Jeff Burgar
High Prairie town council’s experiment in “rotating the chair” is over. Good riddance to that!

After the last municipal election three years ago, there was a certain cohort of people in the High Prairie community that didn’t like the voter’s choice for mayor, Linda Cox. So, behind and in front of the scenes, a few members of that cohort who happened to be elected to High Prairie council, worked to disrupt the efforts of other councillors to move the community forward.

The worst example of this was the constant praise of both the former CAO Keli Tamaklo, and a former treasurer, Herb Zettel. The list of Tamaklo’s mis-steps is long. Suffice it to say, at one point during a development hearing that went sideways, the late Quenten Emter, a well-liked and hard-working councillor at the time, found himself and his committee trying to make a decision.

But, they had no background or legal information to work with, as should have been provided in advance by the town manager. In exasperation, and politely as possible, Emter turned to Tamaklo and practically begged, “Keli, help me out here.”

Tamaklo sat stonefaced, either unwilling or unable to provide even the basics of the legal end of the proceedings.

Zettel had his own way of “doing the books” for council. He dissolved the time honoured and traditional system of putting away “reserves” for projects, such as repairs to a building, a new road, or public works equipment replacement.

Zettel was fond of bafflegabbing council with his thoughts on “current accounting theory says” and saying, “If you need money, just go to the bank.”

Municipal accounting is a mish mash of jumbled numbers in a forest where any person can become easily lost. Councillors wanting to know what was going on found no support from the disgruntled cohort members. There was always a “healthy surplus” to tide council over to fix those things needing fixing and build those things needing building.

And of course, there was always the bank.

Both Tamaklo and Zettel are now gone.

But, it was into this environment of motion with no direction, came the idea of changing the chair at council meetings. Traditionally, chairing meetings is the job of the mayor. But, here was an opportunity for the cohort to toss another brick through the window. They did, and convinced other councillors to go along with them. It would be “great experience” was the argument.

In the event, a few councillors wanted nothing to do with chairing a meeting. One councillor understood the chairmanship as meaning she could talk all she wanted, trying to out argue other councillors one by one, instead of everybody getting an equal voice. There was no feedback on the idea asked from the community. If there was introspection if everybody was really learning something, that was never made public.

And so, last week, it died. The decision was unanimous. Mayor Cox is chair for the final year.

We have an election in 2017. Any councillors with other grand ideas of how they will change council should let voters know ahead of time. Then, in the election, voters can decide if they like the idea.