Councillors pan governance report
Review recommends examining longer terms, allowing mayor to regularly vote, council code of conduct bylaw
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Multiple city councillors expressed dissatisfaction with a consultant's report examining municipal governance during a municipal services committee meeting on Monday.
Mayor Mark Heyck, left, and deputy mayor Adrian Bell participate in a municipal services committee meeting Monday during a discussion of a report examining city governance. - Shane Magee/NNSL photo |
The city had hired consultant David Kravitz to carry out a governance review, looking at legislation, bylaws and policies to suggest changes to things like term limits, whether the mayor should be able to regularly vote and a revised code of conduct for council.
Coun. Adrian Bell called the 10 recommendations "fairly modest" in the 41-page report by completed in late 2015 but only presented to councillors this month.
Coun. Julian Morse echoed Bell's view, saying he didn't believe it was a "fulsome" report, though he said the issues considered had merit.
The report recommended council weigh extending term lengths from three years to four - a move that would need voter approval - a clear set of rules for council member behaviour established as a bylaw that includes punishment mechanisms for violations, lobbying the GNWT to give the city more power over establishing new taxes on things such as hotel rooms and bar sales, and improving communications between council and city staff.
The report cited a "weak connection" between council and senior city staff as an issue that needs to be addressed. Kravitz suggested a poor orientation process for new councillors is partly to blame.
"Two recommendations stand out as priorities," Kravitz stated in the report. "One is a new and more robust code of council member conduct. The second is promoting new taxing authority to both help support the tourism industry and to support the city's social programs."
Kravitz suggested establishing code of conduct as a bylaw would make it more publicly accessible and harder to change.
The report mainly presents high-level summaries but councillors were critical that it appeared to lack in-depth analysis.
"It would have been nice to have a little more detail, that's for sure," Bell said about a section of the report about whether the mayor should be able to regularly vote on council items.
Kravitz, who phoned into Monday's meeting, told council voting mayors are more common in cities of Yellowknife's size in Alberta.
Mayor Mark Heyck currently acts mainly as a chairperson for city meetings and can cast a vote if there is a tie. Although it has been rare for him to do it, one example is when he advocated - unsuccessfully - to include a splash park in the city's 2016 budget.
Heyck acknowledged the report is limited in scope. He suggested accepting it as information and develop a committee composed of himself and two councillors to further study the issues and make detailed recommendations.
That idea was met with resistance from Bell and others.
Bell said most of the recommendations could easily be discussed at a municipal services committee meeting, something Coun. Niels Konge also supported.
Coun. Linda Bussey supported creating a committee.
"I think it would be a very difficult conversation to have all together," she said.
Whether to accept the report as information and strike a committee for further study will be decided Monday by city council.
The city spent $15,350 for the review.
