With Mayor Annette Clews' apology on Nov. 5, Sundre's elected officials are given an extraordinary opportunity to prove they can rise above growing anger with the public over this fall's communication blunders.
In back-to-back issues – the future of the town's pocket parks and more recently the east side connection fee issue – town council has failed to correctly gauge the public pulse. With both issues, council pushed forward only to face hostility, and deep concern members are either taking the populace for granted or just not listening.
Fortunately for council, new chief administrative officer Dean Pickering saved them from a total public relations disaster. Pickering, who has only been on the job for just over two months, took it upon himself in late October to go door to door and speak with east side residents over the water and waste water connection fee issue, a matter that was discussed and approved earlier by council.
He had to tell east side residents, some of them lower income seniors, they had to pay $7,000 for each lot they owned by the end of business day on Nov. 14 or else the cost would jump to $15,000. Many were either outraged or frightened, or both. Pickering was left alone to deal with this mess, and despite resulting anger and hostility thrown his way, he went beyond the normal call of duty for a municipal CAO and talked to local banks to set up help for those who were worried about not having the means to pay.
“Quite frankly one of them should have been with Dean that night, either a councillor or the mayor and talked with the people,” said east side resident Arnie Gess at the Nov. 5 council meeting.
Unfortunately there have been no reported sightings of the mayor or any council members in the east side to comfort residents.
Clews has made her apology though, stating there was an issue with communication. But there will be some, perhaps many, who believe that words of contrition are best served when they are followed by action.
In council's case, the current problem with communication goes back a little further to the pocket parks issue. Again, there was a misstep in gauging the public pulse on green spaces, and it blew up in council's face. It forced the town to back off on an original motion to sell off the pocket parks and hold open houses, which will be held Nov. 28 and 29.
With those dates just a few weeks away, added to Clews' apology, council members now have that opportunity to prove they genuinely want to know what citizens think on an important civic issue.
But what about issues that arise in the future? What will council do to ensure it does not get caught on the ugly end of the public relations stick?
The town should seriously think about retaining the services of a qualified communications expert who has the smarts to forecast problems on civic policy before they blow up into public relations disasters.
In the meantime, Pickering, who noticed a community “disconnect” when he began his job in September, won't have to run around putting out fires like he has on the east side because the town's strategy on communications has been an afterthought. After all, he has a town to run.
And so do council members. They just have to find a way to get their messaging right.
