Given the current sad state of democratic affairs being displayed on St. Albert City Council, I believe one way to improve communication in future is to require all candidates in the next municipal election to file a full disclosure form of all director and executive positions held in all non-secular organizations over the past 10 years.
Why? Given the way that council, including the mayor, has behaved during this term, I believe there are serious questions about who each individual councillor is truly representing. In my view, too often, the citizens of this city have been required to pay the bills for pet projects of individual or groups of councillors, that quite frankly, smell fishy.
Is there a slate or cabal of councillors within this council, holding discussions and making decisions before council and board meetings are held? I don't know. I don't know, because I don't truly know who these councillors and mayor are when they aren't attending council meetings.
However, if all candidates were required to file a full disclosure of all past affiliations for the past decade, then the citizens of this city would know whom they are voting for. Each list should be published for the public's benefit as soon as an election is called. Also, any candidate or councillor found not to have made full disclosure should be immediately disqualified from council. In other words, full disclosure should be the price of admission.
If a candidate was a former board member of St. Albert Minor Hockey, the St. Albert Soccer Association, the St. Albert Arts Council, the Realtors Association, or whatever, that would be on full public display so that if a handful of candidates truly represented a slate of like minded individuals, then the electorate would know that right up front. In other words, if these individuals were elected and began voting for projects and initiatives that favoured a group they had been affiliated with in the past, then voters would have no one but themselves to blame.
The problem right now is that we really don't know whom we have elected. As the situation now stands, it would be very easy for an organization to plan to run a slate of individuals from their group for city council, and then dominate the decision making on those issues.
The potential of this occurring must stop and, in my opinion, the requirement for full disclosure should start before the next municipal election in St. Albert. Do any councillors have the desire to take up my cause? If you don't, why not?
Tony Kryzanowski, St. Albert
