City councillors in North Battleford indicated Nov. 15 they were interested in City administration once again reporting statistics about the number of calls that come in to City Hall relating grievances about garbage, City services, road and back alley conditions, bill payments and other issues.
Councillor Don Buglas raised the issue during Monday's municipal services meeting, indicating compiling additional statistics on such calls would highlight the major issues City departments would need to address.
Buglas indicated that in the past mechanism in place to track calls coming in and what department those calls were directed to.
Buglas said he's forwarded calls or questions directed his way to the appropriate departments to be dealt with.
"If I get a complaint, I direct it forward," said Buglas. "Then I always have a record for different calls."
He asked whether administration could go back to compiling a summary of that sort of information on a regular basis.
City Manager Jim Toye acknowledged a protocol of compiling was in place about five years ago and provided on a monthly basis.
After a couple of years the initiative was discontinued, as there was "very little interest in the information that was provided," he said. Other administration weren't sure of the value of such information, he said.
The policy since has been for the calls to be dealt with by the appropriate departments and individuals "taking ownership of that particular problem," Toye said.
Toye indicated administration's willingness, however, to revive the practice of providing statistics on such calls if that is something council is interested in. That could come in the New Year, he indicated.
Some councillors expressed concern the plan might be difficult to implement and too time-consuming.
Councillors Trent Houk and Ron Crush felt comfortable the coming in to City Hall were appropriately dealt with. Crush noted that if administration were being inundated with calls on an issue they could not handle, they could bring that back to council to be dealt with.
