The Manitoba Municipal Administrators Association (MMAA) held their annual conference in Winnipeg, and among those invited to speak were Portage la Prairie Mayor Sharilyn Knox and City Manager Nathan Peto. Knox notes what they were asked to speak on at the event.
"I was invited, along with city manager Nathan Peto, to do a keynote presentation on the relationship between CAO (Chief Administrative Officer) and Mayor, or on a larger scale, the city administration and council. We are seeing, across the country, just growing concerns with some of those relationships. When I became mayor back in 2022, there were 22 open positions in our province for CAOs. So, what we're finding is that some of those relationships just aren't that great, for whatever reason. What we wanted to do was give some best practices on how we work together and how we are successful in that, and some of the ways that we communicate, some of the ways that our administration communicates with us as Council."
Knox added that the strained relationships between government and administration can be a significant problem for municipalities.
"If you think about it, there could be somebody in a senior management position, a CAO position, who's with a city, a town, or a community for 25 years. They work hard at keeping those communities going, and they're trained and they're experts. And how long are the councillors there? Four years. We're elected for four years. So, when Council doesn't realize that they (administrators) are the experts in their field and that they are there to help make communities more successful and keep things going, all that does is hinder."
Peto shares what he feels has led to the strong relationship between the government and administration in the City of Portage la Prairie.
"I'd like to give a lot of credit to Mayor Knox and Council for fostering a really positive relationship with the administration. I think they have a clear understanding of the governance responsibilities coming from the Council table, but also where that line is drawn with administrative responsibilities in enacting that vision and governance principles in the community. So, we're really positive relationship here, we're really proud of the relationship we have," Peto continues. "Unfortunately, in the municipal fields, you see in the headlines, and this comes up that there's challenging situations around the Council table and sometimes between Council and administration. A lot of my peers in the administration community had heard of the positive relationship and the best practices that we do here in Portage and asked us to speak on them."
Peto also comments on a disturbing trend he has seen in his work with the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators.
"There's just a concern about how municipalities are being run and the increasingly difficult situation; it's putting administration and councils seemingly head-to-head, where it should be a cooperative relationship. We're seeing increasingly more situations about conflict, and I don't think that needs to be the way."
Peto and Knox restated their pride in the overwhelmingly positive relationship between City Council and the administrators in Portage la Prairie, which resulted from communication and an understanding of the roles the two sides fill.