The Town of Athabasca’s council passed a previously defeated motion to hire a consultant to deal with the recommendations coming out of the municipal inspection report.
At a special meeting Town of Athabasca council set to deal with the report recommendations, from the municipal inspection report, a previously defeated motion to hire an outside consultant was passed.
Mayor Roger Morrill said he hoped council would rethink hiring a consulting firm to assist in areas such as policy and strategic planning.
“I wanted action at least in those areas. I think it’s wrong that we not consider action, at least from that point,” he said. “I see a lot of low hanging fruits this council could deal with, of course realizing that this will all take time.”
During council’s Sept. 5 meeting, mayor Roger M Morrill moved to hire a consultant and was defeated in a 3-2 vote. Morrill and Coun. Tim Verhaeghe voted in favour. Coun. Steve Schafer was not present.
During the Sept. 15 special meeting, Coun. Tim Verhaeghe made the same motion to hire a consulting firm. The motion passed with Ccouncillors Shelly Gurba and Tanu Evans opposed.
This time, Schafer was present and Coun. Joanne Peckham was absent.
Prior to the passing of Verhaeghe’s motion, Schafer made a motion that “town council receive the report and recognize that the report documents areas of concern, both organizational and stakeholder strengths, and makes 29 recommendations, these to be dealt with by the new term of town council.”
the areas of concern and strengths of council outlined in the municipal inspection report. The new town council would deal with the recommendations, his motion also stated.Do you have the exact quote from the meeting on your recording? I think that something this vague should be in quotation marks… Especially as “clear motions” is something in the inspection report.
“Excuse me very much, but I’m not sure what we can do in the span of one month,” Schafer said.
Only Schafer voted in favour of this motion and it was defeated.
Council is required to address the inspection report’s 29 recommendations in a response to Minister of Municipal Affairs Shaye Anderson by Oct. 12, including written comments and a plan to address issues identified in the report.
“This is telling me we need to actually come up with some action plan rather than just save it for the next group to deal with,” Gurba said, after reading Anderson’s letter out loud.
Gurba said council should go through each recommendation one-by-one, rather than “slough off” the work to the next council.
Evans said he thought it was “very interesting” the report identifies working together as a cohesive unit and yet Verhaeghe brought a motion back that was previously defeated.
“You’re already going against the wishes of the majority of council here, and now you’re asking us to work together,” he said. “You just subverted the will of council by bringing a defeated motion back when one member is not here and you have a majority.”
Morrill responded the procedural bylaw was followed, and asked council if they want to discuss the recommendations further.
“It’s on our plate. Maybe we can’t eat it all tonight, but we can start,” Morrill said.
Chief administrative officer Robert Jorgensen asked council to review his notes on possible actions for addressing the municipal inspection report’s recommendations.
Some of Jorgensen’s suggestions included offering council orientation to within 90 days of the election, that a code of conduct bylaw be established, that the town hire a strategic planning firm to help guide the formation of a strategic plan, that a three- year operating and five- year capital plan be struck by the town’s chief financial officer, and that the Athabasca Regional Multiplex’s funding model be reviewed.
After council went through Jorgensen’s notes, Schafer made a motion to direct Jorgensen and Morrill to respond to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, pending approval from council.
The motion was unanimously supported.
Aside from deciding to hire a consulting firm, council made no other motions to address recommendations in the municipal inspection.
