Recent changes to city hall have Chestermere residents questioning some of council’s motives.
During the Feb. 8 Committee of the Whole Meeting public input session, Mayor Jeff Colvin and members of council answered submitted questions from residents.
One resident was curious if members of council have previously had personal or professional relationships with the newly appointed city director of corporate services Harminder Pattar, and city director of community operations Mark Wolynice.
All councillors said they did not have any previous relationships with the new city directors.
“There was no prior association or knowledge of these individuals before they were presented to us in December, and during our interviewing process,” Councillor Stephen Hanley said.
Another submitted question asked for councillors to explain the organizational structure of the city that included how the directors fit alongside pre-existing roles.
“As far as any internal staffing issues go, council doesn’t have direct control, under the bylaw and Municipal Government Act (MGA) is the responsibility of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) positions,” Hanley said. “We cannot provide information on the organizational structure until they have done whatever they want to do. That’s part of the MGA and we’re going to respect all the rules.”
Another question asked what the finalized cost all-inclusive to the city for termination of previous CAO Bernie Morton was, and what the monitory compensation of employment for the new directors was.
“We cannot disclose that information, that information will become part of the annual financial statements. Before that we’re not allowed,” Hanley said. “We cannot disclose any individual’s contract.”
However, during the input session, Legislative Administrator Rami Ajjour confirmed that under the MGA, the salaries of CAO’s and all designated officers must be released to the public.
Some residents were questioning the employee review process, and how transparent council was about the open job positions within the organization.
“I can’t imagine that can be answered in detail, but we can talk to our layer and try to get the information released,” Colvin said.
Colvin then explained that a motion was put forward by city council to create a hiring committee. City administration released the job posting, and the resumes that were submitted were seen by all of council, and then candidates were interviewed.
“I respectfully disagree on how the entire process took place. From what I understand, the two names of Harminder and Mark were put forward before the job postings took place, further the two individuals were put in the same room, it was only after myself and a few other councillors asked that the process was wrong, and there has to be proper protocol,” Councillor Ritesh Narayan said.
The job postings were only advertised on the city website for a short time period, although council had requested the advertisement be posted to all major platforms.
“In all of this, I felt the process was missing some core values, transparency, honesty, and some procedures were skipped,” Narayan said.
“The job postings were given to administration. As council, we wanted widespread posting, but we’re not able to instruct staff with how to do their job, this was a choice of administration, this had nothing to do with council,” Hanley said.
One resident wrote into the meeting asking why none of the councillors declared a conflict of interest when the new city directors were appointed during the Feb. 1 council meeting if there were direct personal relationships.
“There are no direct relationships,” Colvin said.
“There are two types of conflict of interest. There’s the direct, and then there’s perceived conflict of interest,” Narayan said. “It’s important that we address both.”
One resident asked, “Given that some members of council and the mayor chose not to disclose direct conflict of interest would these actions not violate the MGA and have the constituents lose faith in city council and mayor that are acting in the best interest of the community as a whole or in individual interest only?”
“The first statement is a statement of personal belief, that we’ve all said is incorrect, that makes the question invalid, really,” Hanley said.
One resident was concerned that a newly appointed city directors’ spouse was a significant campaigner for Colvin and posted various city decisions on social media during the election.
“That’s a nonsense claim, there’s absolutely no conflict in that regard,” Colvin said.
“I’d respectfully disagree, there’s definitely perceived conflict of interest right there. There’s evidence that some members of council have socialized in ways that you only socialize with close friends,” Narayan said.
“There’s a perceived conflict of interest that should have been declared at the very least out respect for the process and the rest of council,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk about transparency, but these are the places that really count, when you can’t be transparent with council, how can you be transparent with the rest of the public. It’s up to council to decide if it’s a conflict of interest or not and if you should be part of the decision-making.”
Colvin ensured council there was no conflict of interest in regard to himself and his supporters.
“These people are not my friends, some of them I’ve known in the past. They are simply supporting and wanting to give back to their community, that’s it,” Colvin said. “It’s not me bringing forward somebody to council, that didn’t happen.”
