Council has decided to fully reimburse Mayor Linnsie Clark for legal fees she endured fighting several sanctions issued by city council which were found mostly void by a King Bench Justice. Clark is seen speaking at the Unison at Veiner Centre Tuesday afternoon during a mayoral candidate forum.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Following a lengthy discussion Monday at the tail end of Monday night’s open council meeting, a motion passed to fully reimburse Mayor Linnsie Clark $59,675.68 for legal fees, with a vote of 6-1 and the lone nay cast by Coun. Allison Knodel.
During an open council meeting on Aug. 18, councillors voted to reimburse Clark for only $5,841.94 of a total $76,017.62 requested over fees she accrued following a judicial review of a code of conduct violation finding, as well as several sanctions that were mostly vetoed by a King’s Bench Justice.
At the end of a lengthy meeting Sept. 29, Clark indicated to council she would put a motion forward seeking full reimbursement.
Monday, Clark told councillors she felt she was on the receiving hand of abusive behaviours by certain members of council, as well as then city manager Ann Mitchell.
“I was forced to incur these legal fees because of council’s unlawful sanctions against me,” she told councillors via web meeting. “This is not about the breach of the code of conduct or anything else, this is regarding the sanctions that the Alberta Court of King’s Bench overturned as overwhelmingly disproportionate and unreasonable.”
Clark told council she was forced to seek legal advice and began accruing fees after sanctions were placed on her at the beginning of 2024.
“When council imposed these measures, I did not have a choice,” said Clark. “I had no alternative but to obtain external legal council, participate in judicial proceedings and defend the rights and integrity of the mayor’s office.”
Following her comments, Clark left the meeting, and for close to 30 minutes councillors once again debated the issue.
However, during their penultimate meeting together Monday (they will meet briefly Friday morning), several councillors spoke about “putting this issue to bed” and “moving on” from the dark cloud which has weighed on the current council since last year.
Coun. Shila Sharps opened discussion around the topic saying “irreparable damage” was caused between the mayor and Mitchell when a member of council leaked an email and spoke about compensation given to council and Mitchell for their legal fees.
“We had our legal fees reimbursed,” said Sharps. “She only took us to judicial review based on the sanctions. Now if she would have lost that, I would have said too bad, but she didn’t lose it, she did not lose her court case about the sanctions. So we talked about accountability, and she won.”
Coun. Andy McGrogan put forward the motion to reimburse the mayor and spoke briefly on the issue.
“I’ll be a little shorter, I agreed the last and I agree this time that we should pay it,” said McGrogan.
Coun. Alison Van Dyke also provided a brief statement about why she supported the motion.
“A promise of available due process is empty if no resources come attached to that process,” said Van Dyke.
Coun. Robert Dunamouski spoke about his frustration on the process of Clark’s request, but said it was important to move the issue forward and supported the motion.
“You just don’t go create a bill that grows and grows and grows with a law firm of your choice at any expense and then expect that it will come back,” said Dumanowski.
“Some things you just need to put to bed,” said Coun. Cassi Hider. “It’s not a personal thing, it’s just tying things up and having a clean slate.”
Coun. Darren Hirsch also supported the motion but spoke about the importance of preventing a similar situation in the future.
“I’m just wanting to make sure that we have some backbone in terms of very specific procedure because quite frankly when we went down this path, there’s nothing in the MGA. There’s no policy relative to what you do in these circumstances,” said Hirsch.
“I would absolutely appreciate as a takeaway on this that we see something for the next council that has some policy around this.”
The motion will immediately pay and reimburse Clark for her legal fees in relation to the code of conduct complaint, including the judicial review, permitted by the Council Code of Conduct Bylaw
In March 2024, members voted 7-0 to sanction Clark for contravening council’s code of conflict in a public dispute with Mitchell, including a 50 per cent pay cut, removing her ability to chair meetings and barring her from staff areas of city hall.
