Council to discuss possible integrity commissioner
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on February 11, 2025.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
City council will address the subject of an integrity commissioner when they meet today.
The City’s Code of Conduct Bylaw 6125 requires that council review that bylaw during each term “upon relevant legislative amendments or when appropriate,” says a report to council.
Two versions of amending Bylaws 6454 are being considered with one including the hiring of an integrity commissioner “with any person being able to submit a complaint” and one version that doesn’t include a commissioner.
Council previously dealt with the subject in 2021 before addressing it again in April of 2022.
By a 6-2 vote, council declined then to give first reading to a motion that failed to get past its Governance Standing Policy Committee.
A 2-2 split vote at that committee resulted in a defeat of a motion calling for first reading of a bylaw to amend the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw.
“Not hiring an integrity commissioner creates difficulty when it comes to triaging, summarily dismissing and investigating complaints. These difficulties are amplified if any person is able to bring a complaint,” states the report council will hear on Tuesday.
“Without an integrity commissioner, someone or council will need to receive complaints and initiate the complaint process. This individual(s) should not be the party named in the complaint, or a witness to the complaint. This ensures a procedurally fair and transparent process. Currently, that someone is the mayor or deputy mayor.”
The report adds “during an investigation, the benefit of an integrity commissioner, or an investigator is their ability and experience to move an investigation through the necessary process in a timely manner. If council is investigating, it will take additional time of councillors involved and may pose perceived issues when it comes to transparency and bias. Councillors that are witnesses should not be involved in the process as investigators, in order to ensure procedural fairness.”
Also on the agenda is an official business motion on membership on Inter-City Forum on Social Policy to be presented by councillor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel.
The councillor’s motion is asking her colleagues to authorize one council member and a member of senior administration to represent Lethbridge on the ICFSP.
The motion also calls for the annual $500 fee to come from the City’s operating budget and for the council representative to report back to the Safety and Social Standing Policy Committee twice per year.
“The Inter-City Forum on Social Policy (ICFSP) acts as an inter-governmental vehicle for information sharing, networking, and advocacy for and among Alberta cities and other major urban areas for the purpose of addressing social policy, program and service issues that are of concern to Alberta urban municipalities,” states the motion.
Lethbridge has previously been a member “and has found benefit in the group’s pooled resources and information as well as value in enhanced relationships with our fellow municipalities, provincial organizations and partners,” the motion adds.
Chief Financial Officer and treasurer Darrell Mathews will make a presentation on a request for funding from Southern Alberta Crime Stoppers.
Mathews’ report to council recommends that the one-time request of $10,000 funding for 2025 be referred to the Lethbridge Police Commission for funding through the police service’s operating budget.
The report says the money could also come from council contingencies with any future funding requests being referred to the future operating budget process.
The request for funding was made by Crime Stoppers on Nov. 12 to a meeting of the Safety and Social SPC.
20-19
Another overpaid, non productive fat cat position in City Hall. The jobs proposed for the integrity commissioner are those that councillors are elected to do.
More tax increases coming?