City reviewing lobbying practice after chief of staff vacated
By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on November 4, 2023.
https://www.medicinehatnews.com@MedicineHatNews The City of Medicine Hat is reconsidering how it conducts lobbying as the relatively new position of chief of staff is now vacant one year after the office was created and filled. That post was created in 2022 at the behest of Mayor Linnsie Clark along with a communications position, though council members at the time and since have said the position and $200,000 annual expenditure was to be evaluated for future budgets. After weeks of rumblings, city hall confirmed Friday that chief of staff Adam Nelson had parted ways with the city. “The chief of staff position is no longer in place and the corporation is taking some time to reevaluate the government relations strategy,” reads a statement from city officials. A communications person in the office is still on staff, according to a statement from the city, but most media requests since September have been handled by the city’s general office. The positions were approved in the 2022 budget with the goal of developing “a co-ordinated lobbying strategy, facilitate communications and analyze the impact of changes in higher levels of government and inform council and the mayor” about items central to the city, according to a posting with a head-hunting firm that summer. Nelson, a top ministerial aide with the Saskatchewan government, was hired in October of that year, but apparently left the post last month. The changes to the positions – which reported to the mayor’s office, and not the city’s chief administrators as with all other administrative positions – also comes after controversy this summer when council voted to limit the authority of the mayor’s position on several fronts. This fall council exercised voting control over committee appointments and limited the ability of non committee members, like the mayor, to take part in committee discussions. Some lobbying and intergovernmental affairs work at the city is conducted by the energy, land and environmental division as it pertains to the city’s natural gas operations and well abandonment plans. 12-11
