During the District of Squamish Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday (April 26), communications expert Therese Mickelson gave council a lesson in communications - including instructions on when to speak as a councillor and when to speak as a district representative.
"There isn't a cookie-cutter approach that works every time," she said. "But ideally once a decision is made by council, then council members will back the decision."
However, she said, nothing is set in stone because councillors are generally allowed to speak to the media when and as much as they wish - no matter what the policy says.
"There's policy and then there's council," said Mickelson.
The councillor gag issue has been raised in the past and resurfaced last June when Sam the Axeman was moved from the Adventure Centre - a decision made by the Squamish Sustainability Corp. board when it was made up of only council members.
Coun. Bryan Raiser spoke out against the decision and alluded to a suggested code of conduct expressed to him at the beginning of his tenure stating that councillors should not be publicly critical of decisions once they've been made.
"The rationale is that a good council will stick by their decisions whereas a dysfunctional council will spend all their time sniping at one another," he wrote at the time. "I'm having a tough time with this since it's very difficult to publicly support something you feel with all your being is wrong."
After Raiser's statement, Gardner said it was untrue that councillors are discouraged from expressing dissenting opinions.
Mickelson's advice appeared to support Raiser's position.
"The question is whether the messaging is consistent," she said. "Are you going to have a debate in the media or in council chambers?"
Mickelson said council comments in the media are often seen as representing the district, so if councillors do wish to express a different point of view, they should make it clear they are representing their own views and not those of the district.
Coun. Rob Kirkham made it clear he didn't think council members would necessarily adhere to Mickelson's suggestions.
"You can have best practices and suggestions but ultimately, there are no rules."
Mickelson spent the past six months reviewing existing communications policies. She came up with more than a few recommendations and realizations in her proposed communications strategy.
"We're actually doing better than we thought," she said. "And it's good because the community has made it clear that they care about what's going on and improving ways to communicate - the pride in the community is tremendous."
Mickelson was hired after council identified corporate communications as one of the district's top challenges, citing low turnout at town hall meetings and lack of response to online surveys as examples.
However, Mickelson said Squamish council's expectations for public involvement appear to be quite high -but added that her comment wasn't meant as a critique.
"Yes, there are not huge turnouts at town hall meetings, but you had almost as many people as Vancouver did," she said.
Mickelson reviewed communications policies, structure and tactics, and undertook a community poll on the most effective methods of communicating district messages.
She said the results were generally positive, but respondents made it clear there was always room for improvement.
The key issues Mickelson identified were a lack of internal communication between senior staff and front-line staffers, and a lack of consistency and standards.
She said front-line staff are important because these people are the district's link to the community. Procedures need to be put in place to make sure they have the correct information in a timely manner to relay to the public, she said.
"We don't need to overwhelm people," she said. "They don't need a book - they might just need the Coles Notes version."
She said the district has a lot of public engagement tools - such as online polls and public meetings -that require the public to take interest, but reminded councillors that sometimes district officials need to go out to the public themselves.
Mickelson suggested having a district information booth set up in local hubs, outside stores or at events in the community.
She also said the current media policy, where all media interviews need to either be done through the mayor or approved through the mayor, was generally restrictive and suggesting revising the policy.
The staff recommendation to begin implementing the communications strategy and plan recommendations was carried unanimously.
