Lac La Biche mayoral candidates talk politics past and present at debate

It was standing room only in Portage College’ s McGrane Theatre for Thursday evening’ s forum for mayoral candidates.

For two and a half hours, four of the five people vying for the position of Mayor of Lac La Biche County peddled their vision and ideas to the crowd of hundreds-and answered audience members’ questions, several that pertained to the functionality of County Councils past and present.

One of the first questions posed by an attendee pertained to the possibility of the County and Council’ s operations being reviewed.

“Are you in support of an internal municipal review of the County and Council?” was the question.

The answers given by candidates Alex Broadbent, Phylis Gauthier, Omer Moghrabi and Robert Richard varied.

Candidate Jerry Tratch was absent due to a prior engagement.

“We had a municipal operations review done with a previous Council here,” Broadbent said. “Why would we need to do another? The report is all there for everybody to read.”

Gauthier answered that she, too, is not in support of such a review, saying that, although she is unfamiliar with the County’ s current situation, she does not think it would be worth the cost.

“We had one with the Town of Lac La Biche, and the outcome was a little drastic,” she said, referring to a municipal inspector’ s investigation that led to the dismissal of the Town Council and the chief administrative officer.

Moghrabi said he did not feel comfortable answering what had been posed as a yes-or-no question because such questions leave little room for explanation. He elaborated that he’ s not aware of what an internal review would entail, or of what the financial implications are.

Richard defended the County’ s current level of transparency, saying he would leave it to concerned residents to decide whether or not a review is needed.

“There’ s nothing to hide here,” he said. “There’ s enough transparency built into our system. If enough people want it, I have no objections.”

A question later in the forum pertained to the out-of-Council meetings that were hinted at in the resignation letter left by outgoing mayor Aurel Langevin in May. The letter alleged that some councillors had been making decisions outside of public meetings.

Richard, who be came Acting Mayor after Langevin’ s sudden resignation before resigning from Council himself, was the first to answer that question.

“By law, all decisions of Council have to be made in public,” he said. “We have discussions outside of Council, and that’ s common and practical, but the decisions are made in Council in public.”

Moghrabi and Broadbent both said they understand the basis for private discussions. Moghrabi, however, said that he wants all of the talking to be done in one location: Council chambers.

“As a mayor, I want everything on the table,” he said. “If they have something to say, I want it done in the chambers.”

Broadbent said that he would work to ensure that the public is fully informed of Council’ s doings.

“If I’ m elected mayor, everybody will know what’ s going on,” he said. “You will be totally informed.”

Gauthier said that she observed out-of-Council discussions during her time working as an administrator for the Town of Lac La Biche.

“I was working for the Town when they did a lot of that, and then nothing could really be handled as a Council,” she said. “So I agree that that can’ t happen.”

Another question per tained to the County’ s recent controversies-and what the candidates will do if problems are not resolved.

“We have to pull together,” Gauthier answered. “That is the only way that we’ re going to survive as a community. We just have to push and push and push to make our community proud.”

Broadbent said that residents should never hesitate to voice their concerns if they feel that problems are not being addressed.

“This County belongs to you. It doesn’ t belong to the Council. They’ re your representatives,” he said.

Moghrabi said that resolving disputes is a critical part of teambuilding, both on the sports field where he has long experience and in Council chambers.

“You have to get a consensus,” he said. “If you can’ t, you just keep trying.”

Richard specifically addressed the different agendas that come to light during Council meetings, and how councillors need to see the bigger picture in order to move forward.

“Everyone that comes to Council has an agenda, whether it’ s for their ward, their community or their hamlet,” he said. “That’ s what we’ re there to do-look at the bigger picture, the greater good, and sometimes that means that somebody’ s not happy with the decision.”

Acting Mayor John Nowak was one of the 250 in the audience, and asked his own question, challenging Broadbent to shed light on the candidate’ s comments of the County’ s perceived political “dysfunction.” Nowak challenged Broadbent to cite specific examples of this “dysfunction.”

Broadbent jumped at the chance, saying he has “seen Council go around and around in circles and debate stuff instead of getting to the point and dealing with it.”

He also described a recent Council meeting where councillors spent a lot of time discussing something he said should never have been made their concern in the first place.

“It took Council 40 mi nutes to decide whether to go back and cut the grass at Owl River Hall. That should never have come to Council,” he said, to applause from audience members.

The other candidates also said that they felt Council was spending too much time on matters that their administration should be looking at.
Richard said that a big part of the mayor’ s role is to keep the meetings moving along and not to get bogged down by those issues.