Regina city council throws support behind city manager

Nine members of Regina city council threw their unanimous support behind city manager Niki Anderson at Wednesday’s council meeting.

A motion in support of Anderson was made and supported unanimously just weeks after councillors Dan LeBlanc and Andrew Stevens and advocate Florence Stratton filed a court application against Anderson because she didn’t include specific funding in this year’s proposed budget to help end homelessness via a housing-first, supportive housing model.

Wednesday’s meeting was the first time council met since the application was filed against Anderson.

Coun. Terina Nelson called the application being filed against Anderson a step backwards for council.

“I’m embarrassed to be a council member at this time,” Nelson stated. “We were fortunate to have Niki accept our offer to come here. She uprooted her family, she left her daughter that just had a baby in Edmonton. I’m so proud to have her here, I’m proud to have a city to have (its) first women city manager. I hope we can put this behind us and move forward.”

Coun. Lori Bresciani said the actions taken by LeBlanc and Stevens sent a bad message to the people of the city.

“I think it sends a very poor message and what I’ve heard from my residents and people who’ve reached out is they’re very upset it has come to this,” she said. “I hope that we can debate this at council and move forward as we know budget time will be a very long three days.”

Bresciani maintained that when she voted for the action taken on homelessness in June, she assumed what was being brought forth would be debated at budget time and that money for such a specific issue wouldn’t be added into the budget until it was debated.

“I will very clearly state that when I supported the motion on homelessness, it was to go to the budget for discussions, not to be accepted and be part of the recommendation from administration. That was never the intent and I didn’t support that. In my time on council, I have never approved anything to go into the budget without even knowing how much it’s going to cost,” she explained.

Coun. Bob Hawkins feels this entire situation should’ve been settled in the council chambers and not in the courts.

“I have complete confidence in Niki Anderson and I’m looking forward to her guiding our city for many years and being very successful at it. This matter could’ve been entirely resolved where there was ambiguity by bringing it back to council and allowing council to sort it out,” Hawkins said.

“I’m disappointed as a lawyer that the courts have been drawn into what is essentially a political matter,” he added. “I think it’s an inappropriate move to draw the courts into the position that we’ve placed them in. The setting of a municipal budget is one of the most political activities that I could imagine. I think that’s our job, I think we should do our job and I don’t think we need to rely on the courts and involve them in any way.”

LeBlanc and Stevens both didn’t speak or vote on the matter. They removed themselves from the conversation before the vote to avoid any conflict on interest in the topic. Anderson also wasn’t in the council chambers for the vote.

A judge is expected to hear the case next Tuesday.