ATHABASCA – Athabasca County councillors will be spending a day taking a second pass at their orientation once they have a new CAO in place in hopes that the program will provide more depth now that they have two years of experience.
During their June 13 council meeting, councillors voted 9-0 in favour of administration organizing a refresher of the orientation training once the new CAO is hired and to offer attendance to Town of Athabasca and Village of Boyle councillors.
“I participated in the original orientation, and they weren’t kidding when they said it’s like drinking out of a fire hose,” said Coun. Ashtin Anderson. “The more I think about it now, the more I think it would be of value now.”
The request for decision (RFD), prepared by reeve Brian Hall, stated “a mid-term refresher is a good way to keep on track with the obligations of the role and provide a reminder now that everyone has some experience.”
Despite the unanimous vote, there was some contentious discussion before it passed, in part due to the recommended motion not including the wording “once they have engaged a new CAO” that was added in by a 7-2 vote.
“It’s available for us to review, and attend the law seminars,” said Coun. Tracy Holland. “As much as I am in support of anyone wanting to redo our orientation, one, we have cancelled a regular council meeting that was on that day in part to allow holidays and councillors to have a bit of a break. Two, we don’t have our new CAO yet, who would also benefit if we are going to redo and hash out a refresher.”
Holland, who put forward the amendment to wait for the new CAO, also said that she had some concerns with what training they were being asked to do.
“About a year ago it was mentioned that if you don’t feel like you have enough training, that’s on your own time and on your own dime. I don’t mind if people have changed their minds, but my question then is what topics are we doing? I think one of the most important tactics would be workplace harassment; I think that’s something that this council would really benefit from, possibly doing it on a yearly basis.”
Coun. Rob Minns echoed the desire to wait, noting that the director position for infrastructure is also currently being filled on an interim basis.
“With the possibility of having some restructuring happening, I think that (what Holland said) is a good idea. I’m all for the training going forward and doing the refresher course, but I think we can hold back until we get permanent people in.”
Hall clarified what he had had in mind when he wrote the proposal, after there was some confusion over why local municipal partners would be invited to internal training.
“For clarity, the internal issue with ‘what does a public works director do?’, that wasn’t in spirit of what is here. I’ve since had the privilege of attending governance sessions on commissions in Westlock and that type of information is what I had in mind. It’s the bigger picture, one-day-type (of training). In my view, if we’re doing something that we are going to do for ourselves anyways, it doesn’t do us any harm to open our doors to our neighbors. If it helps them out, I think there’s some value in it.”
Coun. Natasha Kapitaniuk was the last speaker before the vote, and while she wasn’t personally in favour of the training, she said she would be willing to vote for it if that was what council wanted.
“I am not in favour of retaking a training on the public’s dime that we have done already. I’m usually, and will continue to be of the opinion that if you feel like you have missing information and the ability to go back and review that information online, then you should be prudent and do so. With that being said, I will vote for us to do it together and collectively as a team if it looks like this team wants to do it. I just don’t think it’s worth the money.”
