Westman CAO flags hostility as issue in the province

The manager for the Municipality of Gilbert Plains has sparked conversation across Manitoba about growing hostility towards municipal staff and councillors.

The manager, Courtney Kostesky, wrote a public letter in January complaining of how hostility is impacting governance in Manitoba. She called for citizens to be more constructive in their engagement, citing her own experience as part of a trend in the province.

“Ongoing negativity, public hostility, name-calling, and personal attacks, often played out loudly on social media, take a real toll,” Kostesky wrote in her letter. “In the past few weeks alone, I have personally experienced all of this.”

“Everything from being called ‘CoCo Puff’ on a Facebook forum to someone commenting on my for-sale post on my personal business page, ‘That’s called karma… lmaooooo.’”

Kostesky said this hostility contributes to a shortage of qualified chief administrative officers in Manitoba. Routine personal attacks, blame and criticism can stack up and cause burnout, she said.

“Many good, experienced CAOs are leaving the profession, not because they don’t care, but because the job has become increasingly difficult to sustain.”

The letter was published in several newspapers such as the Neepawa Banner & Press, and the Roblin Review. Two Westman elected leaders supported the letter in comments to the Sun, and a spokesperson for the Manitoba Municipal Administrators, an organization that represents CAOs across the province, agreed hostility is a growing issue.

“Courtney’s letter is bang on,” RM of Pipestone Reeve Randy Henuset told the Sun in an email. “Every point she makes is starting to be (experienced) on a daily basis. I have been at it 20 years, and each year keeps getting worse.”

“She hit the nail on the head,” RM of Cornwallis Coun. Terry Ross told the Sun. “We are the closest form of government to the people, so they feel there’s a connection, that they are able to let ’er rip, I guess you could say it.”

Social media is often where it takes place, but it is difficult to simply ignore, because constructive and destructive criticisms are blended together, said Ross. Looking away is not an option because there is useful information that councillors and staff want to stay on top of.

“You have to have thick skin and not take it seriously, but at the same time, you’ve got to keep your ear to the ground,” Ross told the Sun in a phone call. “You want to see if there’s an underlying opinion or underlying problem you are unaware of, or that you haven’t thought of. You want to see if there is a valid point this person is trying to make.”

Ross last year found himself as the subject of a thread where he was named in a meme on social media. The photo was meant to depict Ross acting two-faced and betraying the former reeve of the RM of Cornwallis.

At the time, Ross told the Sun the post was concerning. But in addressing these things, he said this month his reaction is to communicate with residents offline.

“I guess I could have engaged with that person,” he said. “But I always welcome people to pick up the phone. Let’s go for coffee; let’s have a chat. What’s really the issue here? Let’s talk about it.”

Rarely does that ever come to fruition, he said. Ross added there have been zero times where a person lodged complaints and criticism online and then took him up on an offer to go to an in-person conversation over coffee, though he did say he has extended the invitations.

Social media has definitely driven an increase in hostility towards councillors and staff members, said Duane Nicol, past-president of the Manitoban organization that represents CAOs. Governments are now using social media to engage with their communities more than ever before, which is good – but the platform morphs engagement, he said.

“It amplifies negativity and rage to maintain attention, which is ultimately the product of social media companies, right? This is what they’re selling to advertisers: people’s attention,” Nicol told the Sun in a recent interview. “The negative conversations are the ones that are perpetuated.”

This would not be so much a problem if it stayed online, but more and more, municipalities report that hostility has crept into real life, he said.

“It is translating into emails, phone calls, and in-person visits with unacceptable behaviour happening,” Nicol said. “The topic is so frequently raised by members … The comments that they made in my presence were: ‘I’ve never seen it like this before. It never used to be this way.’”

Nicol, who is also the CAO of Selkirk, pointed to the RM of Tache due to an event last year. A Halloween decoration was arranged on a property with life-sized dolls hanging from nooses and labelled with municipal ward numbers, and marked with the word “karma” under a slogan: politics — all tricks, no treats.

Kostesky also pointed to a city grader being shot with a rifle while it was being operated.

Since putting out her letter in January, Kostesky said positive feedback has come from across Manitoba and other parts of Canada. People seem to be dealing with the same issue no matter where you look, she said.

“I’ve gotten emails from multiple different municipalities, different CAOs, council members even,” Kostesky said. “The same message: ‘Thank you for putting this out there. It’s great for people to see what we’re going through, especially in this day in age, especially with social media.’”

The letter came following a gradual build-up of hostility and a particularly noteworthy day, she said.

“It’s kind of been in the back of my mind,” Kostesky told the Sun. “Just one night, it was a rough day at work, and I was like, ‘You know what? This needs to be said.’”

Kostesky wrote in her letter that the issue seems to be contributing to lower quality governance in some cases. If CAOs are harassed out of their positions, it is bad for everybody, she said.

“We have all seen in many areas across the province what happens when municipalities are forced to hire someone simply because ‘they were the best candidate’ with absolutely zero or very limited municipal experience,” she wrote. “If we want strong, capable leadership in our municipalities, we need to change the conversation.”

Kostesky encourages people to call their municipality and ask for information, rather than guess or make assumptions or believe what is online. She said misunderstandings have become a big driver of hostility today, and even while there are sometimes good reasons to be upset, misunderstandings are not one of them.

In her letter, Kostesky had advice for citizens on how to engage, such as: criticize ideas, not people; model behaviour they would expect; and respect public servants as humans.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com