Council tables decision on updated CUI bylaws

City council chose to table a decision on changes to Chestermere Utilities Inc. (CUI) bylaws so that the document could be cleaned up, updated and brought back to council.
“There was really no reason that we couldn’t just table it and get a clean version of all the changes,” said Chestermere’s Mayor Marshall Chalmers.
The motion to table the vote on the bylaws was made by Deputy Mayor Mel Foat so that spelling errors and other changes could be made before the document was voted on.
Foat gave his preference of not signing documents with a lot of penned in changes as his reason to have the document cleaned before council made its final decision.
“Obviously, councilor Foat felt that there’s a lot of spelling stuff…and he wanted to see a clean document,” said Chalmers, “and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
The proposed changes were brought to council based on the recommendation in the Stack’d consulting’s 2016 review of the CUI mandate.
The recommendation was that the CUI internal bylaws be brought into alignment with the Unanimous Shareholder Agreement that CUI has with the city.
Decisions pertaining to CUI continue to be amongst the most debated by city council.
Foat’s successful motion to table the decision came after council had defeated a previous motion to table the decision until January made by Councillor Laurie Bold.
“I have some concerns and I need to get further information if possible,” said Bold of her request to table the decision.
In contrast, Councillor Yvette Wagner, felt there was enough information to make a decision.
“I went through it all…I didn’t have any issues with anything that I saw changed,” said Wagner.
While the proposed bylaw changes, which are available on the city’s website, bring them into alignment with the Unanimous Shareholders Agreement (USA) the USA takes precedence.
“This one’s a little different in that it’s not our bylaw its actually CUI’s bylaw but under the agreement we have to approve it,” said Chalmers.
The amount of discussion and debate surrounding CUI is all part of council trying to ensure that the right decisions are being made.
“We’re looking to gather as much information as we can before we have to make any decisions,” he said.
In addition to lively discussion in council chambers, Chalmers said that the have also been meeting with the CUI board and administration and with city staff to, “try and understand and know the all the issues around CUI and how CUI operates.”
Although CUI is the most contentious, Chalmers said they have had to balance the time spent studying it with learning about the rest of the city departments and operations.
“It’s not just CUI, it’s all the different departments,” he said.