Athabasca town council is looking for outside help as they seek to get back on the same page.
At council’s meeting last Tuesday, councillor Lionel Cherniwchan made a motion requesting a municipal corporate review (MCR), and the motion passed.
An MCR typically looks at operations, processes, financial management, legislation adherence, governance and council-administration relationships, according to the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties (AAMDC).
Cherniwchan called the need for such a review “self evident” after council canceled a recent meeting because the agenda could not be agreed upon.
Mayor Roger Morrill was in agreement with the motion.
“I think things have gone off the rails here,” Morrill said. “I think it’s time to bite the bullet on this and go ahead.”
Councillors Tim Verhaeghe and Paula Evans were absent from the meeting, however, Evans phoned in to vote on this motion.
“Situations have occurred in the last little while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I think this has to happen,” Cherniwchan said. “I’ll move that we request Municipal Affairs to appoint an officer to conduct a review.”
Councillor Colleen Powell said she would like more time to think about it before voting, while Richard Verhaeghe said he didn’t think council was at a state to bring in Municipal Affairs.
“This is very serious,” Powell stated. “I’m not sure we need the full meal deal at this point. I could be wrong. It’s not something I want to make a decision on very quickly.”
Powell stated that she was aware of these audits, as Boyle and Lac La Biche have conducted them.
“I’m not sure we’re there yet, so I would just like to cogitate about it for a bit. I’d be willing to make a decision by the next meeting.”
Richard Verhaeghe said he agreed with Powell.
“I think we need to think about this and see what the ramifications are, and secondly, I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Verhaeghe said. “I know we have some problems on council, and I think that if we got a mediator first that would be the first step.”
He went on to say that he didn’t think administration needed to be reviewed.
“It’s almost indicating that we might not have confidence in administration,” he said. “I certainly do. I don’t think we’re at the point where we need the government to audit us.”
Verhaeghe said he would like to see if council could work this out on their own first, before bringing in Municipal Affairs.
Councillor George Hawryluk was also on side with the motion.
“I’m at the point right now that I honestly think that something needs to be done,” Hawryluk said. “We have 15 months to go and based on what happened at the last council meeting that didn’t take place, we seriously need some mediator to help us sort this out.”
Hawryluk said he thought council needed someone impartial to come in and mediate.
“From my point of view, the biggest problem here is that we have the best educated council in the entire province on the municipal level, and yet we can’t seem to get along on anything from $1 to several hundred thousand dollars.”
Hawryluk said he wouldn’t speculate what the problem was, and that he is not going to judge.
Morrill asked for a recorded vote. Councillors Powell and Verhaeghe were against the motion.
According to the AAMDC, these reviews are not extremely common. Between 2007 and 2010, only six were conducted.
“MCRs were commonly conducted on a rotational basis by Municipal Affairs staff, in communities with a population of less than 5,000, from 1987 to 1999,” their website states. “Since then, only a few MCRs have been conducted, primarily at the request of council.”
