to gather the information requested by Clark passed with a vote of 5-3. The statements by councilors clearly reinforced the position that one councilor does not have the authority to make requests on their own. It is something that council has to make as a whole through a motion that passes by a majority of council.

Both Councilor Sharps and COA Mitchell reiterated that some elements of the Clark request were dealt with through Admin and Audit committees in the past and Clark was privy to all of those changes. Councilor Sharps also stated that positions that reported to Clark and council, the Chief of Staff and Public Relations positions, were not correctly positioned withing city administration and the Admin & Operations bylaw was offside regarding those roles and that the only employee of council is the CAO.

The conversation then turned to what information is readily available to the council and Councilor Hirsch stated that there are checks and balances and policy that discloses the information requested. Councilor Sharps then asked Clark "that if she signs off on these reports does she not already have the information". Where Clark countered, "if I am not comfortable with an expense but is within policy I can't simply not sign it". Councilor Sharps then asked Clark "isn't it smarter to try to change the policy?". After which Clark stated "Absolutely."

Further discussion continued on the issue of expense card statements and reviewing them to get an understanding of what practice occurs currently. Council agreed that having all expenses reviewed, not just senior executives would be a better approach than to to target just a few. The debate continued with Clark pushing her perspective at every turn and landed on the issue of should this request be a notice of motion. Council agreed it should potentially be one, depending on the briefing statement requested. What comes back as far as the amount of work and cost to meet the Clark's request will decide if this request goes any further.