LAC LA BICHE - A delegation from Urban River Adventures, and Edmonton-based tourism company focusing on outdoor experiences, will be meeting with Lac La Biche County council Tuesday afternoon. The meeting is part of council's regular public meeting's agenda, but will be held in private, falling under Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) regulations described as "disclosure harmful to business interests of a third party."
The Urban River Adventures website displays turn-key camping experiences for customers at their unique river-side location in Parkland County. The experience offers rustic camping options for customers, as well as 'glamping' options in hard-sided yurt-type tents, camping meal packages, back-country hikes and water-based activities.
The in-camera meeting with the recreation company is at 2 pm.
An hour later, council will be meeting in their second in-camera meeting of the day, a delegation from Nations North Fort McKay Ltd.
The McKay Metis Group Ltd has a website that describes its collection of companies as a "social enterprise" that includes "companies specializing in services such as civil construction, security, rig moving, site amenities, industrial solutions, materials & consumables, crane services, transportation, industrial and specialty chemicals, and more."
The website does not have a specific reference to "Nations North Fort McKay Ltd" as written on the meeting's agenda. The meeting was again listed as being under the municipality's FOIP criteria, with "disclosure harmful to business interests of a third party."
Specifics of these discussions, along with recent private meetings — including a recent one where councillors agreed to create a $3 million budget to purchase some land — remain private. While the budget was made public in the recent land purchase discussion, the location, seller and intent of the purchase remains protected by FOIP conditions, say municipal officials.
Frustrations
Lac La Biche County Coun. Lorin Tkachuk understands the frustrations some may feel about in-camera meeting information, but hopes the public can focus more on the efforts being made to improve local economic development, rather than the specific, private discussions.
"I understand there are some in-camera discussions that happen around economic develop[ment, but letting the public know what efforts are going into economic development in the community is really important," he said, explaining he recently attended a conference session by the Economic Developers of Alberta that had a focus on public input during early discussions. "One of the things I took away is, who needs to know, what, and when."
Tkachuk said the frustrations rising from privileged conversations between elected officials can even be seen during meetings of the local economic development advisory committee. The advisory group, which is made up of two elected council members and up to eight public members, often delves into issues where council has had private discussions ... but the council members can't release information. In the future, Tkachuk hopes to release more details about upcoming economic development projects to the public members through the advisory group. But first, the group will have to meet in their own private meeting.
"We are going to let our committee know — in a little bit of an in-camera conversation with them — getting them more informed... because sometimes it's frustrating at that table when you hear, "Why aren't we doing this?" and we really can't tell them we already are doing that," he said. "I think that's a first step. So it's one of those things that will resonate with the public as well, once those public members are informed — and if we can determine what can be said in public and what can't be said in public — then (the community is) hearing it from public members that sit at that table."
Tkachuk says those discussions are expected to happen in the near future.
After a motion is discussed in an in-camera session, and if a formal motion is needed, the vote must be ratified at an open, public portion of the meeting. Any motions coming from in-camera sessions can be found in the approved minutes of that meeting.
