An attempt to track attendance numbers for members of Calgary city council over the past two-and-a-half years failed to pass during a meeting of the priorities and finance committee.
It was brought forward by Councillor Jeromy Farkas but shot down by his colleagues when they were told the city clerk is working to have electronic voting ready by the time council resumes after their summer break.
“We have a reduced work team than we did previously and our team is focusing on electronic voting and this would require us to re-evaluate and re-assign someone to do this work,” said Laura Kennedy, Calgary’s city clerk.
She said someone would have to manually go back and put together an attendance report that Farkas wants dating back to Oct. 23, 2017.
“This would be three to four months, and it would be three to four months we would lose for that person’s ability to work on electronic voting.
“So, if you’re looking for an amount, I’m going to say $20,000.”
Farkas doesn’t agree with what that.
“It’s completely inaccurate,” he said. “To say it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to come up with that record. The work has already been done, it just comes down to being verified.”
WATCH BELOW (Oct. 17, 2017): David Boushy reports on why the City of Calgary has apologized and why the returning officer said it might be time to seriously consider using electronic voting machines in the next municipal election.
Councillor Evan Woolley questioned the intent of the attendance tracker.
“I don’t have a lot of citizens knocking down my door,” the Ward 8 councillor said. He believes electronic voting will give people the attendance information they want and doesn’t want to spend $20,000 to have city clerks do a manual count looking back at who was and wasn’t at a meeting two years ago.
Councillor Gian Carlo Carra was even more blunt.
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“My response to you is: when you bring things forward, please do not waste council’s time, do not waste administration’s time, do not suck up all the oxygen in the room because there are very important things that we need to deal with,” he said.
Carra says those wanting an attendance tracker will get it with the introduction of electronic voting at city council.
While the proposal was voted down, Farkas could still try to bring it to council if he makes changes to his original motion.
The Ward 11 councillor did have a success on the day: his appeal to limit the number of councillors who attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference each year and to limit the expenses they can claim will get an airing at the Feb. 24 council meeting.
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