ABSTRACT

A refusal by Town Council to answer my emails and queries has become a standard practice, and I deem such disrespectful behaviour on Council’s part as being a violation of Section 8 (Respectful Interactions with Council Members, Staff, the Public and Others) of their Council Code of Conduct in terms of expectations as to how they interact with citizens. I recently received the same treatment from Stacey Loe, the town Administration’s Executive Director, Corporate Services.

On December 12, 2023, I sent Ms. Loe an email, “Seeking Clarity from the Town’s Administration”, with copies to Town Council and CAO Mike Derricott, asking Ms. Loe to provide some clarity as to my claim that Town Council has not been acting in compliance of aspects of their Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, by having her answer five pertinent questions, hoping in that way to provide some clarity for the benefit of Town Council as to my claim that Town Council has not been acting in compliance of aspects of their Procedural Bylaw.

On December 18, 2023, I received an email from Ms. Loe (copied to Town Council and CAO, Mike Derricott), and, disappointingly, she refused to answer my 5 questions, her bogus excuse being that those specific questions related to aspects of the Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, which the Administration itself had authored, “will be subject to our individual interpretations”. As I pointed out in a reply email, “I simply don’t buy this trumped up ‘lack-of-clarity’ narrative that the Administration is rolling out in an attempt to cover for a failure by Council to comply with aspects of their Procedural Bylaw.”  While I was told that, “the Procedural Bylaw is in the process of being updated to ensure clarity for both Council and the community with respect to processes and procedures associated with Council meetings”, there is no lack of clarity with respect to section 4.2(c), related to the conduct of the presider wishing “to participate in the debate on a question or motion properly before the Meeting”, or with respect to section 7.2 related to Notices of Motion. Rather, there is a failure by Council to comply with these requirements and, equally, a failure by Administration to ensure that these requirements of the Procedural Bylaw are properly being followed.

 

FULL BLOG

 

A refusal by Town Council to answer my emails and queries has become a standard practice, and I deem such disrespectful behaviour on Council’s part as being a violation of Section 8 (Respectful Interactions with Council Members, Staff, the Public and Others) of their their Council Code of Conduct in terms of expectations as to how they interact with citizens. I recently received the same treatment from Stacey Loe, Executive Director, Corporate Services.

On December 12, 2023, I sent Ms. Loe an email, “Seeking Clarity from the Town’s Administration”, with copies to Town Council and CAO Mike Derricott, asking Ms. Loe to provide some clarity as to my claim that Town Council has not been acting in compliance of aspects of their Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, by having her answer the following five pertinent questions:

Question 1: Do you agree with my assessment that Councillor Fedeyko’s notice of motion was not properly presented at the September 11, 2023 meeting? Yes or No?
Question 2: Is there such an entity as a “notice of notice of motion”, a term used by Mayor Genung to describe Councillor Fedeyko’s failed attempt to introduce a notice of motion on September 11, 2023, to be found in the town’s Procedural Bylaw 19/2019? Yes or No?
Question 3: Do you agree that had Councillor Fedeyko’s notice of motion been properly presented at the September 11, 2023 council meeting, then it should have appeared under “Business” in the agenda for the September 25, 2023 meeting? Yes or No?
Question 4: Was Councillor McFadden’s notice of motion on Workforce Reporting properly handled as per the requirements spelled out for Notices of Motion in the Procedural Bylaw 19/2019? Yes or No?
Question 5: Has Mayor Genung been complying with section 4.2(c) of the Procedural Bylaw 19/2019? Yes or No?

As explained in my email, I expressed the hope that her answers to these questions would provide some clarity on these matters for the benefit of Cochrane’s Town Council, especially for Susan Flowers who is so appreciative of how Ms. Loe is supposedly so capably able to clarify such matters.

On December 18, 2023, I received the following email from Ms. Loe (copied to Town Council and CAO, Mike Derricott), and, disappointingly, she refused to answer my 5 questions, her excuse being that those specific questions related to aspects of the Procedural Bylaw 19/2019, which the Administration itself had authored, “will be subject to our individual interpretations”:

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Thank you for your interest in our Council procedural processes and for sharing your perspectives. As previously communicated to you by Ms. Knight, the Procedural Bylaw is in the process of being updated to ensure clarity for both Council and the community with respect to processes and procedures associated with Council meetings.

As noted within the Procedural Bylaw, the MGA does not require that a Council pass such a bylaw but does indicate they may. The intent behind such a bylaw is to regulate the procedure and conduct at meetings of both Council and Committees. 

I will not be responding to specific instances you have noted as those will be subject to our individual interpretations, what I will say is that the Procedural Bylaw and the conduct and processes within a Council Meeting belong to all members of Council. If at any time any member of Council believes that a process or section of the bylaw is not being applied appropriately, they can call a Point of Procedure. Further, a Court looking at such a bylaw and ongoings within a Council meeting will generally look to determine the legislative intent and purpose behind the construction and contents of the Bylaw, in this case that being to standardize processes of Council meetings to ensure governance decisions can be made in an orderly fashion.

As previously noted, we appreciate that some of the wording and processes outlined within the current Procedural Bylaw are not clear and have been interpreted in different ways by different individuals, thus causing confusion. The update to our Procedural Bylaw is underway and is expected to be presented to Council in Q1, 2024.

Thank you again for your interest, wishing you well this holiday season.

Stacey Loe seated to the right of CAO, Mike Derricott. 

