MAYOR CRITICIZES BARN EVICTION
Culture of ‘helpfulness’ lacking: Iveson
Kicking Edmonton’s Heritage Festival out of its Hawrelak Park storage barn is only the latest in a string of “boneheaded” decisions by city administration, said Mayor Don Iveson.
“As mayor, I’m pissed off. I’m not happy,” he said, speaking to several reporters gathered at city hall Thursday. “I think there’s a fundamental cultural issue around helpfulness.”
City staff had told the festival it must vacate the barn within two weeks but softened its decision in the wake of criticism. The organization built the structure 32 years ago on leased city land. The festival had been in talks with the city on the issue for two years.It’s convenient to have tents, ticket booths, electrical supplies and water barrels close at hand. The location also allows other city festivals to borrow the equipment.
But city officials said it’s unsafe because it’s within the Edmonton maintenance yard. The city plans to use the barn for its own storage needs and wants the festival to use a nearby, currently leaky Quonset.
Iveson said he’s still trying to understand why this decision was made, but is committed to working with the Heritage Festival to find a solution. The festival is a key part of the community and city officials should be helping the volunteers and staff who run it, not throwing up roadblocks.
“There have been a number of other head-scratching decisions from our administration which, I think, needs a kick in the rear end and a reminder that we’re all here to serve Edmontonians, to make conditions better for families, households and businesses.”
The Hawrelak Park news is doubly frustrating because of the memorial plaque decision earlier this week, Iveson said.
Officials decided to require families to pay for upkeep of memorial benches every 10 years, as opposed to paying a one-time fee. Multiple plaques were pried off before news of the change went public and administrators decided to reconsider.
“The plaques one … I just shook my head at that,” said Iveson, who knows people who were memorialized that way. “That’s under review, which bloody well better mean it’s not going ahead because I think that’s just disrespectful.”
Officials have been trying to reform city culture for years — helpfulness is one of its five pillars.
City manager Linda Cochrane said the issues come when employees make a wrong judgment between an outdated set of policies and the demands of a specific situation. In this situation, having the festival’s storage barn within a City of Edmonton maintenance yard creates additional liabilities.
It would be better for Heritage Festival equipment to be stored elsewhere in the park or at least have its own entrance.
But city officials shouldn’t have given a deadline. They should have kept negotiating until both parties were happy with the result rather than digging in, said Cochrane.
“Sometimes when you’re up against a member of the public or a strong user group it can be intimidating and you fall back on policy. I get that. I’ve been there and I know how hard that job is.”
On the plaques issue, the employees were seeking a reasonable answer to a serious financial challenge. No one thought of the longterm maintenance costs when the memorial program started up or thought to put a limit or end date to the city commitment, she said.
But they’re continuing to look for a solution the city can afford that creates a memorial in perpetuity, similar to the way it runs graveyards.
All agree it’s a culture issue. Coun. Andrew Knack said he’s watched Cochrane push the idea of servant leadership and helpfulness for two years, trying to get city officials to stop seeing themselves as the only experts and focus on helping the community first.
Many infrastructure and planning officials seem to get this — they ’ve been thanked for sincerely listening and trying to help at recent committee meetings. But there are pockets of employees who resist, he said.
Civic events staff, he’s been told, are quite helpful. But they get overruled by others in administration when they try to find solutions.
“There’s a small percentage who just don’t want to buy in,” Knack said. “But it’s been two years ... If you’re not going to be on board, it’s time to look for something else.”