Hale Seeking To Stop The Bickering At City Hall

Brock Hale is a born and bred Hatter whose decision to run for council was sparked after watching council for the past few years.

His top priority, if elected, would be to have a council that could collaborate.

“The infighting, the bickering needs to stop,” said Hale, a local schoolteacher, adding his thoughts on the current council. “It was hard for productive work to get done when there was too much other contention and drama.”

Unless the internal strife can be wrested under control, everything else with be a struggle, he said.

While individual members of the current council may have been able to do things better, it’s the collective actions of council which was problematic, said Hale.

“It was the group dynamic,” he said, noting he has spoken with the four incumbents seeking re-election and that individually, they seemed fine. “It was just that dynamic of not seeing eye to eye and not having everything forthright and on the table to share with each other that caused this friction and contention.”

Addressing housing concerns while encouraging economic development are also key planks in his campaign.

And wrestling the issues surrounding the city’s energy division including those connected to creation of a municipally controlled corporation and the building of the Saamis Solar Project.

When it comes to transparency and accountability at city hall, Hale said, “there has definitely been an issue.”

He said some of that stems from the relationships between council and citizens.

“The last couple of years, I’ve tried to deal with some of our own neighbourhood and family issues and tried to approach different people at city hall and it was incredibly frustrating how difficult it was,” Hale said.

He said there is a friction between citizens, council and staff, “and that needs to get fixed before anything else can start falling into place.”

There has been some improvement recently, Hale said, and it appears city hall is heading in the right direction in trying to address concerns.

“But more needs to be done.”

Hale said the strengths he’d bring to council is a desire to communicate with others to find solutions in a collaboration, even when coming to an issue with different viewpoints.

He added that it is possible to disagree with a person and still have a working relationship with them, which is also a skill he’d be able to bring to city hall.

“I’m open, approachable and willing to talk to anyone, meet with anyone and be a part of the community,” Hale said.