As a concerned citizen, I am disturbed by the lack of candour displayed by Mayor (Nolan) Crouse when I requested clarification relating to the recent remarks of Coun. Heron about the staff’s personal security at City Hall.
During the July 4th council meeting, Heron in her Municipal Affairs 571 motion (which Crouse and Osborne opposed), said that there were personal safety and security issues in the city’s work place. Employees felt they needed locks installed on their office doors for protection. She then said that the RCMP had to be called in to investigate these security issues.
Her initial remarks clearly insinuated that the cause of this anxiety for personal safety was the conduct of certain council members. On July 6th in a press interview, Coun. Heron then changed her allegations by saying she was not intimating this personal safety issue had been caused by the actions of councillors, it was apparently caused by actions of the general public.
When, however, the press interviewed the RCMP they were told they were unaware of any such security issues at city hall, and the CAO, Mr. Jardine, indicated that he had no such knowledge of any pressing personal security issues among the staff.
Since these conflicting reports created considerable confusion as to the actual situation, I wrote to the mayor and inquired as follows:
Can you now clarify for me if the RCMP has, or has not, been involved with the issue presented to council by Coun. Heron?
Can you advise me as to which parties are telling the truth?
Can you clarify as to whether it is an insider organizational issue, or a from the outside issue?
The mayor’s initial response to my inquiries was more of a distraction than an attempt to be informative. He simply referred to the fact some general construction changes ($252,000 unspent in over a year), designed to improve staff safety. If safety was such an issue, then why has it not been addressed until now? When I persisted in attempting to obtain direct straightforward answers to my question I received the following response: “Thank you for this. I have no comment on police files and as such do not plan to comment further on this matter I also have not seen a news release by Coun. Heron that you refer to. For me, this is case closed."
If there are genuine personal safety concerns for civic employees which are so critical that they require calling in the RCMP to investigate, surely the citizens are entitled to be informed of this serious situation. If we have a serious personal safety problem at city hall, the citizens are entitled to know it is being addressed and rectified. If this entire narrative is one stitched up from whole cloth, the general public is entitled to know there are actually no genuine concerns for employee safety at city hall. Of equal importance, as residents and taxpayers, when we make a civilized request for information because of our concern for our public employees, we certainly should be treated with enough dignity and respect to receive an honest forthright answer.
John L. Goldsmith, St. Albert
