Candidates weigh in on city council transparency

Most Brandon city council candidates are calling for greater transparency in light of last week’s revelations about closed-door committee of the whole meetings.

“It’s a matter of law and democracy,” Ward 2 candidate Deveryn Ross said earlier this week. “I’ve had concerns about these closed-door meetings for some time now.”

Ross issued a media release on Monday in response to the Sun’s Aug. 14 story in which University of Winnipeg Prof. Aaron Moore argued the city should be more transparent in relation to closed-door meetings.

The city has held 78 committee of the whole meetings — most of which were closed to the public — since the new council took office in October 2022, the Sun reported. The meetings aren’t listed publicly, and minutes of the meetings aren’t publicly accessible on the city’s website.

Ross said the meetings “sideline” the public in terms of engagement.

“We’ve got a lot of smart people in our community … who could contribute on a number of issues if they were aware that the issue was there,” he said.

If he’s elected, Ross said he’d push to see the city rise to the level of other municipalities by posting council agendas with the necessary attachments sooner, as well as the meeting minutes.

“We’re behind. We’re not as transparent as some RMs and that’s unfortunate … They are miles ahead of us in terms of transparency,” he said. “It’s pretty sad.”

Sunday Frangi, who is also running in Ward 2, said he would “absolutely” review city bylaws to “see if there’s room to make changes” that would allow for more transparency.

“I believe the public should be made aware and transparency is important. We’re being elected by the public to represent them,” Frangi said.

Frangi served as Ward 5 councillor in Brandon from May 2021 until the October 2022 municipal election.

Sonikile Tembo, a Ward 2 candidate who currently works in the city’s planning department, said if the city was better at communication, the public wouldn’t be concerned about the closed-door meetings.

“We don’t set up council very well by providing some information on the Friday before a Monday meeting. With the amount of information that we’re reviewing, they truly need more time … to be able to digest and understand the implications (of decisions),” Tembo said in an interview Thursday.

She said if she’s elected, she would advocate for agendas to be posted sooner and would like to post video explainers on social media, breaking down the meaning behind city council documents.

Dale Bates, another Ward 2 candidate, said he believes the closed-door meetings are a good idea.

“Not everybody (in the) general public needs to know what you’re talking about,” Bates said in an interview Monday.

“There’s confidentiality between councillors and the mayor,” he said. “There might be things they don’t want the public to know.”

He said the public “eventually” has the right to know what council is talking about. “If councillors want to tell them, then they’ll tell them. If they don’t want them to know, they won’t tell them.”

Ketan Patel says if he’s elected to represent Ward 8, he’d also advocate for the agenda to be posted a week prior to a council meeting and thinks all meetings should be open to the public.

“I would definitely raise my concern about (closed-door meetings),” Patel said.

“Maybe raise a concern at the table and try to bring it to a vote and see if the members vote either in favour of all open public meetings or not,” he said.

Scott Pedlow — the most recent candidate to register — said non-confidential information should be open, transparent and take place in the actual council chambers.

“It was interesting as to the actual number of closed-door meetings,” Pedlow, who is running in Ward 9, said Wednesday. “The idea that there’s information in those meetings that is relevant to the decision making, I think sometimes those should be actually, you know, out in the open.”

Norah Woychyshyn, the other candidate for Ward 9, raised concerns around council’s decision-making process as well, saying it sometimes appears that council decides things prior to the meeting.

“It seems when you have a council meeting, it’s not really discussed. It’s just put forward and that it’s a given, that it’s going to pass. So, was it actually discussed beforehand? We don’t know,” Woychyshyn said.

“I do know the public is concerned that things have already been decided before the council meeting,” she added.

Mitesh Patel, a Ward 10 candidate, said he thinks the number of closed-door meetings sends the wrong message to the public.

“I will be in favour to open the doors for people because we are there for the people,” Patel said.

He gave credit to the city for livestreaming meetings on YouTube but noted the low viewership.

“Why should they even be part of, or watching meetings, which are open to people, while (councillors are) taking certain actions behind the doors? So that might be a discouragement for even the people who are interested to know what’s going on at the council,” he said.

Ward 1 candidate Ron Shaluk said he was surprised to learn about the closed-door meetings but doesn’t believe there is any wrongdoing going on during them.

“On one hand, I do feel the city is quite transparent,” Shaluk said, also noting the YouTube streams. “The closed-door meetings, to me, doesn’t quite fit that.

“I’m not suggesting that anything is wrong, but I just think in this day and age, it’s public decisions … it’s public money that at the end of the day is being discussed and how to spend it,” he said.

Shaluk said he believes there’s always room for improvement in terms of transparency.

He’s not opposed to the closed-door meetings continuing, but said he thinks a meeting summary is something the public would be interested in.

Three councillor candidates — Onybuchi Onuke (Ward 2), Enver Naidoo (Ward 3) and Dhara Patel (Ward 8) — did not respond for comment.

» rgerrard@brandonsun.com