‘A buzzword for election 2021’: Newcomer candidates push for greater transparency at city hall

Since January 2018, out of 49 energy and utility meetings, only 10 were open to the public, according to the city’s website.

Closed-door meetings extend beyond the Energy and Utilities committee. This year alone, all of the Administrative and Legislative Review committee meetings were also held behind closed doors, and four of the 16 Public Services committee meetings have been in closed.

Mayoral Candidate Linnsie Clark has also been critical of the number of closed-door meetings in the city.

“ We need to have more meetings in open and if we are going to move a meeting in closed then there needs to be a clear reason why,” Clark said.

Clark is one candidate that has transparency as the main aspect of their platform.

At last week’s council meeting Mayor Ted Clugston defended the number of closed-door meetings held at city hall. He said there are reasons why items can’t be brought forward to public meetings.

“This comes up every campaign and then you don’t hear about it again in four years. We do human resources, land and real estate behind closed doors, because first of all you don’t want to talk about who you are hiring or firing in public and when you are doing a real estate deal you don’t want to show what price you are willing to pay or what you are willing to sell it for,” Clugston said.

“ Everything that a municipality does end up here (city council meeting). Every time we spend a dollar it ends up here. Every time a decision is made it ends up here,” he said noting the city recently won an award for financial transparency.

But Jansen argued the issue of transparency goes far beyond just an election issue.

“If this is just election speak then why would the citizens of Medicine Hat be so up in arms about it? It is almost like it is over-talked about now because so many people are talking about transparency.”

Mayoral candidate Clark highlighted the closure of recreation facilities as an example of where transparency has fallen short.

“ They have decided to go ahead with the Town Square, instead of maintaining the recreation facilities in our neighborhood. ” Clark said

Funding for the Town Square was made possible through provincial municipal stimulus funding, and Clark argued more public consultation should have occurred to determine where to distribute the funds.

“Our city government only put forward in open the five projects that they were going to be submitting for the municipal stimulus program. We never saw the other options that were being considered and we didn’t have the opportunity to have input,” she said

Council Candidate Kelly Allard said the Invest RFP may have triggered a lot of the discussions around transparency in recent months.

However, Allison Knodel, another candidate, said the public discussion around transparency has been driven by a breakdown in trust, that has occurred the past few years.

“ I think a lot of it comes from a lack of knowledge about what is happening or it comes from a group of people in leadership maybe not being able to express why something went wrong,” she said

Mayor Ted Clugston said over the years, his administration has worked hard to ensure information gets out to the public. Since he started at the city many years ago, they have increased the number of communication staff from one to five, and Clugston said they diligently push out information to the public. But he said it’s up to the public to absorb the information.

“Communication and transparency it is a two-way street. You can put everything out there you want but people also have to take the time to read it,” he said

by Tiffany Goodwein

‘A buzzword for election 2021’: Newcomer candidates push for greater transparency at city hall

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