POLL: Mayor, councillors say City is transparent

“Like, what people don’t understand, it’s silly – the way we do business now, if anything’s addressed to the mayor and city council, it comes to council, even if it’s just a letter for a 90th birthday. Where I’m going to automatically do it, I don’t need council permission to do that. So, it’s certain things that we’re going to take off the agenda to make it better,” he said.

Council recently voted to remove the inquiry section from the meeting agenda, but Dionne noted the call for inquiries during meetings came from councillors, not the public. He said the general public would bring certain concerns up to their councillors, and then those councillors would bring them up to inquiries.

“Inquiries really didn’t have to do with communicating with the public,” Dionne said, adding some of the people who submitted inquiries didn’t watch the televised broadcast of the council meetings.

“In some cases, it was just grandstanding by councillors to let the people know ‘well, I’m out there, look at all the inquiries I made.’ Well, OK, you made all those inquiries, but how many of them got done?”

On top of those changes, Dionne said the City has become more customer-service oriented and City officials are meeting with organization, including realty associations and the Prince Albert and District Chamber of Commerce.

From the public, Dionne said he’s heard nothing but positive feedback.

“Questions are being answered more quickly, more information is available. Where we are a little slow is where we’re short-staffed, like in our planning and economic development department,” he said.

Dionne said it is more transparent now and they are better communicators. He said the report he plans to bring to council about how they do business will make them even more transparent.

However, he said there should always be more openness.

And one area he points to that is becoming more open is the budget process. He said the City is meeting with the Chamber before the budget process, rather than after.

Some of the service reviews ahead of the 2015 budget process will be open to public scrutiny. But where the discussion is about labour, Dionne said they won’t be open.

“When we’re talking about maybe trimming a job here or cutting a job there, consolidating jobs, we can’t make that public,” he said.

Transparency and the executive committee

With talk recently of possibly eliminating executive committee meetings, Coun. Martin Ring said this could potentially have an effect on transparency.

The executive meetings precede the council meetings, and members of council have an opportunity to ask questions and support recommendations made by administration about items on the agenda. Ring said he’s gotten used to the format of executive committee, where the decisions made aren’t binding until the following week’s council meeting.

“What I have found with executive committee is that there seems to be a lot of more open dialogue and conversation that occurs during the executive committee, and more questions can be asked and it gives administration time to come back with some either replies or further information that is going to assist us in making our decision properly,” Ring said.

He said it’s extremely important for the public to be able to see this part of the process.

“I think the public has to understand that we don’t make decisions — and we don’t take the decisions that we make – lightly,” he said. Members of council ask for background information, sometimes during the meeting and sometimes via email outside of the meetings.

Ring believes there is transparency, but at times, he thinks they could be even more transparent.

“But at the same time, I think one really has to take a look at what are we looking at and we have to keep in mind that there are certain rules through the Cities Act that we have to follow and that’s the reason why there’s committee of the whole that becomes and in camera session that is not attended by the public.”

Such issues involve land, legal or labour-related discussions.

But for the most part, Ring thinks they are a very transparent council. He said it’s something he strives for himself and he makes follow up phone calls to residents who bring an issue to his attention and he assures them that he will get a reply back to them.

One of the ways he suggests they could be more transparent is by documenting replies from administration somewhere. He thinks it should be posted on the City’s website, if this is the direction they intend to go in terms of communication. But he said when they do get a response from administration, it needs to be captured and made available for the public to see.

And technology could be a part of the move towards greater transparency.

Ring said the City has gotten a lot better at using Facebook and the City’s website more and more to post media releases and information about what is happening at council. He said this gives people more and more opportunities to say “you know what, maybe I should phone my councillor and ask him a question about that.”

An alternative approach to transparency?

Coun. Don Cody is in favour of the open committee structure.

Committees, such as a finance committee or a parks and recreation committee or public works committee, would provide an opportunity to delve into those specific areas versus all of the other issues that members of council have to contend with at an executive committee meeting, Cody said.

“The committee meetings that we had, years ago, they were all open. The press could come to them if they so desired. They never did come very much, but nevertheless, they certainly could come,” Cody said.

Current board meetings, such as the Pehonan Parkway Board, are open to the public, he added.

“I don’t think we need more meetings, but I think what we need [are] meetings that have some teeth in them, and then we can report back to the whole council,” he said, and said a committee is a reporting mechanism and council would have the final say, yea or nay.

Cody does feel the transparency is quite adequate.

“I think the public knows what we’re doing, they can see us every week. First of all, they see us in the executive committee, they can come there any time they want and they certainly see us again at council.

“So, I don’t know how much more transparent you could really be than being out there talking to the public and where the public can hear you discuss and debate.”

paNOW will be putting transparency at City Hall to the test and will be keeping tabs on how open the decision-making and governance processes are in reality.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by Thia James

POLL: Mayor, councillors say City is transparent

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