Request for Cypress County legal and severance numbers amended

Southern Alberta Newspapers image from livestream Current Affairs: Cypress County council meets recently in Dunmore.

By Anna Smith
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The request for information regarding a summary list of costs related to legal advice and severance costs at Cypress County has been changed.

Due to the amount of work that would be involved with the creation of the itemized, year-over-year lists that were requested, the request would become a Program Request for information, said legislative supervisor LesleyAnn Collins, which requires a resolution to proceed with.

“My interpretation of the bylaw, I would say that an information request is more of an inquiry that can be dealt with in the meeting, or may require some interpretation of current policies … where a program request has political, budgetary, or policy impacts and involves a significant amount of administrative time and resources,” said Collins.

This is a different conversation to the ongoing discussion regarding a potential review of conduct done by Municipal Affairs, said Coun. Robin Kurpjuweit.

“This is simply wanting to pull up historical data that I believe is going to have some elements for conversations about cost budgeting and how we do things and process,” said Kurpjuweit.

Several councillors expressed concern in regards to the desire for information regarding severance pay, with Deputy Reeve Richard Oster asking why councillors would become involved with the matter.

Kurpjuweit expressed a desire for more information moving forward to better understand the past several years, and to assist with perspective in future discussions of council.

The request has been shortened to the past seven years, to remove some of the workload off of administration, and will return as either a request for information or another program request at the next county council meeting.