Hopefully St. Albert city council members are taking time on their five-week break from council meetings to refresh themselves on the roles and duties of council.
In particular, they should devote some time to review the difference between governance and management.
There’s been some recent debate between council members about the role of council when it comes to its involvement in day-to-day operations of the city.
Management of the city is supposed to be in the hands of the city manager and his staff. Council decides what it wants to see accomplished by setting policy and budgets. Staff is charged with implementation.
Sometimes this city council gets distracted by trying to dictate how city staff do their jobs – some would tell a worker exactly how to push a broom if they could – rather than focus on the broader policy role.
While Mayor Nolan Crouse might occasionally sound like a broken record about the need to govern and the need for policy, he has a point.
St. Albert is home to more than 64,000 people. The equivalent of 620 people are employed by the city full-time, plus casual workers. That is far too big of an operation for council to be trying to control every single thing that happens.
Yes, citizens will contact councillors directly with complaints if their driveway has been buried behind a windrow or their trash hasn’t been picked up. But any motions inspired by such complaints should address a whole-city solution, not one-offs.
It’s disconcerting to see council members waste time during important debates on minutiae rather than focusing on big picture items like the upcoming capital shortfall.
When it comes to day-to-day operations, council’s job is to establish policies, like setting a snow clearing standard. It is not council’s job to then go out and supervise how snow clearing occurs. If council doesn’t like how things are working, it should address it through policy or the city manager rather than resort to micro-managing.
Just look at the debate back in March. Despite a staff report indicating only a few more benches were needed for the Red Willow trail system, a councillor demanded 20 be installed. Council agreed to 10.
That brought a reminder from Crouse about working at a governance level: establish a policy for benches overall or drive yourselves crazy arguing over every detail. Get lost in the weeds and you’re not doing the job you were elected to do.
Council already has a lot of policies. One of those policies is entitled Council Governance Approach and it is a short, breezy summer read at two pages.
It suggests a set of principles for council to abide by, including principles like outward vision rather than internal preoccupation and strategic leadership more than administrative detail.
This past November, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce CEO and president (and former councillor) Lynda Moffat delivered a blistering wakeup call to council about decorum and the need to focus on the big picture, instead of arguing about small issues.
It was an excellent reminder then and one council members really must take seriously now.
