Councillors ponder ‘miscommunication’

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This article was published 22/07/2023 (1019 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Differing accounts presented by city administration and the Public Utilities Board on a rate application by Brandon caught some city councillors by surprise this week.

On Monday, Brandon City Council discussed a proposal from administration recommending that the city withdraw its request to hold a public hearing on desired increases to water and wastewater utility rates submitted in July 2022.

While the PUB could still have decided to ask for a public hearing as part of that process, the city said leaving the decision in the board’s hands would reduce the review period for the application.

Council ultimately affirmed its desire to hold a public hearing, but PUB executive director Darren Christle told the Sun on Wednesday that withdrawing the request wouldn’t have sped up the board’s decision-making process.

Christle also told the Sun that the city’s application had not gone into the PUB’s queue for water decision until Jan. 26 of this year because of miscalculations and errors that had to be corrected.

While the city’s director of utilities, Alexia Stangherlin, referenced communication with the PUB at Monday’s meeting over the winter to answer questions, no reference was made to correcting errors.

Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7), who had asked Stangherlin about the delays, said Friday that he’d forgotten to mention at the meeting that the city had hired an outside consultant to work on the rate study, with whom council had met for an update at one point.

He said he thinks communication broke down somewhere between the city, the consultant and the Public Utilities Board.

“It’s one of those things that a little bit of miscommunication happens from time to time,” Berry said. “It wasn’t great timing, to be honest with you. I think we need to be better informed on things, and I think our city staff need to be kept better informed, especially if we’re using consultants or outside parties doing work on our behalf.”

He said if he had known all the information ahead of Monday’s meeting, he wouldn’t have asked what was causing the delay. He also wouldn’t have chastised the PUB for the delay.

When he gets information from an outside source like the Sun’s earlier story about the conflicting accounts on the rate application instead of from administration, he said that’s not fair to him and not fair to city residents.

Berry said he would be looking into why administration proposed to withdraw the public hearing request, and push the city to improve its efforts to be transparent.

On Thursday, Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) said the information provided to the Sun by Christle was something he had no knowledge of.

For him, he said one key element of council’s work is to have trust that administration is providing elected officials with the information they need to make good decisions.

“The trust that we have in our administration builds the trust that we should have as mayor and council with our residents and the public,” he said.

“And when that trust is questioned or broken, it creates a lot of issues. Probably more than anything else, my concern here is that if, in fact, there was information not provided to council on this particular item, it hurts that trust relationship we should have with our administration, and in particular our city manager, which is mayor and council’s only employee.”

Luebke said he was hoping to find out if there was a crack in the city’s system that might have prevented the information from moving its way up to council and to ensure that any problems will be resolved.

His colleague, Coun. Glen Parker (Ward 9), expressed less concern, but said he was seeking clarity on the matter and what exactly is the nature of the errors referenced by Christle.

“I wasn’t in the room and didn’t hear the conversation, so I’m just reading what I see on the situation and I think there’s some miscommunication,” Parker said. “I’m certainly hoping that’s all it is … and we’ve had some staff changes too, right from the start of this whole process. We’re to the third person in finances working through this.”

At the meeting, Parker expressed concern with the financial impacts of the delayed implementation for the increased utility rates.

He said the city’s audit and finance committee had projected a $1.35-million deficit for the city’s water utility by the end of the year based on potentially getting the rate increase implemented in September.

“That’s likely not going to happen now,” Parker told the Sun. “So that deficit, thus far, will grow. But it’s always bigger earlier in the year and tends to catch up in the second half of the year.”

Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10) declined to comment when reached by email, saying he’s awaiting clarification from city administration. However, he said the Sun’s story was “a surprising twist.”

Brandon Chamber of Commerce president Jamie Pugh, who was sworn in to the position last month, said in an interview that the organization wants to stress the importance of communication between the city and the PUB in this situation.

“Without communication, then things can easily be misunderstood,” Pugh said. “Because the financial implications will be felt by everyone in the city, we want to make sure that there’s an opportunity for both residents and businesses to be able to express any concerns or questions that they have.

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