ATHABASCA – Loretta Prosser has been disqualified from Athabasca town council.
Prosser has been away from her primary employment with a doctor’s note granting her medical leave, as well as council business, since her partner underwent emergency surgery in August, with the latest regular council meeting on Oct. 4 marking her fourth consecutive absence since then.
Town council discussed a personnel matter in-camera that was added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, then later voted on a motion by Coun. Ida Edwards “that council accept Councillor Prosser’s absence from the August 16th, 2022, regular council meeting,” which was defeated, according to meeting minutes on the town’s website. Both Prosser and mayor Rob Balay were absent.
With that decision, Prosser met the requirements of disqualification under the Municipal Government Act, Sct. 174(1)b, that states a councillor is disqualified if “the councillor is absent from all regular council meetings held during any period of 8 consecutive weeks, starting with the date that the first meeting is missed,” barring a council resolution. The first absence in question occurred Aug. 16, exactly eight weeks prior to the Oct. 4 meeting.
Had the motion been approved to accept her Aug. 16 absence, Prosser would have been back to council duties the next day, she said, as her medical leave was scheduled to end Oct. 5.
“So, when all that was going on, I got a doctor's note for work saying that I was on a medical leave,” she told the Advocate Oct. 9, referring to her partner’s emergency surgery and subsequent three-week hospital stay. “I told this to council too, that I can’t do one job and not the other job, so I wasn’t going to council meetings, and I wasn’t doing anything like that because I was not going to work, and everything seemed fine. Nobody had an issue with it, and nobody communicated with me at all, in all honesty … I was ready to come back basically the day they disqualified me.”
Under Sct. 175(1) of the MGA, “a councillor that is disqualified must resign immediately.” If they do not resign, council may seek an order from a King’s Bench judge to declare a person to be disqualified, at which point the judge will either affirm the disqualification and leave the position vacant; invalidate the disqualification and allow the councillor to return; or dismiss the application altogether.
If it were to proceed to that point, a disqualified councillor could appeal a decision against them. If successful on the appeal the court would “reinstate the person as a councillor for any unexpired portion of the term of office for which the person was elected and require any person who has been elected to fill the balance of that term to vacate the office,” states Sct. 178(3)a of the MGA.
As a discussion item that was brought in-camera, officials are bound by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), not to discuss publicly.
As such, CAO Rachel Ramey said, “I have nothing to comment on at this point,” reached Thursday morning via e-mail.
Prosser, who was elected in October 2021, finished sixth among councillor nominees, placing ahead of three others in last year’s municipal election. Since the town’s Oct. 26 organizational meeting, Prosser has been absent from seven of 19 regular meetings and attended three others via telephone. She was also absent from one of three special meetings called during that time.
She argues her absence should be covered through the same benefits that anyone else drawing a paycheque from the municipality has. Prosser also says she tried repeatedly to communicate through text and phone with council and administration because she wasn’t using her council computer, just as she wasn’t using her work computer, due to her medical leave.
“I went for one meeting with mayor Balay and he did not once say that if I don’t go to this meeting, then I'm out. He didn't say the word disqualified. He didn't say anything,” Prosser said.
Prosser said she wasn’t surprised at council’s decision not to accept her absence though, saying she has felt like an outcast on the newly elected council since Day 1.
“That’s what gives me the feeling they don’t want me back, that they wanted to do this,” she said.
A further e-mail to CAO Ramey and mayor Balay Sunday, received no response over the Thanksgiving long weekend before Monday’s deadline.
Prosser said she’s still deciding whether she will pen a resignation letter and deliver it to the CAO, as the MGA stipulates, or if she would eventually appeal a judge’s decision. She says she’s not even sure she wants to go back to council if reinstated, considering the circumstances.
“I don't know what that looks like, but I definitely feel like I would like to appeal it because it seems a little shady to me.”
