‘Humiliating and intimidating:’ City manager discusses court case

Niki Anderson took a moment Thursday to reflect on what has been an eventful first few weeks as Regina’s city manager.

“Wow, what a first month it’s been,” Anderson said. “Moved to a new city, started a new job, got sued by one of my employers, ended up with one of my dogs going half-blind, then got vindicated by the courts and now we’re on to budget.”

Anderson spoke to reporters about 24 hours after a Regina Court of King’s Bench justice tossed out an application against the city manager that had been launched by one city councillor on behalf of another and a Regina resident.

If successful, the application would have forced Anderson to include funding for a homelessness plan in the city budget.

“In all seriousness, I will start out by saying as a new employee at the City of Regina, I found the actions of Coun. (Dan) LeBlanc and Coun. (Andrew) Stevens to be humiliating and intimidating,” Anderson said.

“As the judge said in the court findings, polite inquiry would have been of greater assistance and likely more effective than suing the city manager for breach of duty on Day 21 of her employment with the city.”

Anderson was hired by the city Sept. 28 and started her new job Nov. 1.

Her first day was nearly five months after council voted unanimously to have city administration include full operational funding in the proposed budget to solve homelessness through a housing-first, supportive-housing model.

During an executive committee meeting in September, Deputy Mayor Lori Bresciani told administration that council understood the motion meant funding would be discussed during budget deliberations but would not be included in the budget book as a line item.

On Nov. 21, the proposed budget was presented to council, and it didn’t include funding for the homelessness plan. The next day, LeBlanc filed the court application to force Anderson to include that funding in the budget.

On Wednesday, the application was denied. The next day, Anderson explained why she didn’t include the funding in the draft budget.

She said she consulted administration and councillors, reviewed documents, watched videos of previous council meetings and deemed there wasn’t consensus for the funding to be “hard-baked” into the budget.

“Because there did not seem to be consensus on the interpretation of that motion, by putting it in the budget book as a clear, separate line item, it would allow council to debate it,” Anderson said.

“I am also legally required to put forward a balanced budget, which is one where I think the mill rate has a likelihood of passing or being in the ballpark. Putting (the funding) in there, I knew it was an absolute no.”

Having said that, Anderson stressed she wants council and residents to continue discussing a homelessness plan during the budget debate.

That was guaranteed after Wednesday’s decision — and those discussions started Thursday.

“What the court ruling did was it brought the decision-making process back to council, which is where democracy happens,” Anderson said. “That’s where difficult issues deserve to be debated and decided transparently, inclusively and publicly.

“It’s at City Hall where your elected officials will debate and decide those difficult issues, which is a far more democratic process than one councillor and one citizen purporting to know the political will of all and trying to enforce it through the court systems versus going through the democratic process.”

After the application was filed, Mayor Sandra Masters said a great deal of vitriol had been aimed at Anderson. Some people even tried to find her address.

“Absolutely it was not a good feeling and it was scary because you don’t know,” Anderson said Thursday. “You have no idea if it’s just somebody angry and spouting off or if it’s someone that means it.”

She noted the initial reaction included angry messages, but the tone of those communications changed as time progressed. Her communications with LeBlanc and Stevens going forward could be difficult.

Anderson was seen talking to Stevens in a hallway Thursday, and she later admitted it was the first conversation they had had since the application was filed.

“(Being taken to court by an employer) is horrible and it’s uncomfortable and yet I know that I need to show up every day and do my job well and answer the questions that are asked,” Anderson said. “It’s a little bit of trying to separate the professional (from) the personal.”

Despite all that has gone on, Anderson said she has no intention of quitting.

“I am so happy to be here and I have zero per cent urge to not be here,” she said. “There has been no conversation or no whisper of me saying, ‘This is not what I signed up for. I’m outta here.’ ’’

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick