REGINA - City Manager Niki Anderson is calling on Regina Councillor Dan LeBlanc to put an end to his continued attacks on her.
“Today I'm calling on Councillor LeBlanc to refrain from continuing to make unfounded personal accusations against me,” Anderson told reporters at City Hall. “And I encourage the Councillor to remain focused on facts and professional respect when mentioning me by name.”
Anderson also confirmed to reporters Thursday that ever since the lawsuit filed last November against her by Councillors LeBlanc (acting as lawyer) and Andrew Stevens, (as co-applicant), “I have not and will not meet alone with either Councillor Stevens or Councillor LeBlanc.”
Anderson was responding Thursday to comments from both Coun. LeBlanc and Coun. Stevens. Her remarks came one day after a contentious debate at Regina City Hall on whether to remove LeBlanc as the city’s appointment to the Community and Social Impact board.
Council voted 8-2 in favor of Mayor Sandra Masters’ motion to remove him, with the majority of council citing concerns about LeBlanc’s role in filing of a court application against Anderson over the city budget in November. Masters also took issue with social media posts by LeBlanc during that time.
Only LeBlanc and Stevens voted against the motion for his removal. The motion had also been opposed by homeless advocates who spoke on Wednesday in support of LeBlanc staying on the board, and who had also supported him during the budget process and court fight.
In speaking to reporters Thursday, Anderson spoke at length about the contentious events and accusations that had transpired over the past three months.
Anderson said “distractions have shifted the focus from the important work we need to do to protect the health and well being of our most vulnerable residents.”
She said she had been “portrayed by two members of council as a controversial figure in a continued debate related to houselessness and the City of Regina’s effort to address the issue.
“It's a debate that has involved a lawsuit against me by my employer for violating the democratic process, which they lost and were required to pay my court costs, and accusations again by two councillors that I have personally acted with contempt and willful disregard for our community's most vulnerable residents.”
Anderson also noted that public comments have accused her of having “purposely violated the will of council to serve my own purposes, providing misleading information to council to propel my own agenda and acting with callous disregard to the most vulnerable members of our community.
“None of these claims are accurate, yet they are repeated ad nauseam by the Councillor. As an elected official, Coun. LeBlanc’s accusations carries significant weight. They are reported by the media, repeated by the community, and amplified on social media. In the social media space, this has created a hurtful, toxic environment, in many cases targeting me personally.”
Anderson also pointed to comments in council the previous day by Coun. Stevens, who Anderson said had “suggested that social media is a toxic place and we should just have thicker skin. Coun. LeBlanc suggested that I as the highest paid employee in the city should expect to tolerate criticism, that I should have thicker skin."
Professional criticism, she said, is "fair game. Personal attacks based on lies and distorted information and conspiracy theories are not.”
Anderson further defended the work the City of Regina was already doing on the houselessness issue.
"Councillor LeBlanc’s notion that there is only one solution, that he knows what it is, or that we must choose between either kindness — I think yesterday he referred to it as Victorian politeness — or helping the most vulnerable persons in our community is an utterly false binary. The City of Regina has made significant investments in supporting those who experience houselessness in our community. We recently made a $500,000 investment in a temporary shelter at the Nest (Health Centre) building downtown. And I'm so proud to say that my colleagues worked very hard to bring together many organizations and vendors to help make this possible. And I need to recognize that in large part it was because of the advocacy of the relationship building through the Mayor.
“Last year we funded a temporary shelter through the winter, and we financially supported several housing spaces us spring when shelters closed as work was happening to open this winter shelter. We operated a warming bus for several weeks to respond to an urgent need in the community. We've announced plans to financially support a permanent shelter to be on later this year. And there's more to come and still much more to do.”
When asked at the media scrum if there was any way to repair the damage done over the last couple of months, Anderson responded “from a relational perspective, no.”
“However, I have a job to do. And I've always felt as City Manager I have to think about a whole bunch of different factors and perspectives. And so I need to bring myself to work every day, and you know, I have met with Councillor Stevens with a third, another person from administration, because there was work I was doing that impacted his ward. So I need to try and still show up and do my job, despite all of that other stuff that's happening.”
