A scathing report into the conduct of Thorhild County council has been released and has resulted in ministerial directives that the municipality CAO resign and a councillor be disqualified.
Commissioned by Municipal Affairs, the 62-page Thorhild County Municipal Inspection Final Report details divisions between the five councillors, interference in the day-to-day running of the municipality and accusations of bias, bullying, threats of violence, improper conduct and general dysfunction.
As a result of the report Alberta Municipal Affairs minister Deron Bilous issued 14 ministerial directives that include the removal now-suspended CAO Betty Kolewaski and the disqualification of Coun. Larry Sission under the Municipal Government Act.
“It’s unfortunate when actions like this are required, but the provincial government has a duty to ensure the Municipal Government Act is being followed, so trust and integrity can be maintained at the local level,” said Bilous in a statement.
While current reeve Dan Buryn said he was yet to read the full report, having only looked at a third of it and skimmed the rest, he also said the county was fully committed to implementing the recommendations.
“There’s no choice in those matters regarding the directives, those have to be fulfilled,” he said. “After the meeting was adjourned on Tuesday, at the Legion Hall, I set an appointment with the acting CAO and then notified the deputy reeve and the three of us met and we reviewed all the directives.
“Council has basically no choice in those directives, they have to be followed.”
To fully understand what’s happened you have to go back to just after the 2013 municipal election.
Voters in Thorhild County elected two councillors who supported a landfill project, two who actively opposed it and one, current reeve Buryn, who nominally sided with the anti-landfill faction.
According to the report, divisions arose immediately as those who opposed the landfill moved to oust the then CAO Jim Squire — Squire previously served as Westlock County CAO.
The firing, which the report found was highly problematic in itself, saw the municipality pay $175,000 and issue a statement retracting allegations of “incompetence and dishonesty,” against Squire.
Council was quick to find a replacement, Kolewaski, who had significant experience in the healthcare sector but had not worked in municipal government. What Kolewaski did have was a pre-existing relationship with the two councillors who opposed the landfill through a group known as the Concerned Citizens of Thorhild County Society [CCTC].
Kolewaski had acted as the president and vice-president of CCTC while Sission had funded part of society’s challenges to the landfill and then-reeve Wayne Croswell enjoyed the support of CCTC.
The report also noted that Kolewaski had holidayed with some councillors.
Current reeve Buryn would not comment on whether Kolewaski still retained his support but said he believes in the hiring of Kolewaski.
“She had many years of healthcare management experience and when you get into the CAO role there’s a lot of recycling that goes on. People move to different positions, from municipality to municipality and she was someone who lived in our municipality and she is a sharp individual,” Buryn said.
“My goal was to have an administrator that could bring something new to the municipal end of things.”
The relationship between Kolewaski and councillors in the minority faction, Shelly Hanasyk and current deputy reeve Kevin Grumetza, deteriorated.
The report says that the council split 3-2 on “virtually all matters related to the CAO’s employment,” including performance evaluations.
In fact, the report found that the majority actively dismissed any critical feedback about Kolewaski. The split over Kolewaski was seemed to be just the beginning of what became an ever-growing rift between the majority and minority factions on council.
Time and time again the report found questionable decision-making had occurred.
Issues like that he old and new CAO, dismissal of senior staff, engagement of contractors and the liability of the municipality were rooted in confused and contradictory decision-making and breaches of the MGA.
One meeting council would pass a resolution only to rescind it a short time later and then subsequently pass another motion similar to first one.
Sission perhaps comes out of the report the worst as it recommended that he be disqualified from council and the minister has made that order.
His troubles are based in his interest in the payment of legal costs by council for challenges to the landfill by the CCTC.
Sission funded part of the legal challenge and when council heard delegations from CCTC requesting that the municipality make payments he declared a pecuniary interest but not at the correct time.
In one case Sission allegedly declared his interest after discussions about the payment. In other cases he declared them before discussion and did not take part in votes. The root of his problems comes from his subsequent claims that he does stand to gain financially from any payment by the municipality for legal costs to CCTC.
Either way, Sission remains defiant. While currently unwilling to reveal what his plans are, he said he has until the end of November to formally respond.
“I can tell you right now that all the information that was presented to Municipal Affairs was false and unfounded information and never was verified,” he said. “These newspapers and the inspector listened to the rhetoric and I was guilty.
One of the ministerial directives is that the municipality makes it public on their website, which has been done.
But Buryn, like Sission, takes issue with the way the report itself was prepared saying that the process was selective in the evidence it gathered and that he himself was only interviewed once and that he was not made of his full legal rights.
“Basically Mr. Farmer didn’t get any information from me because I was requesting what the accusations were to get a foundation, and then he basically pulled out the Public Inquires Act and showed me sections five and six which stated he had the powers of the equivalent of the Court of Queen’s Bench,” Buryn said.
“I was really taken aback by that. But as I reviewed it I saw section 12 stated that you’re entitled to legal council. So here are councillors being interviewed and you’re not given the full story of how the inquiry operates and that was quite insulting. After that we had no further discussion and Mr. Farmer never got in touch with me.”
