Councillors want to know who wrote critical letter

Councillors are calling on the city auditor to dig into an anonymous letter they received detailing a blizzard of concerns about the current snow-removal program.

The 11-page unsigned letter from apparent parks and road services employees last week was discussed briefly during a midseason snow-removal update to council Wednesday that will be back up for discussion Friday morning as the city hunts for improvements to the troublesome process.

Concerns raised by the writers of the letter are largely attributed to a merger of the city’s transportation and parks departments in 2017.

But Coun. Tim Cartmell said he’s wary of giving these anonymous claims any weight until an investigation by auditor David Wiun.

“I am very hesitant in attributing any credibility to something that’s anonymous, but that is balanced by the whistleblower element that might be present here, which is why it needs to be an objective third party that looks into this and reports back,” Cartmell said.

Having received the letter from an email account attributed to concerned parks and road services employees, Cartmell said the questions of credibility and the number of workers involved need to be contemplated.

“To speculate would begin to potentially attribute credibility and I don’t want to do that,” he said.

Interim city manager Adam Laughlin said the letter does contain information specific to city operations and is believed to be from employees.

In speaking to the claims at Wednesday’s council meeting, Laughlin condemned the letter being made public and criticized comments made about city employees.

“Speaking up is critical for flagging concerns and inappropriate behaviours of any sort. We must be diligent in continuing to encourage people to report their concerns and we must be equally diligent in ensuring those employees raising concerns are not penalized for doing the right thing,” he told council. “I am, however, very disappointed when alleged employees share their concerns about the service provisions publicly and make unfair accusations targeted at our current staff.”

Laughlin said he is comfortable with the human resources mechanisms the city has in place to deal with employee concerns, including a year-old safe disclosure office, and he wants city employees to be able to use those resources before reacting publicly.

“I do feel those mechanisms are in place and we are seeing folks that are using them. I do feel like this sort of information provided through one of those forums is more appropriate,” he said.

The city will be looking into new snow and ice procedures as well as options for increased residential service in an effort to respond to the challenging winter, with a report due back to council in June.

“There is no silver bullet alone that would have significantly improved our snow-removal efforts,” said parks and road services branch manager Brian Simpson. “We recognize that the conditions experienced over the last few weeks have been challenging for many Edmontonians. We all travel the same roads and we share the frustrations.”