Big Brother Was Watching Me - 2021 Medicine Hat Civic Election
By Kelly Allard
I studied George Orwell’s 1984 in high school
I did not think I would live it.
I did not think that Medicine Hat City Hall would watch a civic candidate so closely.
Check out these documents. It is my belief that many documents are missing from my FOIP request.
NB - All redactions were done by the City
Jun 5 2021 Corporate Communication Google Alerts - Ten items listed, the only one not redacted is the article about me running for council.
Redaction reason “17.1 Unreasonable invasion of privacy”
17(1) The head of a public body must refuse to disclose personal information to an applicant if the disclosure would be an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy. Source FOIP Act King’s Printer
These are all items found with a Google search, so I call BS on that
IMH RFP /Orka 6 Fallout
July 22 2021 Article called “We Need New Blood” posted on my Facebook (FB) campaign page. (It seems to have disappeared from FB but is still up on my Instagram) They took a screenshot of not only my post but also a comment I made on another post. (That post is missing.)
July 23 2021 Jon Sookocheff Invest Medicine Hat (IMH) Economic Recovery Officer (Orka Business Development) emailed City Manager Bob Nicolay, IMH Managing Director Jason Melhoff (Orka Partner) and cc’d Eric Van Enk IMH Director of Investments and Strategic Planning (Orka Partner)
Subject line “Re: Kelly Allard Facebook comments”
“Hi Bob (Nicolay), Jason (Melhoff) – This was recently brought to my attention – a candidate for Council is naming IMH staff, personally, on social media (see attached). I spoke with Eric (Van Enk)and he asked me to bring it to your attention as well. Does the City have a policy that governs what candidates can and can’t say about City staff? Thanks for your feedback on this matter. Best Regards, Jon
Jon (Sookocheff) Thank you for sharing this with me …. I was not aware of this level of rhetoric. I will look into this immediately. Bob”
July 26 2021 City of Medicine Hat Corporate Communications staff was discussing what amounts to whether they could censor civic candidates on the City FB page, saying:
”Hey Colleen,
We had kind of touched on this idea a little earlier in the summer – but curious to know your thoughts and what (if anything) can be done about candidates using the City’s Facebook page as a platform for their campaign. Kelly Allard is probably the best example I have – she comments on anything Transit related, often throwing the City under the bus (get it?!) but the most recent example was a push I made for people to fill out the Parks & Rec survey over the weekend.
In cases like this, do we need to be ready with factual information? Do we delete posts where it’s clearly a campaign push? Or do we have to let this all ride until after the election? It just doesn’t seem right for any candidate to use our page as a platform, but maybe this is all my politics class talking.
Happy to chat more!”
Full article Corporate Communications Considered Candidate Censorship
Redaction reason is S24 Advice and Deliberations FOIP Act King’s Printer
July 28 2021 Councillor Jim Turner telling City Manager about his salary being in the news, names Linnsie Clark (misspelt in email) and Kelly Allard, tells CM to check out my website
NB - Turner was also asking about reducing the price of power to the lowest price. (RIP Jim Turner)
Aug 12 2021 Councillor Kris Samraj messages Councillor Jamie McIntosh re meeting with candidates, the importance of political succession planning and the need to develop better candidates.
Kris Samraj was one of the few full time councillors. He took the time to read the material and was one of, if not the most, well-informed council members. I did not always agree with his decisions but I appreciated the time and thought he put into each decision. At times he stood alone against the rest of council (8-1 votes). I had hoped he would run again last time but he took a break to do something else.
Redaction reason 17.1 Unreasonable Invasion of Privacy FOIP Act King’s Printer
Sep 14 2021 Colleen Graham gave me my very own category when sending information to CM Bob Nicolay about what civic election candidates were saying.
Redaction reasons
S17 Unreasonable Invasion of Privacy
S24 Advice and Deliberations FOIP Act King’s Printer
City employees are Supposed to Be
Politically Neutral
In the 2021 Code of Ethics Policy 8006 there was no specific clause regarding political activity but it did say
THE CITY OF MEDICINE HAT INSISTS THAT EMPLOYEE CONDUCT BE ETHICAL AND BEYOND REPROACH IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE AND PRESERVE PUBLIC TRUST
PURPOSE
It is the purpose of this policy to ensure that employees of the City recognize their obligations as public servants, to carry out their duties impartially, fairly, and honestly; to conduct themselves in a manner that is so scrupulous that their conduct will bear the closest scrutiny; and to avoid not only actual impropriety, but also the potential for impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.
This policy is intended as a guide to employee conduct in relation to certain specific areas. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to cover every factual situation.
Source pgs 61-63 City of Medicine Feb 6 2023 Hat Agenda Packet
The current Conflict of Interest Policy 8045 says
Employees
2.04 (f) Perform their duties in an unbiased, consistent and objective manner, without showing personal favouritism or personal animus towards persons interacting with the City;
Political Activity
3.06 (a) political activity by Employees is permitted, but must be conducted during non-work time and outside the workplace. Employees are expected to be politically neutral in performance of their duties.
This Was Three Years Ago, Why Should We Care Now?
1 We have another election next year
2 Many of the people involved still work for the City including at least one Managing Director .
3 Dennis Egert was looped in on many of the communications is the current Managing Director of Corporate Services, Ms. Graham works under him. (I’ve not yet seen any comments by Mr Egert but there are pages missing and a fair bit of redactions, the possibility cannot be ruled out.)
4 City Manager (CM) Ann Mitchell has shown us that she will bypass bylaws.
(Remember the Shitshow Showdown?)
5 We have FOIP requests being delayed, and applications to deny the release of information, even for The Trash Panda’s Thomas Fougere’s personal FOIP request.
6 We have new security measures at City Hall; the public cannot even access the public spaces such as the Helen Beny Gibson lounge until the end of the year.
The excuse about construction is BS. When an area is blocked off for construction there’s no chance in hell that any staff would be allowed in, that would violate safety regulations.
If they said these things about me during the election, what were they saying about the rest of the other candidates (including mayoral candidates)?
How does that affect how they do business today?
What are they saying now about people?
If you ran in the 2021 Medicine Hat Civic Election, it might be interesting to Go FOIP Yourself, it’s free to receive your own personal information. They can charge you for printed media or you can choose to receive the information electronically.
February 2022 Corporate Communications formally refused to treat us as media.
This is one of the reasons they gave -
“Equally important, we have the expectation that the media outlets we work with will operate with integrity, respect, and professionalism. If we feel that understanding is not in place or that we can’t be confident those principles will be upheld, we are comfortable declining involvement.”
Yeah, about that whole integrity, respect and professionalism thing…we have a few questions.
#yxh #medicinehat #yxhcityhall #annmitchell #dennisegert #mayorclark #goFOIPyourself #colleen graham
