Mar 23

Mar 23 The Shitshow Continues

The Way I See It

Kelly Here

Sorry, this is a long one.

Like many of you I was absolutely shocked by the draconian measures taken against Mayor Clark, the most severe they can come up with. They are literally the harshest penalties they can use unless they make some up.

(One of our previous mayors was busted for a crime, I wonder what sanctions he faced? Oh wait, he was part of the Old Guard! He was part of the wink wink, nudge nudge way of running a city!)

Just when we thought we'd done away with King Bob and any sense of a monarchy, they have effectively created a Queen.

The “crime” was questioning our City Manager (CM) when our mayor had questioned about why a bylaw was bypassed behind closed doors with the cooperation of the rest of council and in a clear violation of the Municipal Government Act (MGA). Not only that, it put the City of Medicine Hat at risk of being sued. Jobs were lost as a result of that reorganization which was invalid as the CM had acted before getting approval in open council.

(Sorry Councillor Sharps, a thumbs up behind closed doors does not cut it.)

When Mayor Clark questioned former City Manager Bob Nicolay .

25:00 Clark starts questioning staff about the budget for Tin Can Alley.

28:55 Nicolay starts to answer about pissing away an extra $1,100,000 on Tin Can Alley. Not one council member batted an eye, NOT ONE council member defended him. In fact, Councillor Shila Sharps had some questions too while incumbent councillors Hirsch and Dumanowski were covering their asses.

All of a sudden Council is so offended they must effectively banish our Chief Elected Official?

I call Bullshit

Let me remind you of who we’re talking about here.

Mayor Linnsie Clark’s previous job was as a lawyer working for the City of Medicine Hat. She would have been well versed in the City’s bylaws. Clark took a leave of absence to run for mayor. She said on her FB page

“...After a brief stint in Edmonton, I returned home in 2017 to work for the City of Medicine Hat in the solicitor’s department. Everyone in the solicitor’s department modeled integrity, hard work, caring, and community services. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with, and learning from, the varied departments within the City and participating in multidisciplinary project teams including the Development and Investment Readiness Team...Over the past few years, the City government’s priorities and values have been drifting away from those of our community...”

I think it’s safe to say that Mayor Linnsie Clark is far more knowledgeable about how bylaws are supposed to work and how our city is run.

CM Ann Mitchell’s former job was as the CAO of Lethbridge County. This is an area with a population of 10,130 with only 55 permanent employees. Mitchell’s first 2 CAO positions were in vacation townships with populations of 975 and 230 residents respectively. The third CAO position was in a township with about 5400 people. None of these locations could be called a city.

The largest budget she ever dealt with was $40 million. Medicine Hat’s is over $500 million.

For comparison, Medicine Hat has a population of 63,382 residents and employs over 1000 people.

I already wrote about this last year after the Shitshow Showdown.

Mitchell has created podcasts where it is obvious she believes in a strict separation between Council and CM, that she did not believe that Councils should be “getting into the weeds” of City Managers.

(Isn't it interesting that Shila Sharps used that exact term in the August 21 2023 Shitshow Showdown.)

Obviously Council is not allowed to tell anybody other than the CM what to do. They are however, expected to hold their sole employee to account.

Obviously Mayor Clark attempted to remedy the situation behind closed doors but decided to raise it in open council. I would assume she could not get a satisfactory answer out of Mitchell.

Mitchell’s master’s thesis concentrated on local government - specifically the important relationship between the CAO or City Manager and Municipal Council. It makes for some interesting reading. A document she lists on her thesis contains this

“When applying sanctions, council must consider the nature of the offending behaviour, its duration or persistence, whether the member's contravention was deliberate, whether the member tried to remedy the contravention, and the member's past record.”

(Source: R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Municipal Council Members’ Codes of Conduct (Find Out What it Means to Me)John Stefaniuk KC )

CM Ann Mitchell was here for a mere 5 months when she did a reorganization without first putting it in front of Council (her employer) in an open meeting. As a CM, Mitchell is expected to know the MGA inside and out. The City’s own Organizational Bylaw 4662 is all of 8 pages long, she should have known that inside and out as well.

Here’s how the coup started.

July 4 2023 Procedure Bylaw 4725 was added at the last minute to the Agenda for first reading. This Bylaw removed the mayor from ex-officio status from all committees as well as stripping the mayor of other powers.

(Perhaps the CM did not like the mayor looking over her shoulder?)

Discussion on bylaws only happens after 2nd reading.

(The public did not get a chance to look it over beforehand, it was added to the agenda packet later. So much for transparency!)

July 21 2023 Procedure Bylaw 4725 was passed at this meeting when the Mayor

- was not present

- was not able to share in the discussion

(Did they not think that having the opinion of the Mayor was important?)

The next meeting was not until

August 21 2023 when the Shitshow Showdown happened.

Mere months after being hired, Mitchell seized even more power than she was entitled to as per Bylaw 4662. Council, with the exception of Mayor Clark, thought it was all fine and dandy.

Before Mitchell arrived, only the City Solicitor had the power to hire and fire the City Clerk. It was the last piece of power NOT under the CM position and Mitchell grabbed that, hiring her coworker from her previous position in Lethbridge County to be City Clerk, one of the highest and best paid positions in the City. All paperwork crosses the desk of the City Clerk.

(City Clerk Larry Randle seems to be a nice guy and well qualified but the whole thing reeks of nepotism.)

Council in its infinite wisdom thinks that asking questions amounts to showing disrespect.

This sends a chill through my spine.

How is this going to affect the ability of members of council to ask questions of the CM?

(If I was sitting at that horseshoe I’d be worried about questioning anything lest I also be banished for offending Queen Ann. Okay, not me as I don’t care what others think about me but there are others who do care about their reputation.)

What if council member used a curse word? Would their tongue be cut out?

How about the rest of us?

Will people be thrown in stocks for not curtsying to our new Queen?

Will they pull our business license for committing the crime of Lese Majeste?

How is our City going to function without a full-time Elected Official at the helm?

(As far as I know, McGrogan is the only one without a day job.)

McGrogan said the other council members said they would help out as much as they could. Eight members means possibly adding another 5 hours a week to their schedule during City Hall hours.

(Hmmm, maybe this is why they've been wanting to shorten the closed meetings?)

Will calls to the Mayor’s Office be forwarded to Council Members or will they all go to the CM’s office?

(The CM was NOT elected to represent us.)

I asked some hard questions of Acting Mayor Andy McGrogan (they all take turns at being Acting Mayor and Deputy Mayor every 6 weeks) and he was reluctant to answer them, appearing to give me the stink eye. McGrogan also said he was not going to comment on what was legal and what was not. That is an astonishing statement for a former police chief to make.

(In comparison, I asked some hard questions of a person at an event earlier this year. After the exchange he shook my hand and thanked me for the questions, smiling as he said it. No stink eye and the smile appeared genuine.)

Two former council members who were unceremoniously ousted in the last election

have been quite vocal about their thoughts about this council.

It seems that after they were shown the door, they are now trying to weasel their way back in.

Former Mayor Ted Clugston (who received about 1/3 of the votes that Linnsie Clark did) has said that if he was the subject of a recall petition, he would move to Mexico; he also called this council a train wreck.

Former Councillor Phil Turnbull has been calling for Mayor Clark to resign.