It has been almost one year since the city voted to hire a corporate marketing manager to aggressively pursue businesses to set up shop in St. Albert and council still hasn’t clarified its vision for the position.
That vision became no more clear Monday night as council spent more than an hour admonishing administration, arguing over how many people they wanted to hire and how much money they needed to do so.
“I have no idea what’s going on here,” Coun. Cam MacKay said at one point.
All that council has developed to date is that the corporate marketing manager will instead be called an economic development manager, will be made the general manager of a new division and would be a member of the senior leadership team, answering directly to the city manager. What council wants, as Coun. Wes Brodhead described, was an “economic development juggernaut” that would travel the province, country and globe to bring business to St. Albert.
Yet council was surprised when acting city manager Chris Jardine brought forward a recommendation to name the division Economic Development and Marketing, and hire a marketing co-ordinator as well as a general manager. Jardine referred to a conversation with two unnamed city councillors from which, he said, he deduced hiring two people would be the right course of action.
“Based on my listening to expectations, it sounded to me as if we needed to have an external focus on marketing that needed to be a part of this divisional mandate,” Jardine explained.
Yet back in June, before Jardine was promoted to acting city manager, council defeated a motion that called on administration to hire a marketing co-ordinator.
As soon as Jardine had finished his report, Coun. Cathy Heron took him and administration to task for adding the words “and Marketing” to the division’s name. Heron admitted she was arguing over “semantics,” but insisted the name be changed.
Then Coun. Roger Lemieux teed off on Jardine, effectively accusing him of going against council’s wishes.
“You were not informed by the two councillors we removed the words ‘marketing manager?’” Lemieux asked. Jardine started to speak before Lemieux interrupted, “It was clearly voted on.”
Mayor Nolan Crouse was forced to admonish council several times for attacking administration, trying to improperly debate motions and being unable to clearly tell administration what it wanted.
“We have not sent, in an entire year, a clear message to staff,” Crouse practically shouted at one point. “No wonder they haven’t hired anybody.”
In between counter-motions, improper amendments and a quick foray into committee of the whole that lasted five minutes, council finally decided to remove the words “and marketing” from the name of the division, transfer money from the corporate contingency account to the operating budget, bring forward a business case for a marketing specialist and to postpone additional funding for the potential general manager.
Council will revisit the issue during the budget process.
