Regina city council approves interim REAL board after heated meeting

Regina city council has approved the appointments of interim voting members to the board of directors for Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL).

The people chosen were: City manager Niki Anderson; Barry Lacey, the city’s executive director of financial strategy and sustainability; Ly Pham, the chief of staff to the city manager; Jeff May, the city’s manager of sport facilities and special events; Jennifer Johnson, the city’s executive director of corporate services; and Maria Burns, the city’s manager of client services.

The first five were named as potential nominees in a report from Anderson’s office Thursday. Burns was nominated at the start of Friday’s special council meeting.

The nominations were approved 6-1, with councillors Andrew Stevens, Dan LeBlanc, Lori Bresciani, Cheryl Stadnichuk, Terina Nelson and Shanon Zachidniak voting in favour and Coun. John Findura voting against.

Coun. Jason Mancinelli, who was strongly opposed to the motion, left the meeting for the vote. Mayor Sandra Masters and councillors Bob Hawkins and Landon Mohl were not at the meeting.

In a media release sent out Friday, the city said using city employees “is the most efficient approach to swiftly and responsibly re-establish oversight of REAL at the Board level.”

“Each of the new interim directors has expertise that is well-aligned with the functions of REAL and that will allow them to provide effective, interim oversight of the corporation. These nominees are also an appropriate fit to lead Administration’s work, as directed by Council, on a report regarding structural changes to the management of assets currently overseen by REAL,” the release said.

Anderson told reporters after the meeting that she was pleased with the outcome.

“I expected it to be heated and I think ultimately it went where I hoped it would, where we would get to move ahead with the recommendations and I wouldn’t have been surprised necessarily if (council) had wanted to make different additions or anything like that which we were totally open to,” Anderson said.

“I think for me, I’m just happy that we have what we need to start moving forward with next steps.”

The new directors’ terms are scheduled to run from Friday to July 31, or until their successors are appointed.

On Wednesday, council voted to replace all of REAL’s existing board members. Later that evening, the city announced that all of the voting members had resigned.

On Thursday, the city announced that six members of council went to the city clerk to request a special meeting to appoint new board members.

During the meeting, tempers began to flare as Mancinelli got into a heated exchange with Nelson and Anderson.

Mancinelli argued that council is running the risk of recreating the Experience Regina incident by stretching administration too thin and cited a report by independent investigator George Cuff.

“That’s the direct mistake we paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and (a) national embarrassment to make,” Mancinelli said.

Mancinelli said he didn’t want his name attached to the vote before leaving Henry Baker Hall.

Earlier in the meeting, LeBlanc voiced concerns about non-voting members of the REAL board remaining in place, saying he wondered if it got in the way of creating “something of a clean slate” with REAL, which LeBlanc said had been his original intention when he approved the motion.

“I think non-voting members can still have some influence in board meetings, some of the old culture that plainly in the view of council isn’t working,” he said.

“So my hope is that this will be adequate to get us on a new course, but I have some reservations still about the non-voting members continuing at this point.”

However,  LeBlanc still said he would support the approval of the nominees despite his reservations.

Zachidniak, who also approved the decision, raised a few concerns she had received from constituents about the experience of the nominees but said those concerns were adequately addressed by Anderson during the meeting.

Anderson resigned from the REAL board this week, but she said Hawkins had not resigned from his position as a non-voting member and neither had the provincially appointed nominee.

The city manager’s report also recommended cutting down REAL’s board from nine positions to six, which would reduce the minimum number of voting members from seven to three.

The situation with the REAL board stems from council’s discussion about the possible dissolution of the organization.

Over the past year, REAL has been in the spotlight for its handling of Tourism Regina’s failed rebrand to Experience Regina, for a request by the board to the city to take back responsibility for the operation of the tourism body, and for its sizable budget request to address its growing debt.

Stadnichuk asked Anderson if the interim board will rework REAL’s budget request and Anderson said it would. She said REAL will come to council with a supplemental report on Dec. 5 or Dec. 6.

While the future of REAL president-CEO Tim Reid is up in the air, a statement from REAL on Friday said Reid was at work during Canadian Western Agribition.

When asked by reporters, Anderson said she couldn’t answer if Reid’s position will be considered by the interim board.

“We don’t have even an agenda yet, so I would say that you can expect that anything that is a board’s responsibility would fall under scope of the work that we would do,” Anderson said.

Anderson said the immediate next step is figuring out when the board can have its first meeting. She said she would like to have it next week.