Ann Mitchell has served as Medicine Hat's city manager since early 2023. File Photo/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

WHAT TO KNOW

What a city manager does and their impact on municipal government

Aug 19, 2024 | 4:28 PM

The role of the city manager — and what they can and can’t do — is central to Medicine Hat’s ongoing leadership crisis.

Last year, Mayor Linnsie Clark questioned the legitimacy behind City Manager Ann Mitchell’s restructuring of city hall at an August council meeting.

That tense exchange prompted Coun. Shila Sharps to file a code of conduct complaint that led to a third-party investigation and report that was used as a basis for council to place sanctions on Clark and cut her salary by 50 per cent.

While Mitchell has not given any interviews, she’s a major part of the city operates.

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A city manager is legally considered a chief administrative officer, or CAO.

CAO reports to council

The chief administrative officer has one boss: city council.

As the city’s top staffer, she is responsible for implementing council’s strategic priorities and is in charge of operations.

Graphic/CHAT News

That’s according to the Municipal Government Act, a piece of provincial legislation that lays out how cities are supposed to function.

Paul Salvatore, CEO of Municipal Experts Inc., compared the city manager’s role to that of a CEO.

“If you think of it in terms of a business community, the CAO would be equivalent a chief executive officer for a corporation,” Salvatore said.

Using the example of a business, Salvatore explained a CEO has a similar scope of responsibility to a city manager and is accountable to a board of directors.

“In this case, council is the board of directors,” he said.

Staff report up through chains of command to the CAO, and the CAO reports to council, he added.

Working relationship

The city manager works closely with an elected mayor to set the agenda for meetings and get feedback from them about what they’d like to get done in any given year or term.

When the CAO and mayor don’t get along, that can cause a ripple effect that impacts the entire organization, according to Salvatore.

“The quality of interaction between the CAO and the mayor really makes it either positive or negative,” Salvatore said.

It’s on the mayor build consensus with council and, and chair, finalize decisions that the CAO will implement, he explained.

The city manager is also accountable for the performance of the organization, he added.

Coun. Cassi Hider recently blamed years of high turnover in the CAO role on Clark.

“We’ve gone through five city managers and there’s one common denominator here,” she said, in reference to Clark.

The relationship between a mayor and their city manager is crucial for city government to function and must be “close-knit and respectful”, Hider argued.

“If you have a mayor that will not communicate with either administration or her city manager or her council — you could call us her team — it impairs us from doing any work,” she said.

Two permanent and several interim city managers have served at city hall in the time since this council and mayor were elected in October 2021.

For now, Medicine Hat awaits a ruling in the mayor v. City of Medicine Hat judicial review.