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I, in turn, responded with the following email on the same day, copied to Town Council and CAO, Mike Derricott:

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From: Ron Voss
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Seeking Clarity from the Town’s Administration
Date: December 18, 2023 at 6:08:47 PM MST
To: Stacey Loe <Stacey.Loe@cochrane.ca>
Cc: CouncilDist <CouncilDist@cochrane.ca>, Mike Derricott <Mike.Derricott@cochrane.ca>

Good afternoon Ms. Loe,

I would like to have said thank you for responding to my five questions, but I am highly disappointed (and maybe not surprised) that you have chosen to refuse to answer them, which hardly conforms with Mr. Derricott’s claim at the October 24, 2022 Council Meeting that, “We are open, we are accessible, we are transparent”. 

While you say, “the Procedural Bylaw is in the process of being updated to ensure clarity for both Council and the community with respect to processes and procedures associated with Council meetings”, there is no lack of clarity with respect to section 4.2(c), related to the conduct of the presider wishing “to participate in the debate on a question or motion properly before the Meeting”, and section 7.2 related to Notices of Motion. Rather, there is a failure by Council to comply with these requirements and, equally, a failure by Administration to ensure that these requirements of the Procedural Bylaw were properly being followed. 

While you say, “I will not be responding to specific instances you have noted as those will be subject to our individual interpretations”, you were quite willing to make a judgement, clarifying in your view, the matter related to the adoption of the September 25, 2023 minutes, a ‘clarification’, which so pleased Councillor Flowers, but you now refuse to do the same with respect to my queries.  As far as the ridiculous notion that those aspects of the Procedural Bylaw are “subject to our individual interpretations”, Administration was the one who produced the town’s Procedural Bylaw, and you are now telling me that you and Administration have no understanding, have no idea, as to their meaning, and therefore, you refuse to answer my queries related to those aspects of the Procedural Bylaw because they “will be subject to our individual interpretations”? I simply don’t buy this trumped up ‘lack-of-clarity’ narrative that the Administration is rolling out in an attempt to cover for a failure by Council to comply with aspects of their Procedural Bylaw. 

Are you telling me, for example, that section 4.2(c) is unclear to you as to its meaning and is “subject to our individual interpretations”?:
“When the Presiding Officer wishes to participate in the debate on a question or motion properly before the Meeting, the Presiding Officer shall vacate the Chair and request the Deputy Mayor to assume the Chair”.
What you call an “individual interpretation” could include Mayor Genung’s “individual interpretation” that he is not required to follow this requirement simply because he does not agree with what it says is required of him. 

With respect to your comment, “the Procedural Bylaw, the MGA does not require that a Council pass such a bylaw but does indicate they may”, I would hope that because of that, the reference to “may” in the MGA, you are not suggesting, that following the rules established by the bylaw adopted by Council should be taken lightly. Not having a bylaw to regulate the proceedings and conduct of council and council meetings, such as determining what is a quorum, would be as problematic as not following the procedures adopted by Council through a bylaw. I would remind you of section 7.1 of the Council Code of Conduct whereby “Members (councillors) shall uphold the law established by the Parliament of Canada and the Legislature of Alberta and the bylaws, policies and procedures adopted by Council”. 

As far as, if at any time a member of Council believes that a process or section of the bylaw is not being applied properly, they can call a Point of Order, their failure to lodge a complaint against the mayor not following 4.2(c) of the Procedural Bylaw was the reason for my delegation before Council on March 20, 2023 and my request for the public to have the right to lodge complaints against councillors, as such self-regulation clearly does not work.

Once again, I am disappointed by your lack of transparency and refusal to answer my 5 questions and consider it to be unacceptable disrespectful behaviour on your part, but not much different from Council refusing my many queries addressed to them, which I consider a violation of their Code of Conduct. I don’t appreciate being stonewalled in that way. Clearly, there is no accountability and the violations of the Procedural Bylaw by Council will continue, until you presumably ‘update’ the Procedural Bylaw by removing or radically modifying the supposedly ‘unclear’ aspects of the Procedural Bylaw in question such that Council will no longer be in violation of them. Shame.

Refusing to answer my 5 questions, I leave you with the following question:

Are you telling me, for example, that section 4.2(c) of the Procedural Bylaw (“When the Presiding Officer wishes to participate in the debate on a question or motion properly before the Meeting, the Presiding Officer shall vacate the Chair and request the Deputy Mayor to assume the Chair”) is unclear to you as to its meaning, and is “subject to our individual interpretations” such that it cannot be properly understood? Yes or No?

Sincerely,

Ron Voss

P.S. With respect to the Procedural Bylaw being updated, it was also my understanding that the same will apply to the Council Code of Conduct with respect to my request for the public to have the right to lodge complaints against councillors as per my appearance as a delegation to Council on March 20, 2023.

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Will Ms. Loe once again refuse to answer, in this case, this simple, straightforward question? Most likely she will refuse to answer, since answering “yes” to this question would require her to answer “no” to my Question #5 above about whether Mayor Genung has been complying with section 4.2(c) of the Procedural Bylaw, which she clearly is unwilling to admit. So much for their claimed transparency.

I had also previously experienced such stonewalling by Ms. Jaylene Knight, Director, Legislative & Administrative Services, in response to an email which I sent to her on October 1, 2023, to which she curtly replied, “I have received your email, but will not be providing any further comment.” If I am supposedly suffering from “confusion” on these matters as she has claimed, disappointingly, no effort was made to set me straight.