Up to Yellowknife council how to offset cost of appointing bylaw boss to new position

One of the many things Yellowknife's mayor and council will have to figure out during their review of the proposed 2019 budget is how to deal with the fallout of a decision neither council nor the public had any involvement in.

According to Mayor Rebecca Alty, there was no public discussion and no discussion by council in the decision last month to create a new emergency management division, and to appoint former municipal enforcement division manager Doug Gillard to head it up.

The move was seen by many as an expedient way to deal with allegations against Gillard that dated prior to 2014. Former bylaw employees alleged Gillard used controls on his city computer to manipulate security cameras at public facilities to zoom in on women he found attractive. An investigation initiated by council concluded this summer that it was "more likely than not" that the security cameras were misused.

After appointing Gillard to the new position, senior administrative officer (SAO) Sheila Bassi-Kellett said the change would not result in any additional costs to the city.

Mayor Alty said the job of manager of emergency planning was not put out to competition "because it's not a new position. It's just using our current resources to meet the mandate of the city."

The city says it will be hiring a new municipal enforcement manager to replace Gillard.

Up to council to offset cost

In the 2019 draft budget, the manager of emergency planning is the only position added to the directorate for the public safety department. The budget for the directorate is projected to increase by $137,000 in 2019. The reduction of one position from municipal enforcement is expected to save $81,000.

Alty says it will be up to council to decide during the budget review how to offset the cost of adding a manager to city staff.

In its review of the draft 2019 budget, councillors pore over each line in the budget. But the mayor says council's role in setting the operational budget is largely limited to setting totals for each department.

"When you get into the operations and maintenance section, that's where stuff's rolled up more as 'This is how much public safety requires and this is how much communications and economic development,'" said Alty.

"But there is that latitude for the SAO to make sure that resources are used throughout the organization wisely to meet the mandate of the city."

Updating emergency plan

The mayor said the new emergency planning division was created to update the city's emergency plan, which is just over two years old. Alty said the updates were prompted by the territorial government's renewal of its Emergency Management Act this year.

Several dispatcher positions have also been transferred to the new division.

Four months before appointing Gillard to the job, the city hired a new director of public safety who was eminently qualified to oversee any updating of the city's emergency plan. Eric Bussey took the job after working for almost 25 years as the territorial government's director of emergency planning, according to the city.

Alty said she could not publicly discuss what qualifications Gillard has to manage emergency planning because of privacy protection city staff are afforded under the federal Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act. (The city is not subject to the N.W.T. Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.)

According to the federal privacy commissioner's website, that act does not generally apply to municipalities. But the commissioner notes that, because it applies to all "works, undertakings or businesses" the federal government has authority over, and the three territories are creations of federal law, the act does apply to municipalities in the North.

In an email, the N.W.T. privacy commissioner says, as far as she knows, the application of the act in the North has not been tested in a court of law, and some may disagree with the federal privacy commissioner's interpretation of it.