The Municipal District of Lesser Slave River council rejected an administrative proposal to spend up to $60,000 on an outside legal consultant to overhaul the municipality’s core governance bylaws.
Instead of outsourcing the work to a consultant charging $550 an hour, the council opted to keep the process in-house. During the Sept. 23 regular meeting, councillors argued that the existing documents are already fundamentally sound and only require minor adjustments that elected officials and municipal staff can handle themselves.
The original request for decision, presented by chief administrative officer Kevin Gannon, proposed hiring an outside legal consultant to undertake a comprehensive review of the procedural bylaw, the CAO bylaw, and the election bylaw. The project also aimed to establish a formal governance model to clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authorities of both council and administration.
Gannon explained that a consultant would help create a centralized roadmap for how governance works within the municipality. He noted the cost was estimated to fall anywhere between $30,000 and $60,000, a figure entirely dependent on how many hours the consultant would need to build a consensus among councillors and draft the final documents.
However, the high price tag immediately drew skepticism from around the council table.
Councillor Brad Pearson acknowledged the value of having clear, easily readable documents to smooth out transitions for future councils, but he firmly drew the line at the proposed cost of the project.
“I see the real benefits to this,” Pearson said. “But you know, we’ve been through this, and I don’t think we need to spend $60,000 on it. We felt each other out, we’re getting to know where everybody stands, and we’re going to get better and better as time goes on.”
Pearson added that paying a premium to essentially recreate existing policies was simply unnecessary.
“I don’t think spending money on it to reinvent the wheel for 40 to 60 grand is necessary,” he said.
Councillor Lester Vanhill echoed the sentiment, pointing out that the basic framework for the municipal bylaws is already in place, and that the municipality has previously spent taxpayer money to implement them.
“These documents exist, the framework is already there, and they have cost money to implement already,” Vanhill said. “Minor tweaks are what need clarification. It’s not a giant thing that a half-day workshop amongst councillors couldn’t hammer out to get the wording clarified and make sure it’s compliant.”
Vanhill further suggested that the tens of thousands of dollars set aside for the governance review would be much better spent on tangible infrastructure items, such as addressing equipment needs for the local water treatment plant.
“To automatically spend money for the sake of tweaking a few documents with common-sense changes is a complete waste of money, effort, and time,” Vanhill said.
A brief discussion followed regarding the potential liability of council rewording legal documents without immediate professional oversight. However, the prevailing view among the councillors was that they could review and rewrite the policies in their own words during a dedicated workshop, and then pay for a brief, inexpensive legal review just to ensure the new language complies with the provincial Municipal Government Act.
Ultimately, Vanhill put forward an amended motion directing the chief administrative officer to schedule a strategic workshop with council and administration. The half-day session will be used to review and propose necessary amendments to the CAO, organizational, and election bylaws internally.
The motion carried, effectively halting the $60,000 consultant expenditure and keeping the governance review in the hands of local officials.
Armaan Khanna
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter