It's becoming apparent that council for the District of Squamish needs to be tutored on Community Charter regulations.
Throughout this new council's mandate, there have been inconsistencies in the district's reasons for keeping information secret. Take the elimination of certain staff positions for example. When Dave Thomson lost his job after council decided the business lead position should be nixed for budget reasons, we were told the information on how council voted could not be revealed because the item was a personnel matter, thus in-camera. However when the firefighter position was eliminated, we were told the decision was not in-camera - we could get all the information we needed since it was a budget decision, not a personnel matter.
It's surprising how many times a councillor will answer a question with "Gee, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that." That lack of knowledge - yet full awareness of the consequences that could follow should they unwittingly reveal something that was supposed to be kept secret - makes some councillors (especially new ones)susceptible to intimidation.
Issues - and often innocuous ones - appear to be shrouded in mystery as the de facto rule becomes keep your mouth shut. This does nothing but undermine a community's confidence in its elected officials.
And more inconsistencies arise as staffers, board members and district employees tell different versions of what should be the same story.
We heard from Mayor Greg Gardner that the finance committee did not bring the Squamish Sustainability Corporation's budget to council because the SSC board had not passed the budget with the number of members needed to fulfill quorum. Yet former board chair Dave Crewson - with the minutes of the board's budget meeting in hand - revealed a quorum had been reached (and than some).
The firefighter's union says the department never recommended what they say is a dangerous decision to eliminate a paid position, yet councillors say they believed the recommendation came from the department. The go-between is former chief administrative officer Kim Anema - he resigned this week and is not returning calls.
These mysterious inconsistencies are probably less of a sinister plot to hide information from the public than a revelation that there's a loosey goosey interpretation of rules, as they seem to be applied on whims and convenience.
Ignorance is not an excuse when it comes to abiding to laws, and it shouldn't be acceptable for council to claim ignorance when questioned on policy decisions and public disclosure.
Who's running the show here, anyway?
