Concerns over a consultant’s contract led to an unusual closed Surrey council meeting on March 21.
The result of that council meeting was a public scolding of three councillors by Mayor Brenda Locke, and public disclosure of what information council members are entitled to have.
After the meeting, a memo from city manager Rob Costanzo to council (in closed session) was released, along with a letter from longtime outside lawyer Don Lidstone. Both confirm that council members must go through the freedom of information process to obtain information that has not been made available through a council resolution.
Reporting by Tom Zillich of Black Press Media indicates that concerns raised about a contract to Hunden Strategic Partners of Chicago to offer ideas about future projects on the Cloverdale Fairgrounds and in Surrey City Centre led to the closed meeting showdown. Surrey First Councillors Mike Bose and Linda Annis had issued a press release saying that Bose had requested details about the contract from the city finance department, and was told to file a Freedom of Information request.
Costanzo’s memo states “individual council members do not have automatic, unfettered access to all city documents” and “a council member’s right to access city records is subject to the same processes and legal constraints as any member of the public.” He refers particularly to “privileged, confidential or otherwise protected” documents.
In terms of councillors paying the FOI fee that is levied on members of the public when they are seeking city records, the memo states they may apply for “fee waivers if the request pertains to a matter of public interest,” but there is no guarantee that such a waiver will be granted.
While all this seems to be straight out of a book like 1984, the fact is (as both memos indicate) that municipalities, council members and senior managers have their hands tied by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed in 1994 by the NDP government.
“Office of Information and Privacy commissioners have urged privacy heads (each municipality has an official in charge of FOI requests and privacy protection) to resist informal access requests from inside officials or employees,” Lidstone’s letter states.
While all of this raises many questions, the mayor and council do deserve credit for making public exactly how this is supposed to work. Locke scolded Bose, Annis and Safe Surrey Coalition Councillor Doug Elford over comments they had made in reference to staff resisting requests for information. She is right that staff should not be criticized in such a manner.
However, Annis said that she has never been asked to make an FOI request in her seven years as a councillor. Obviously, the process has not been explained very well until this time.
While the information about the $924,000 Hunden contract has now been released, Surrey taxpayers also have learned that a great deal of what goes on in city hall will remain hidden from scrutiny. They also understand better, as Locke herself found out in the last term under former mayor Doug McCallum, that it is very easy to keep information from elected officials who are not part of the municipal slate with majority control of council.
Freedom of information and protection of privacy is B.C. law and is deeply ingrained, but it is questionable whether it has led to more information going to those who actually pay the bills.
