Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson returned from vacation this week to a slew of unpopular decisions made by city administration.
He isn’t happy and he isn’t mincing his words.
“As mayor, I’m pissed off. I’m not happy,” he said. “I’m not getting the sense the City of Edmonton is being all that helpful, and that pisses me off.”
In one unpopular decision, memorial plaques on benches — paid by family and friends to commemorate relatives — were removed, forcing people to pay to replace them.
The donors were told they would have to pay $2,500 to replace the plaques.
Also this week, the mayor heard the city is forcing the Heritage Festival to vacate its storage facility in Hawrelak Park.
Iveson said he doesn’t know why those decisions were made.
“I’m going to have some frank conversations with senior management about this,” he said.
The city’s top bureaucrat, city manager Linda Cochrane, came to the defense of her staff.
“I do honestly believe that the vast majority of city staff take that idea of being a public steward, a public servant, a civil servant, very seriously,” she said Thursday afternoon.
The Heritage Festival Association has used this storage facility free of rent since the group built it 32 years ago. (CBC)
Cochrane said she’s confident there’s a good explanation for how both decisions were made.
“If I second-guess that, I’m not a very good leader,” she said. “They did what they thought was best.”
She said staff thought they were being reasonable in signing off on contracts.
Iveson said the city is supposed to be serving the community and making people’s lives easier, not harder.
“They’re making kind of boneheaded decisions that don’t respect our partners and are unhelpful to our public or even vexing to our public,” he said. “I’m as frustrated as Edmontonians, hearing some of these really strange decisions, unhelpful decisions, being made by city bureaucrats.
“There have been a number of other head-scratching decisions from our administration which I think needs a kick in the rear end.”
A culture issue
Iveson said he believes the problem is a cultural issue within the administration.
“And I don’t know where it’s coming from,” he admitted.
Cochrane agreed on the issue of culture, something city management is working to improve.
“I’m not going to blame anybody who’s doing the best they can to try to uphold policy,” she said. “Sometimes when you’re up against a member of the public or a strong user group, it can be intimidating and you fall back on policy.”
Heritage Festival
The Heritage Festival was told it had to vacate its storage barn in Hawrelak Park, which the group has been using rent-free since they built it 32 years ago.
The barn is in the same compound as a city maintenance yard and volunteers have to go through it to access the equipment.
The Heritage Festival Association stored all its gear, including tents, tables and electrical equipment at a storage building in Hawrelak Park. (CBC)
“We can work through those things,” she said.
Iveson said there’s no quick fix to the cultural issues but made it clear council needs to step in and take more of a leadership role.
Councillors return to business next week after a five-week summer hiatus.