There were mixed reactions from Westlock County councillors last week as ratepayer David Woynorowski presented the interim findings of his Internet survey.
County officials had their first opportunity to publicly comment on the survey at their Feb. 11 meeting, and while many thanked him for the information, reeve Lou Hall made a point of making her own concerns about the survey well-known.
Woynorowski appeared before council as a delegation to share the results of the survey he created when he was dissatisfied in the answers he was getting and the lack of transparency he says he experienced when questioning county officials. The 10-question survey, which runs until Feb. 22, was completed by 133 people to that point, 121 of which identified as someone who pays taxes to the county.
The interim results are overwhelmingly negative.
Upwards of 80 per cent of respondents indicated they were either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied on all but one of the questions, which ranged from asking about council’s performance as a whole, to openness and transparency, to whether they agreed with the decision to help fund the Tawatinaw Valley Ski Hill.
For instance, the question that asked whether respondents thought the county provided clear leadership and direction in response to ratepayer priorities came in with 110 of the 130 responses, 84.62 per cent, showing they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
“It’s unfortunate the survey results were so negative, however the survey clearly provides a signal to council that there are several matters you must address to regain the trust and confidence of citizens,” said Woynorowski.
Coun. Victor Julyan thanked Woynorowski for his work.
“It raised some issues. We all know we’re not perfect and we have to try to do better,” he said, adding he would have liked more information about those responding to the survey, such as their age of division,” said Julyan.
“The fact is that when you get facts presented for you, you can’t ignore them, they do call for a response and I for one will be doing all I can to make it more transparent.”
Coun. Jared Stitsen asked about questions referring to the 2019 budget process and the fact that the vast majority were dissatisfied with their level of understanding of where money was being spent.
“It’s for all of us within Westlock County to come to the meetings, we had very few sitting in here ... We invited people to come on in, it’s an open door. If you want to know where your budget is going and what the dollars are being spent on, you have to come to the meetings,” he said.
Coun. Dennis Primeau also made his thoughts known.
“I would really to thank Dave for the quality work he has done. I’m a firm believer in public engagement and this gives us a window into the perception of the county. The negativity is not hard to figure out. Council chose to disengage over half the population. Council wrote the book themselves, they can’t blame anybody else,” said Primeau, referring to the Tawatinaw plebiscite in 2017.
Coun. Darrell Osmond agreed that Woynorowski had put a lot of work and thanked him for the information.
He brought attention to the Tawatinaw question, which asked if respondents agreed with council’s decision to provide funding over the next three years. Nearly 72 per cent responded they disagreed with the decision.
“I am councillor of Division 5. I’ve had about 100 calls or more and about 60 e-mails about why we were closing it. Once we signed the agreement with Friends of Tawatinaw, I had another 60 e-mails that said ‘thank you’ and that councillors did a great job,” said Osmond. “I only had one call where someone didn’t understand the agreement, so I spent 15 minutes on the phone with them and when I was done, they understood.”
Coun. Fred Slobodian also commented on the Tawatinaw decision, noting that during the plebiscite, the further away from the hill you were, the more likely you were to want to sell it.
He also pointed out he was reflecting the majority of his Division 6 ratepayers wishes when he voted against the operating agreement. He did mention he had an issue with surveys though.
“People are going to react to a survey if they’re not happy. If they’re happy, they’re not going to react to a survey,” he said. “They skew the results in that respect.”
Reeve Hall’s response
When councillors were done asking questions, reeve Lou Hall read a prepared statement in response to Woynorowski’s survey and his presentation.
He took issue with this, calling for a point of order and later explained he thought it was improper for the reeve to read a prepared statement during a time for questions of a delegation.
Hall did not look favourably on the survey, questioning its intention, results and the respondents.
“Surveys can be crafted in such a way as to get the results you are looking for and have historically proven to have very low feedback numbers, rendering their veracity as highly doubtful,” she said.
“The one thing this survey has perhaps done is to prompt a response that is not sugar-coated and not done in an effort to downplay the issues facing this organization to somehow save face.”
She then went into describing the county’s recent, dysfunctional past, pointing out that things were much better than they had been before the Municipal Inspection Report was launched and that it takes time to fix a municipality when it was as far gone as Westlock County was prior to the last election.
“Make no mistake, we are fully aware of the real and perceived shortcomings of the organization. The challenges faced by new council and administrative leadership are and have been monumental. As unfavourable as the Municipal Inspection Report was, the inspectors acknowledged that had they been given more time and budget for the inspection, the report may well have been far worse. Let me be clear, it was far worse,” said Hall.
“This organization has been drawn back from the edge of an abyss into which we partly descended. Yes, there is much room for further improvement. We acknowledge that and are addressing those areas, but are also realistic, such a process takes time and effort.”
She went on to refute Woynorowski’s recommendations, point by point.
“There is no epiphany in your list of “matters for council consideration,” the vast majority of them have either been done already or are a work in progress,” said Hall.
“To continually apply negative attitude and harp on the areas we are still working on will get us nowhere. No, actually, to do so may well thrust us right back to where we were in 2016. This community cannot abide, nor afford such, and council and administration will and are doing our best to make this organization the best it can be for the betterment of all. That is the path we choose, that is leadership, and all are welcome to accompany us on this journey.”
Woynorowski said he was “surprised at how defensive” the reeve was in response to the survey results.
“Over 133 ratepayers, a statistically relevant sample, have made known their views and opinions on a number of important matters concerning Westlock County,” he said after his presentation.
“Any attempt to discount or diminish the importance of these views and opinion of 133 citizens is disappointing.
“Going forward, I would hope the reeve and all councillors would choose to focus their efforts in a positive manner by addressing the valid and important issues and concerns of Westlock County citizens.”
