ATHABASCA — Athabasca County will be re-engaging its third-party investigator to look into an alleged incident between a county councillor and an Aspen View board trustee.
During their March 28 regular council meeting, councillors voted 5-4 — Reeve Brian Hall and councillors Ashtin Anderson, Camille Wallach and Natasha Kapitaniuk were opposed — in favour of a motion to direct the investigator to request the information required to meet the requirements of a formal code of conduct complaint from Aspen View, and to report on council’s handling of the matter.
“Clearly this is a mess, and this divisive problem has not been resolved by what we’ve done so far,” said Hall.
Councillors received a March 14 follow-up letter from Aspen View — Athabasca County was unable to share both the March 14 and the initial Feb. 12 letter, citing the potential for an investigation and the inherent personnel issue — which brought the issue back to the surface after councillors had left the matter hanging during their March 12 meeting. Councillors had voted 6-3 — Coun. Gary Cromwell, Joe Gerlach, and Tracy Holland were in favour — against a motion to request Aspen View make a formal code of conduct complaint.
In order for the letter to be treated as a formal code of conduct complaint, three things are required under the county’s bylaw: the name of the council member or members alleged to have contravened the bylaw, reasonable and probable grounds for the allegation, including a detailed description of the facts, and the name of the complainant.
Aspen View was unable to comment on the matter, citing the in-camera nature of its discussions, although board chair Candy Nikipelo did say the division would be working with the third-party investigator fully.
“Our intention is to fully co-operate with the investigation and answer questions as they are asked,” she said in a March 28 email.
