The Town of Athabasca’s council passed multiple changes to its procedural bylaw in an effort to meet the recommendations from a municipal inspection.
Council unanimously passed all three readings of the new procedural bylaw during its meeting Nov. 7.
The changes include removing an illegal clause for the mayor to cast an extra deciding vote in case of a tie – such as in a 3-3 split if a councillor were to leave office. The new bylaw also links council proceedings with the Robert’s Rules of Order, a guide for parliamentary procedure.
Mayor Colleen Powell said the changes are aimed at making their procedural bylaw a legally functioning document while administration works to rewrite it entirely.
“We want to get a procedural bylaw that’s actually going to work for us. Linking it to Robert’s (Rules of Order) right now will allow us effectively to get out of dodge, but we do need to rewrite things,” Powell said.
Other changes to the bylaw include posting draft council meeting minutes online as soon as possible, versus “when practical” as it was written before. The bylaw also adds a procedure for rotating councillor seating every eight months.
The modifications stem from recommendations in the municipal inspection report of the town, conducted by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. The ministry gave Athabasca until Dec. 15 to reply with the town’s updated progress on implementation of the recommendations.
Powell said the town is making progress and has already completed several recommendations, such as with the seating rotation change. But some adjustments, such as a five-year and 10-year capital plans, would take more time.
“Asking for a five- and 10-year strategic plan in six weeks – you can’t do anything more than a skeleton. They’re aware of that; they know this,” Powell said. “They just want to make sure council is abiding this report.”
However, Powell estimated that 80 per cent of the recommended adjustments would be completed by the end of the year with the remaining part done by February.
“Put your skates on folks,” Powell said during the meeting. “We got some work to do.”
Town council also adjusted how the procedure for how expenses and time sheets are approved.
Although not a recommendation in the municipal inspection report, council voted unanimously to have the mayor and deputy mayor approve the expenses of the chief administrative officer as well as the rest of council.
During their March 2, 2016 meeting, council voted in favour of former councillor Nichole Adams’ motion that the CAO would approve time sheets rather than having council police themselves. Before that, time sheets were approved during council meetings, and expense claims for both were approved by administration.
The move was recommended by administration. CAO Robert Jorgensen said the change would improve accountability.
“I don’t think its correct for me to be signing my own pay cheque,” Jorgensen said.
