The letter, dated June 30, 2020, sent by the R.M.s Chief Administrative Officer on behalf of the then R.M. Council, states that the R.M. of McKillop Council was disappointed in the articles published in the Last Mountain Times (LMT) as they saw the articles as detrimental to Council and the Administration’s efforts to openness and transparency and that they did not represent factual information. The letter further claims the articles that named specific Council members could be injurious to the councillors and may be seen as public bullying and harassment. It continues to say that LMT is a community asset as it provides the R.M. with an avenue to sending information to the residents but finds that difficult when the articles the publication is printing are harmful to the R.M. The letter ends with “This letter is not for public release.” LMT has not released the letter, but it is available on the MTN Facebook page.
Note: "Letters to the Editor" (LTE) are letters sent to a publication from readers who want to support or oppose an editorial stance or another writer’s LTE, correct perceived misinformation, comment on current political issues or on a story in a previous issue of the publication. An Op-Ed is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board.
Acting-Editor at LMT Dan Degenstien said after he received the letter, he emailed the CAO saying, “...I received your letter, thanks for sending it. I understand your concerns and we certainly don’t want to lose your business as an advertiser. Next time we get a letter of that nature we will consider sending it to you for review before deciding to publish it...” He said he never received further response from the CAO. Degenstien explained the parameters around publishing editorial content, “Typically unsolicited material needs to be brief, not overtly biased and must be grounded in reality. Opinion pieces are just that, opinions. Though we don’t publish every Opinion or Letter that finds its way to us, we publish ones that seem important to the community.”
Bob Wilson’s accompanying post on MTN brings up several grievances and states, “I believe it is directed at me for the letters I have sent to the Last Mountain Times, which were printed in 2020. Now we see no more letters to the editor appearing. Never before has any R.M. #220 Council attempted to influence or restrict editorial content. Since then CAO Brandi Morissette has been removed from the freedom of information decision-making process. Now it is solely the decision of Reeve Bob Schmidt.”
All of Bob Wilson's submissions, including the previously unpublished one, are available here LMtimes.ca/wilsonmckillop
The minutes from the June 25, 2020, RM McKillop regular meeting shows:
Last Mountain Times Article and Advertising - Resolution No: 2020/0317 Don Whitrow
THAT the R.M. of McKillop No. 220 direct Administration to send a letter to the Last Mountain Times regarding the articles being published that are detrimental to the R.M. and our advertising in the paper.
Commenting on the R.M.’s letter, Acting LMT Editor said, “I didn’t find it unusual the R.M. felt that way about the opinion articles, but I was surprised they would essentially threaten to withhold advertising dollars. It would hurt LMT financially to a certain degree, but it would mostly hurt the community members that have relied on their local newspaper to inform them of important matters within the R.M.”
In an interview, Reeve Schmidt said the problem wasn’t with the articles but with the letters to the Editor (LTE) published. Schmidt took issue with Wilson’s post, which referred to his own submissions being considered editorial content.
Schmidt explained that the LTE, which were being submitted regularly, had ‘picked on’ some Councillors and had included professional occupation information of a person who was not on Council, saying the person’s activities as a ratepayer had nothing to do with their occupation. He recalled the information, “was not verified information, it wasn’t respectful and it was not without malice.” He described the submissions gossip and hearsay. Refuting Wilson’s claim that the CAO had been removed from the decision-making process, Schmidt explained that as the ‘Head’ of the R.M. Council, his decision making authority is set out in the Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Schmidt denied that Council had decided to stop publishing notices in the LMT due to the publications. He explained changes to the Municipalities Act in 2020 from Bill 194 changed publishing requirements. He went on to say they support the LMT, “We find that by posting things in the newspaper it gets out to more people, so we have never decided that.”
Editor Degenstien said the letter from the R.M. hasn’t dictated what LMT has chosen to publish. He said when they received the letter, the publication was still recovering from the Editor’s sudden passing, Dave (Degenstien). Dan said that getting into a ‘urination altercation’ with the R.M. wasn’t a top priority. “We, of course, get many letters from all kinds of people on all kinds of subjects and we don’t publish most of them. Some are too nonsensical, some just have no bearing on our readership, some are too poorly written to deserve the time it takes to read them, and others just don’t take a priority over other things we need to print that week.” Degenstien said he told Wilson they weren’t worried about publishing his opinion piece but that because they had heard from the R.M., they would want to vet the articles a bit more to ensure they are, in fact, accurate. “We weren’t able to do that as quickly as we would have liked, and the project just slipped through the cracks.” He admitted the next time he received a letter from Bob Wilson in September, they didn’t publish it or send it to the R.M. for review/rebuttal.
Schmidt said it was ‘fair game’ to be scrutinized as a public official as long as the comments were fair, respectful and verified information. He referenced MTN Facebook page comments, “there are people in these articles calling us f-ing idiots and they don’t even know what we’ve done. Here is what happened, we changed the division boundaries, elections were open. In 2019 nobody ran except for people that were running at that time. This last term nobody ran. If these people are really thinking that we are doing such a bad job why don’t they run in the elections? It’s a matter of trying to all work together.”
The ‘About’ section of the ‘McKillop Taxpayers Network’ (MTN) page states, “MTN is a non-profit group dedicated to helping R.M. No. 220 provide good government and seeking ways for rural and resort not to be forced together.” When asked to elaborate on that mission statement, they responded, “MTN is a non-profit organization of a group of RM McKillop ratepayers who share a common goal of seeing all ratepayers getting better government. We have 180 members. We were most active when the 220 Ratepayers Association (which has since disappeared) brought forth the referendum to rearrange the R.M. division boundaries. We felt the proposed boundary change would only lead to more bad government in the R.M. At the time, individuals in our group put forward a second referendum proposal that would explore a future for the R.M. where the urban areas go to a system where they governed themselves, and the priorities of rural and urban would no longer be pitted against each other.
We sought a new form of municipal government where the two groups were not “forced” to be governed in the uneven, unfair way of having to pick between priorities, but be able to govern themselves as they saw fit and work together as neighbours when opportunities arose. A form of government where the larger resort communities would not be able to subsidize their services on the backs of the smaller resort communities and rural and acreage landowners. Since that time that the referendums took place we have reduced our activities to keeping people informed of how this new version of RM 220 is functioning and continue to shed light on how this current form of municipal government continues to not give anyone good results. We work as a group to put this information out and are not necessarily one author but work together under the MTN banner to keep people informed.”
Despite the work the R.M. Council feels they are doing, it is clear that hard feelings, mistrust and divisions remain. When asked how the community’s divisions begin to heal, Reeve Schmidt said, “the healing is taking place. First of all the taxes haven’t gone up as it’s the third year in a row with zero increase.”
Degenstien said if a reader disagrees with an article could they respond in the paper through their own letter, “Absolutely. We can’t guarantee we’ll publish it, but we will always consider anything that comes in.”
Jennifer Argue, Civic Reporter, LMT - Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Note: These reports may be abridged for content