Stringent public disclosure requirements are now in effect in the City of North Battleford.
A resolution passed council Monday for public disclosure statements to be provided to members of city council, the city manager, the solicitor and city auditor.
All members of council have received public disclosure statement forms, all of which are to be filed with the city clerk within 30 days of being elected.
It’s a procedure authorized under section 116 of the Cities Act. Currently, the requirement covers elected officials, but the intention is to extend the requirement in the City’s Employee Code of Ethics, which would require other City staff to make the same type of disclosure.
That is expected to come to council in the next couple of months, City Manager Jim Puffalt said at the meeting.
Mayor Ryan Bater told reporters that he had submitted his own public disclosure statement earlier in the day. The disclosure forms have more rigorous requirements than those previously in effect, in line with provincial legislation.
“It’s new legislation that the province enacted, actually, on Election Day,” said Bater.
“All municipal councils across the province are required to disclose additional public information. The idea of a public disclosure form isn’t new. It’s existed in previous councils. What makes this one new is it doesn’t just include the elected official, it includes immediate family. Previously, an elected official would disclose their employer, disclose land holdings within the municipality and now we disclose those items of information for our spouses if one is married, and dependant children as well.”
The information will be made available to the rest of council and to the public. According to Director of Legislative Services Debbie Wohlberg, members of the public can request a copy.
The one obvious conflict of interest Mayor Bater has is in relation to his employment with Destination Battlefords, a relationship that has forced Bater to recuse himself from council votes involving that organization in the past.
It happened again Monday night, when an item came up about appointments of council members to the Battlefords River Valley and Destination Battlefords boards, at which point Bater declared a conflict of interest and left the meeting.
It fell to Deputy Mayor Kevin Steinborn to chair the meeting during that discussion. After council approved the appointments of a two-year term to the Battlefords River Valley Board of Kelli Hawtin and Greg Lightfoot, and Kent Lindgren to the Destination Battlefords board, Bater returned to council chambers for the rest of the meeting.
In speaking to reporters afterwards, Bater noted that was an example of how they deal with conflicts of interest.
“I declared the conflict, I left the meeting, so I took myself out of the discussion, wasn’t part of it, and I still don’t know what was discussed,” said Bater.
The changes and tougher disclosure requirements were sparked as a result of what transpired in the RM of Sherwood, where Reeve Kevin Eberle was removed from office over conflict of interest issues.
The Town of Battleford had also brought in more stringent requirements this year, in response to that incident and to new provincial rules. Bater noted it would have been “remarkably similar” to what North Battleford was doing, because it was based on the same provincial legislation.
“There’s an ever-growing need for more disclosure on the part of elected officials,” said Bater.
“As a council, we’re happy to comply with it because we also want to ensure greater public accountability to the people that we serve here as well.”
