Mayor Linnsie Clark listens on during a council meeting on Monday evening. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

ANALYSIS

A return to ‘normal’? Medicine Hat councillors are hopeful

Sep 17, 2024 | 2:22 PM

Mayor Linnsie Clark was talking with councillors and staff at the horseshoe in the minutes leading up to the start of the council meeting Monday night.

There was a smile, even some laughter from the mayor.

It was a moment that stood in stark contrast to the last six months.

After council imposed sanctions on the mayor in March, Clark would often enter the council chambers in the few moments right before the gavel was slammed and avoiding any lengthy chats with those sitting near her.

It was an apparent shift in the mood around the horseshoe.

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“I do agree that happened tonight. It’d be nice to see that going forward,” Sharps said after the meeting.

“She was actually in here when we walked in, which is not often. So that’s nice to see. I hope that continues.”

However, Sharps pointed out council has been working together “the whole time.”

Coun. Alison Van Dyke, speaking on CHAT News at Noon on Tuesday, agreed.

Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

“Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the end of the agenda, but we did accomplish a lot,” Van Dyke told anchor Dan Reynish.

“I think we’re all professionals and we are there to accomplish the task given.”

While CHAT News made a request to speak to Clark following the meeting, it was not granted.

Council did make it through several decision and information items Monday night.

From approving a new code of conduct bylaw that creates an independent integrity commissioner role, pushing back a final decision on the creation of a pair of new reserve funds and working their way to through several other recommendations, councillors and the mayor were busy.

Council did vote to extend the meeting past the 11 p.m. end time and pushed off a few recommendations until a later meeting. They were able to get everything still on the agenda done by 10:58 p.m., however.

It was an apparent return to normal, or whatever the new normal is with a council that spend much of the last year publicly divided.

A tense exchange between Clark and the city’s chief administrator Ann Mitchell at an August 2023 meeting led to a third-party investigation and a report that council used as a premise to impose sanctions on the mayor.

Those restrictions took away her ability to chair council meetings and act as council’s official spokesperson, among other limits.

Many of those sanctions were wiped away by a Calgary judge in a ruling that still supported council’s finding that Clark broke its code of conduct.

Clark’s return to the head of the horseshoe at the outset of the Sept. 3 public meeting was followed by several exchanges that appeared to show continued cracks in the fractured council relationship.

Mitchell, the city manager, demanded more from the mayor’s apology to jeers from the public gallery and council went against the concerns of Clark about the cost and risk of a municipal inspection by voting in a majority to request the provincial audit.

But on Monday, the gallery was largely empty and viewership on the council live stream was down by over 80 per cent from the previous meeting.

When asked if council was getting back to the way it was before the code of conduct complaint, sanctions and court case, several councillors that spoke to CHAT News said they were hopeful because there was lots of business to get through before the end of the year and before the end of their term in 2025.

“We have a lot of work to do, we don’t have time for this nonsense,” Sharps said.

Medicine Hat city council meets next on Oct. 7.

— with files from Dan Reynish