In response to Cochrane’s Town Council at its June 12, 2023 Council meeting having unanimously passed a resolution to nominate Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung for Alberta Municipalities 2023 Award of Excellence, I sent an email to Alberta Municipalities opposing such a nomination. A copy of the email sent to Alberta Municipalities can be downloaded here: Commentary on Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung’s Nomination for Alberta Municipalities 2023 Award of Excellence.

That email raised issues of:

• The mayor trying to absolve himself of following clause 4.2 (c) of the Town’s Procedural bylaw by providing a completely fabricated different text for clause 4.2 (c), clear misinformation. He continues to this day, presumably with support from the Administration, to disregard the clear reading of clause 4.2 (c) in the Town’s Procedural Bylaw.
• The mayor’s unsubstantiated claim in the aftermath of the protest that preceded the Mayor’s State of Cochrane address on February 9, 2023 that during the protest somebody spat on his wife. While he subsequently ran about town expressing his outrage about how he and his family had been mistreated, no effort was made to get the local RCMP to investigate the supposed incident, a criminal offence according to Canada’s criminal code. His response to his failure to comply with clause 4.2 (c) of the town’s Procedural Bylaw showed that he is quite capable of spinning a good yarn.
• The recent controversy related to Cochrane’s CAO, Mike Derricott, having held a second form of employment with his wife’s consulting business, a clear breach of his employment contract with the Town of Cochrane, leaves a lot of unanswered questions as to what transpired. As reported by the local media, Mayor Genung had no qualms about the CAO holding a second job and supposedly made a strong case to that effect at an informal meeting between the CAO and Council.
• Cochrane’s mayor and the other elected Councillors as well have a disrespectful attitude towards residents, particularly those residents who they may not agree with or like in choosing to ignore answering emails, essentially passive aggressive behaviour. Such disrespectful behaviour should put the mayor and council in violation of their Code of Conduct but there is no recourse for a citizen in the face of such violation of the Code of Conduct.
• Appropriately, even the nomination process itself was flawed as a Councillor brought forward such a motion during the Councillors’ Reports segment of the June 12, 2023 Town Council meeting agenda, when there is nothing in the Town’s Procedural Bylaw that permits a motion to be made in such a way. How appropriate that a flawed nomination in terms of merit should be brought forward through a flawed process.
• According to Town of Cochrane’s Council Code of Conduct Bylaw, “pursuant to section 153 of the Municipal Government Act, councillors have a duty to adhere to the code of conduct established by the council” and “the public is entitled to expect the highest standards of conduct from the members that it elects to council for the Town of Cochrane”. In particular, according to clause 7.1., under Section 7., Adherence to Policies, Procedures and Bylaws, of the Code of Conduct Bylaw, “Members shall uphold…the bylaws, policies and procedures adopted by Council”, and that word “shall” in this case means “must”; not “may”.  Our Town Council has to govern in accordance with the bylaws, policies, and procedures that they make. There is a word for if they do otherwise, namely, “corrupt”.

To conclude, our Town and particularly our mayor Jeff Genung does not deserve to be put up on a pedestal.