Vocal Council Members Need to Grow Up and Accept Responsibility
rThis isn’t High School
School is back in tomorrow and so is Council.
The recent remarks made by several City Council Members (McGrogan, Sharps, Hider, Dumanowski) have revealed the source of the dysfunction at the Glass Palace. These Councillors seem to think they are back in high school, that by deflecting blame they can hold themselves out to be the heroes. They need to stop acting like petulant teenagers.
These Council Members are blaming Mayor Clark for
being hard to work with
going through so many City Managers
not accepting offers of mediation, for choosing instead to go to a Judicial Review
Have these Council Members forgotten that it was Council that imposed outrageously over the top sanctions in the first place? Council told us it was because of the exchange between City Manager Ann Mitchell at the August 21 2203 Shitshow Showdown.
Many people who watched that exchange did not believe Council.
Many people believe that Council was caught with their pants down on August 21 2023.
Many people believe that Council’s extreme sanctions were a deliberate attempt to humiliate Mayor Clark
Many people have lost confidence in Council to make good decisions when they seem to be punishing behaviours not in evidence.
If there are other things the mayor is accused of doing, then please file a Code of Conduct complaint.
If she is found guilty, then punish her for those behaviours.
The March 21 2024 Special Meeting lasted less than 10 minutes with no public discussion.
Council had already made up their minds.
Council arrived at the meeting with the letter of reprimand and sanctions already written.
Council scheduled the meeting for noon, when most people would be at work and not able to attend.
Council was embarrassed once again because of what happened at the Judicial Review. Once again, they lashed out to make themselves look good.
Councillor Dumanowski piped in with a statement he sent to various media outlets (but not Community TV /The Trash Panda), saying that the reorg was done the way it was always done, confirming that Council has in fact violated the MGA in the past. Dumanowski has been on Council over 20 years and has yet to realize it had been done wrong. This is the exact reason we elected nearly a brand new slate last election. Dumanowski confirmed what the public had long thought, that the Mayor was being punished for behaviours that were not mentioned in the Code of Conduct Complaint.
Councillor McGrogan is insisting that he wants Clark to show humility. Humility or Humiliation? They already humiliated Mayor Clark and the residents of Medicine Hat when they imposed the extreme sanctions. The news went across Canada and made us a laughing stock. It created a huge division in the City.
Abusers demand humiliation from their victims.
Sharps and McGrogan have said that if only Mayor Clark had done this or that, it could all be behind them. That’s what abusers do, they blame the abused.
“Look at what you made me do, you made me hurt my fist on your face!”
McGrogan blames Mayor Clark for the legal fees for the City at the Judicial Review.
Again, McGrogan seems to forget that Council started this whole process by imposing such severe sanctions without explanation to the voters. Now he has said
“This is a really good example, this incident, if we want to call it that, of August the 21st where you could say that the mayor was right procedurally — but let’s say, if generationally we’ve always done it that way, how can we change to do it better so that we’re all aligned?”
Wasn't that what Mayor Clark was trying to do all along, make it better?
‘Councillor Shila Sharps confirmed to CHAT News on Saturday that council would have signed on to the trade-off if Mayor Clark agreed to Cuff’s recommendations.
“We 100 per cent made that clear we would,” Sharps said.’
Here’s the rub - we were told that Sharps was not part of the group that imposed the sanctions,
she was not present at the March 21 2024 public meeting. How can she be part of removing them?
Councillor Hider said Clark won't talk to administration. Maybe Councillor Hider forgot that Clark’s not allowed to because of the ridiculous over the top sanctions that Council imposed.
Hider blames Clark for the turnover of 5 city managers.
Robert Nicolay (Sharps along with other candidates discussed getting rid of him during the election campaign. Sharps said nothing when Mayor Clark asked Nicolay about the massive 50% overrun on Tin Can Alley in open Council.)
Merete Heggelund (temporary - Sharps told me in 2022 that Merete was making things difficult)
Glenn Feltham (temporary - I asked him if he was going to apply for a permanent job, he laughed and said no.)
Ann Mitchell
(There were a few Acting City Managers in between.)
We’ve heard from multiple Council Members that the mayor was hard to work with.
I get it - when someone insists that things are done in the proper manner, in the proper order, then yes, they can be seen as difficult.
I suspect there is some misogyny going on here. Where a woman is called difficult, a man is called diligent.
Council spent money to bring George Cuff here to try to put the mayor in her place.
Council invited Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver to weigh in, again to try to pressure Mayor Clark.
Council was trying to bully the mayor in private to go to mediation and dropping the Judicial Review.
If Council had imposed reasonable sanctions, people would not have been so outraged.
There might have been a little bit of a fuss but then it would have all gone away.
This is a mess of Council’s own making. Council struck first, by issuing such dictatorial sanctions. They took everything from the mayor, leaving her with nothing to lose by asking for a Judicial Review. Mayor Clark said months ago that she would abide by the results of the Judicial Review. She urged Council to rethink the sanctions to avoid this court battle. Council refused to admit they would have been wrong; instead, Council doubled down.
Given the history of this City Manager and Council with the secrecy and backroom dealings, I don’t blame Mayor Clark for not accepting mediation. I’d have taken it to a Judicial review too. See Timeline of a Coup. We heard at the Judicial Review that Council refused to pay for Clark’s legal fees but did agree to pay for City Manager Ann Mitchell to pursue a lawsuit against Mayor Clark. They didn’t bat an eye when the City Manager had Mayor Clark served with a threat of a lawsuit at her workplace.
I see that as an intent to embarrass and humiliate Mayor Clark, demeaning her in front of City staff.
If Council was open and honest about this from the start, the public would not be quite so angry.
If you want to sanction someone, fine. You discuss it in public and you give us an honest explanation.
Don’t feed us a pile of BS and expect us to lap it up with a smile.
