My family and friends have attended and watched many Monday city council meetings and we are surprised at the figures of attendance you recently reported (Gazette, Sept. 27) for councillors at regular meetings, especially Councillor Bob Russell who you reported to having only attended 119 of 134 council meetings – missing 15 meetings. We do not believe this to be correct.
You listed committee meetings separately. Your reporting does not make sense since there are only 52 weeks in a year and city council does not meet every week. Given holidays and summer break, council meets less than 100 times per year. We checked with Councillor Russell and he confirmed our figures and stated that he missed two meetings each year for holidays, and one meeting for his hip operation. The week following his operation, he attended the city council meeting via telephone.
Realizing the Gazette's misinformation in the (Gazette, Sept. 27), you only printed a small, so-called "clarification" (Gazette, Sept. 30). This "clarification" did not come even close to rectifying and accurately reporting Mr. Russell's council meetings attendance in the earlier story.
As a longtime resident and supporter of the City of St. Albert, Councillor Russell deserves more accurate and fair reporting from the local media concerning his council record.
Dorothy French, St. Albert
Editors note: The attendance records for city councillors included in the story referenced above included all meetings where city councillors were expected to attend such as regular and special council meetings, Standing Committee on Finance, Standing Committee of the Whole, Committee of the Whole, Intermunicipal Affairs Committee and other meetings. The data was provided by the city and is available online at https://stalbert.ca/cosa/leadership/council/attendance/ under the heading “Council Meetings.”
