A city councillor is decrying lack of accountability in Prince George's municipal government after council members met outside the public eye to discuss the Kin arena options.
Following a committee of the whole meeting on June 20, city council met with administration for an hour to discuss issues around the controversial decision to build a standalone arena adjacent to CN Centre rather than rebuild the Kin 1 arena, said Coun. Brian Skakun.
On June 13, city council narrowly voted to build a new standalone arena - a decision that Mayor Dan Rogers opposed. On June 20, council members and staff met behind closed doors.
"Discussion was around the working group, costs, where the new arena might go, how we could make this happen, could admin work with the group, did we need a consultant hired, what were the timelines to get the work done and issues like that," Skakun said.
Rogers then took the issue back to council, using a rarely seen clause in the Community Charter, and on June 27, council reversed its decision, opting to rebuild Kin 1 after all.
Skakun said he believes that under Community Charter rules, the discussion should have taken place in the public eye at the committee of the whole meeting.
"It was an informal meeting, but there was a lot of discussion as to what the [arena] working group would do and how admin would work with them, and a consultant if needed," Skakun said. "It was decided the group would get going ASAP and that admin would work with them to get it done."
City manager Derek Bates and all the members of city council, excluding Coun. Dave Wilbur who was out of town at the time, attended the meeting, Skakun said.
Rogers said the meeting was a routine briefing for council members to ask questions and get information.
"There was an opportunity for a bit of a briefing by administration," Rogers said. "It was mostly an opportunity for council to get its questions answered. These types of things happen all the time."
Bates said city administration holds information sessions for city councillors on a number of topics outside city chambers.
"Staff regularly provides briefings to council," Bates said. "We've provided briefing sessions on a number of topics."
Some of those briefings have included an orientation session, information on the community energy system under development, a primer on procurement law and flood preparedness information.
As an information briefing session, there was no agenda nor were any minutes taken, Bates said.
"From a staff perspective, the discussions with council were simply to provide them with information."
