AUMA Resolution defeated

Times Reporter     

 

With the annual AUMA (Alberta Urban Municipalities Association) convention coming up in September, time is running out to submit resolutions to be considered. These resolutions are looked at and considered by municipalities across the province. 

The deadline for resolution entries is May 31, and Mayor Michael Ell had one for council to consider submitting.

Ell’s suggestion was for AUMA to request that the Government of Alberta include provisions within the Municipal Government Act (MGA) that will require municipalities to review council’s remunerations, prior to each election within an election year, by a committee made up of public members of each individual community. 

Councillor Brad Walls made a motion to submit the resolution for consideration to call for mandatory public involvement in council remuneration review. 

Councillor Denise Peterson questioned why it would need to be brought forward to the province for consideration when many municipalities already do this in their communities and they have capacity from their community to do this themselves. 

“I don’t know if it would necessarily be better, this is just an option that I would put forward. With the request for changes to the Municipal Government Act that was sort of the motivating factor for me to bring this forward at this time, this is an option that council can put into their own policy if they wish,” said Ell.  

Peterson further stated that when seeking nomination to council she made a promise that she would not ever vote for her own raise in council, and that when council appoint committees she would do her best to ensure they are ethical but knows there’s all kinds of opportunities for the manipulation to happen. She wanted reassurance that the committee will remain ethical. 

Ell said he can’t give those reassurances, but said that members of council could come up with the best possible solutions to strike the committee, keeping it non-biased, and then the committee could come back with the best recommendation they can make. Ell was not sure how the committee would be made up, but said it should be with total involvement of council.

“In light of that my position will be to vote against this resolution because I do believe that our administration and our community can probably do a better job of deciding council remuneration than the province can,” Peterson. 

Councillor Rocky Blokland is against it, saying that in the past there had been a committee that worked hard on something like this and had their recommendations rejected. 

He said council is entrusted to come up with decisions on spending millions over the course of the term, and he believes council could come up with a true and honest dollar amount.  

Blokland also doesn’t agree with voting in their own raises, but did point out the fact that in three and a half years from now when the next election comes up council will once again be in the same position, another five to six years behind again, which is a no-win situation. 

The motion was defeated with only Walls and Ell in favour of it.