5 Motions Plus 1 Notice of Motion in the April 7 Agenda Packet

On Sept 24 2024 Medicine Hat requested “an inspection of the Administration, the Mayor and Council of the City of Medicine Hat after a motion was passed at the Sept 3 2024 Council Meeting. The motion came on the heels of the Judicial Review into the following sanctions placed on the Mayor on March 21 2024. These sanctions were in response to a complaint filed by Councillor Shila Sharps about an exchange between the Mayor and the City Manager at the August 21 2023 Shitshow Showdown.

Justice Rosemary Nation found most of the sanctions to be “very severe”. Justice Nation also criticized the ability of Council Members to make reasonable decisions saying they “appear to have no sense of proportionality in crafting sanctions and have imposed sanctions that have no rational connection with the breach of the (code of conduct).

Not being satisfied with the judge’s decision and seeming to want a pound of flesh, Councillor Andy McGrogan brought forth the following motion to . He also moved, with Councillor Hider seconding, that they waive notice and consider it right away. They even voted to extend the meeting to do this even though they previously voted against extending a meeting at an earlier date to deal with Mayor Clark’s information request - the hypocrisy was palpable.

The Motion said

WHEREAS the City of Medicine Hat is a public sector organization dedicated to serving our residents and our community

AND WHEREAS the City of Medicine Hat, has had a fractured relationship between the Mayor, the City Manager and Council since the open Council meeting of August 21, 2023;

AND WHEREAS, as a result of an incident during the above noted open Council meeting, a Council member made a formal complaint against the Mayor which was investigated by a third party where it was confirmed that the Mayor had breached the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw;

AND WHEREAS on March 21, 2024, Council members imposed a number of sanctions on the Mayor in an effort to, at least, have the Mayor apologize in hopes that the functional working relationship between the parties could be restored;

AND WHEREAS, after multiple attempts to mediate the situation including two formal meetings, one involving an outside municipal expert and another involving a government minister, no positive outcome has come to fruition, and perhaps these meetings have further divided the already fractured relationships.

and Councillor A. McGrogan - Councillor C. Hider moved that Council, pursuant to the provisions of subsection 571(1) of the Municipal Government Act, requests an inspection of the Administration, the Mayor and the Council of the City of Medicine Hat.

Mayor Clark believed the last 2 whereas statements were inaccurate and requested that her objection be recorded in the minutes. The motion passed 6-3 with Mayor Clark and Councillors Robins and Van Dyke voting No.

The October 29 2024 Ministerial Order says

That Ian McCormack is appointed as the inspector to conduct an inspection of the management, administration, and operations of the City of Medicine Hat.

During the course of the inspection, the inspector shall inspect the following issues:

the roles and responsibilities of council and administration, including members of council engaging in administrative functions;
council making decisions outside of council meetings;
members of council's adherence to respectful workplace policies;
processes for the approval of unbudgeted expenditures; and
policies and procedures related to organizational structure, including
the establishment/disestablishment of staff positions and the establishment of designated officers reporting to council.
As part of the inspection, the inspector shall also inspect any other matters or issues that he determines to be necessary to prepare the report.

it appears as if the chickens have come home to roost

Recent Council Agendas have had a flurry of Notices of Motion. This is in contrast to Councillor Sharps March 4 2024 when she requested that an Agenda Committee be placed on the Agenda instead of using a Notice of Motion. In effect, Sharps was bypassing the City’s own Procedure Bylaw 4725 section 6.4 which says that any member can add an item to the agenda no later than one week before the meeting.

One year later, all of a sudden Council Members are abiding by their own bylaws. Some of these Notices of Motion are to address what we have called The Mayor’s Ask - information that Mayor Clark has been asking for for a long time. This is information that these very same council members voted or spoke out against, issues such as

Severance package details
Staff turnover
Number of contract and remote workers
Senior management expense reports
It appears as if they are trying to mend fences - last year they were blaming the Mayor for even bringing the Judicial Review, now they are trying to get the answers to her questions.

The Medicine Hat Owl has literally spent hundreds of dollars in FOIP fees to obtain these documents. The City filed Requests to Disregard to try to keep these documents from being released but the OIPC denied all of the requests the City filed, ordering them to fulfill them all. The response we received was incomplete or completely useless but now it looks like Council will finally get the info.