Transparency
Transparency, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary means, “easily understood, evident and obvious”. A claim of being the most accountable and historically transparent council in Outlook’s history, made by a few members of council would therefore imply that everyone was always aware of the affairs of the community in which they were in charge. There are numerous times and incidents where this could be disputed, but I will touch on a few that come to mind and that residents and ratepayers may or may not know.
The firing of our Administrator in 2017, using a word thrown around by a few council members discussing the fire hall in a recent meeting, truly bordered on “disgusting”. Mr. Michelman worked in that position for 8 years as the town and R.M.’s joint administration. He did so admirably and had the confidence of both councils during this period. He and his family were heavily involved in the community and Mr. Michelman volunteered his time to many community events. Within a number of months after the 2016 election, he was terminated “without cause” in a vote of 4 to 3. This was a town decision, the R.M. was fine with him. The result of this action cost the town, although I don’t know the exact figure, approximately $250,000.00. Although a claim may be made that this was confidential, I am sure that Mr. Michelman would not care about the disclosure of the settlement but it should be “evident’ that the public should have been given some explanation on the dismissal and cost. To add insult to injury, upon his dismissal we have experienced a domino effect of administrators, the reason for which no one seems to explain without casting blame on others. The burden of 2 municipalities was one of the reasons thrown out, yet Mr. Michelman did so for 8 years. The town’s decision to dissolve the joint arrangement with the R.M. will cost the town at least $100,000.00 on a yearly basis. Ten years of cooperation ended at a substantial cost.
Another questionable nor “easily understood’ decision was when the town hired a Superintendent to oversee our already employed Superintendent, only to let him go in just over a year. Our community is not big enough to justify an extra position that this gentleman was hired to do. We need a hands on Superintendent which we already have and certainly didn’t need to pay someone that virtually watched our transportation staff work. It would be hard to justify the decision for this hire when within a year, he too was let go. The cost to the town in this instance was, and I am speculating, probably around $90,000.00+ for the salary we paid out to a position that was obviously unwarranted. Should we have owed him severance pay it could be more.
It should also be “obvious” to ratepayers that council expenses have gone up exponentially since 2017, which shouldn’t be a huge surprise with the number of committee and special meetings that seem to be constantly held. It’s confusing to me, that in the age of tech, that parties have to continually meet outside of regularly scheduled meetings. While granted that excess meetings with occasional committees and outside entities do come up, it is hard to believe that the number called by this council is warranted. In 2015, council expenses were about $35,000.00, today those same council expenditures are closer to $70,000.00, with 2 members putting expenses in that total between $16,000.00 to $17,000.00. This is public information.
Finally, all ratepayers should be concerned about the number of “in camera” meetings that seem to be constant. In municipal handbooks that are usually made available to all new councilors after elections offering information on the duties and working of council and municipal government, it explains matters that could be considered in-camera (e.g.legal, personnel, information requested kept confidential by a third party), but goes on to warn councils against over using this tool because it can make residents suspicious of their representatives and lack of openness. I am not sure how any council can constantly be going in-camera to discuss legal and personnel matters, this alone makes one wonder what legal issues are we constantly caught up in and why are we always discussing personnel. It only seems logical that these items should only come up periodically.
I certainly agree on one thing, and that is that any council that represents this town needs total transparency. Its representatives need to be open to the public at all times, which means engaging in conversations when approached in person or by phone. Councilors need to be free to offer their respective opinions and not just the opinion reached by council. Every individual has an opinion on one side or the other, each needs to voice it, and councils need to respect each view as well as the individual. In the end, democracy rules, resolutions are put forward, discussion held and decisions made by vote count. Our citizens should be put first and foremost in those decisions.
Bob Stephenson
Outlook, SK
