{"id":23572,"date":"2019-04-18T12:36:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23572"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:36:58","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:36:58","slug":"council-staff-relations-policy-could-have-public-impact-say-councillors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-staff-relations-policy-could-have-public-impact-say-councillors\/","title":{"rendered":"Council \u2013 staff relations policy could have public impact, say Councillors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New policies surrounding how members of Council interact with\nMunicipal Staff left some local lawmakers questioning whether this will have an\nimpact on how they can address concerns brought to them by local residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, following approval at the Committee level, Council is\nset to approve a new Council-Staff Relations Policy which will put a formal\nframework in place outlining a more \u201cdefined process\u201d in the relationship\nbetween a Council member and member of staff, following new changes introduced\nby the Provincial Government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA detailed and separate Council-Staff Relations Policy provides\nmore structure and defined processes in the relationship between Council and\nstaff,\u201d said Town Clerk Mike de Rond in his report to Council. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy incorporates various components of the Town\u2019s existing\nCouncil Codes of Conduct and Ethics, including provisions that \u201cno Member shall\ncompel staff to engage in partisan political activities or be subjected to\nthreats or discrimination for refusing to engage in such activities,\u201d that\nCouncil members be respectful of the role of staff to advise based on political\nneutrality, that no member shall impugn the ethical reputation or practices of\nstaff, and acknowledging that only Council as a whole to direct staff to carry\nout specific tasks and functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe proposed Council-Staff Relations Policy supplements the\nCouncil Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics by providing a more robust framework\nfor business interactions between Council and staff,\u201d Mr. de Rond continued.\n\u201cThis policy is intended to provide detailed processes around Council-staff\ncommunications to ensure that standards and expectations are clear and\nunderstood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, one feature of the Policy is the differentiation\nbetween requests that could be considered \u2018routine\u2019 or \u2018non-routine.\u2019 An\nexample of a routine request would be asking staff to contact a resident\nregarding a delegation to Council. A non-routine request could include\nrequesting staff to provide information where significant research is\nrequired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the policies contained in the new plan were received\npositively by Council, one particular tenet raised some questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a Member of Council desires to bring a matter to the\nattention of Staff on behalf of a member of the public, such as to ask a\nquestion or to act in a representative capacity for a constituent, the Member\nof Council shall communicate only with a Member of the Executive Leadership\nTeam (ELT) or a Manager except in respect of Routine matters,\u201d reads the draft\npolicy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner, however, questioned how this would\nimpact Members of Council addressing issues that are brought to their attention\ndirectly from a resident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a resident who was having an issue with her water\nbilling,\u201d she said. \u201cHer husband was not well and I said I would call staff\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[and]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

called the person in charge of water billing to get some clarification.\nWould that be appropriate.\u201d\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doug Narodozny, CAO for the Town of Aurora, responded that the\npolicy isn\u2019t intended to be completely prescriptive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it is a quick thing that you know who the person to contact\nis and you feel that person can quickly give you an answer, then there is\nnothing wrong with that approach,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it starts to get into a\ncomplaint, maybe other people in the organization should be aware of the\ncomplaint. Without all the circumstances, I wouldn\u2019t want to say that it was\ninappropriate, if it was a casual hooking a resident up with the right person\nin the organization that looks after that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Councillors, she said, have probably been in this situation\nbefore where a resident calls, says their water billing is too high, speak to a\ndepartment, are given a checklist to identify the issue and nothing seems to be\napply \u2013 leaving them to seek assistance from their Council representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess there\u2019s a lot of grey area,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor John Gallo said he was happy with limiting\nCouncil\u2019s interactions largely to directors and managers, his concerns lay in\nhow meetings are arranged after a resident raises an issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRequests for staff attendance at meetings organized by a Member\nof Council shall be made to the appropriate member of the ELT,\u201d the policy\ncontinues. \u201cNotice of at least 24 hours should be provided except in urgent\ncircumstances. Members of Council shall not attend a staff meeting, or a\nmeeting involving staff and members of the public without first seeking\npermission to attend from the appropriate members of the ELT.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a resident comes to us, has an issue, we direct it to a staff\nmember and\u2026we want to be involved,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe we can reword [the policy]\nmore from the perspective of, if there is a reason why we can\u2019t attend let\u2019s\nstipulate why that is, similar [to] the previous paragraph that said there was\na privacy issue. If we\u2019re involved in a resident\u2019s concern and communicating,\nwe shouldn\u2019t necessarily be prohibited from being a part of the meeting or seek\npermission to be a part of that meeting unless there is a good reason.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intent of that wording, replied Mr. Nadorozny, was not to\ninterfere with casual meetings on these issues, but if a Councillor approached\na staff member and wanted to have a meeting between the staff member, the\nCouncillor and member of the public, the \u201cstaff member [could be] a bit\nintimidated by the fact the only other person in the room aside from the\ncitizen who has a complaint\u201d is the Councillor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should be meeting with anyone below managerial\nanyway,\u201d replied Councillor Gallo. Before that, it was only the directors [in\nthe policy]. This is referring to the meetings and requesting permission to\nattend a meeting and meet with a manager or an ELT. I am somewhat bothered if\nanyone is being intimidated by any of us. I hope they don\u2019t. To me, if someone\nwants to stay in the loop, I don\u2019t want to necessarily have to ask for\npermission to be part of a discussion that maybe I brought to staff from a\nresident.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New policies surrounding how members of Council interact with Municipal Staff left some local lawmakers questioning whether this will have an impact on how they can address concerns brought to them by local residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-68c","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:53:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}