Shila Sharps was elected by a margin of nearly 1,500 votes in 2021, and lost by a margin of 2,000 in this year's election. She says she didn't realize how large the conflict between council, the mayor and the city manager loomed until she saw the discourse in the month leading up to the election. Sharps smiles after being sworn into office in this November 2021 file photo.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
Shila Sharps initially ran for council because she was a downtown business owner looking for more input on the decisions affecting the city’s core.
Over the years of operating her business downtown, Sharps says she saw the bodies making decisions about things like construction and parking, and the downtown business-funded City Centre Development Agency had little to no representation from downtown business owners themselves. She wanted to change that.
She had been a careful observer of city hall before running for office herself. She says she knew the system could be convoluted and difficult to navigate, but she campaigned on making processes easier and more user-friendly for Medicine Hat business owners.
Overall, she says she feels like she accomplished what she set out to do.
“Downtown business owners started to speak up. There was a bigger spotlight on stuff. Does that make the administration happy? No. But whatever. We’re not here for them. Actually, it’s the reverse,” Sharps said in an interview with the News on Thursday.
“Administration is here at the will of council. But damn it, that’s not where the sentence ends. Council is here for the will of the people.”
Sharps was elected in 2021 by a considerable margin. Although she was the seventh of eight councillors elected, around 1,500 votes separated her from ninth place. This year, she finished 24th, the worst performance among incumbents and more than 2,000 votes away from victory.
It’s no mystery why she wasn’t re-elected, Sharps says.
The turbulent last half of her council’s term, which included the confrontation between Mayor Linnsie Clark and city manager Ann Mitchell, and the subsequent firestorm of headlines, including sanctions, a code of conduct complaint and a lawsuit, turned many Hatters against incumbents.
Sharps became synonymous with the scandal of the last term. But she says she wasn’t as central to the debacle as many people think.
“When Mayor Clark took (council) to court for the sanctions – justly so, she got a murder conviction for running a red light. How come I’m the only one with no legal fees? The rest of council has legal fees.”
It’s true she was the proponent of the code of conduct complaint. And Hatters found it difficult to reconcile that fact with her support of the mayor in other respects, including in her pursuit of reimbursement for her legal fees. Sharps says the code of conduct complaint was a matter of principle.
“That could have been the devil themselves, I would have done the same thing. That was a personnel matter. You go into closed (session), you deal with it like adults. I’m not saying (Clark) was wrong – she wasn’t wrong – but she was wrong about how she executed it. And execution is important.
“As much as there is so much more nuance, and people are divided over me, I dare them: if that was their daughter, mother, sister, brother in the hot seat that day being grilled on live TV. Would they say that’s OK?”
Perhaps more than any other councillor, Sharps inspired passionate polarization. Her supporters were steadfast. Some lingering “Re-Elect Shila Sharps” signs are still kicking around downtown. But her detractors were numerous and vocal.
Sharps says some of the ire directed against her is misplaced, or at least misinformed. She might have filed the code of conduct complaint, but she didn’t vote on the sanctions.
“Mayor Clark and I were not in the room. We had no say,” said Sharps. “She knows damn well I would never have agreed to those sanctions.”
When asked if the whole situation got overblown, Sharps was concise: “100 per cent.”
“This was an easy fix. I wanted her to just apologize. All of council would have let this go. Nobody wanted this to go any further. But when you don’t apologize – I liked the mayor. I’m one of her biggest fans. I was, openly. Do you think this was easy?”
She thinks the way the conflict was managed dragged out a process that could have been much more straightforward, although she believes they ultimately ended up with the right result.
“Ann Mitchell isn’t with us. And that was very much the right decision, but that was also two years later. If things were handled properly on August 21st (2023), maybe that would’ve happened sooner.”
If there’s one thing Sharps says people should take away from this whole affair, it’s the distorting effect of social media.
Sharps says from talking to voters, it was clear some people revoked their support of her on the basis of things they read online that suggested she started the whole confrontation, claims she says are patently untrue.
Now that the dust has settled, she says she just wants to see the new council succeed, and that starts with this council clearly defining its goals.
“Everyone says we haven’t had growth these past four years. Actually, we haven’t had growth in 20 years. But do we want to be 100,000 or a city of 80,000? What does this city want?”
She says she expects the same kind of advocacy and accessibility she tried to deliver.
“Don’t get me wrong. I am blunt. I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. But as a politician, I should be exactly what you want. I answered every email, I met with every individual and I followed it through.
“That’s what I want from my politicians. That’s what I want from (Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA) Justin Wright. That’s what I want from all these guys.”
Her advice to the new council?
“Speak the f*** up. If you don’t stand up for citizens, who does?”
