A Wetaskiwin City Councillor who was sanctioned in September has been granted access to city hall and allowed to travel to represent the municipality by his peers following an April 14 council meeting.
Coun. Joe Branco was sanctioned on Sept. 9, 2024 after a code of conduct complaint was filed against him. The complaint was discussed during an in-camera session so the allegations against him are not public.
At the time, Branco apologized to city manager Sue Howard for comments he had made earlier in the year. He was then placed under several sanctions, including being removed as deputy mayor, not being allowed to travel on behalf of council, not able to enter city hall, and not interacting with city staff except through Howard. Council also passed a motion calling on Branco to “issue a letter of apology to staff that were offended by his disrespectful communications” within 30 days.
On Monday, council reviewed the sanctions as six months had passed since they were put into force.
"I will be voting against this," said Mayor Tyler Gandam during the meeting . "The sanctions that were imposed upon Council Bronco have not been met and I would not be in favour of removing any of the sanctions.
"Coun. Bronco has over the number of years proven that through his interactions with staff he and not been at least compliant with the Municipal Governance Act and staff have expressed their concern and their uncomfortability with Coun. Bronco and those interactions."
Council voted 4-2 to allow Branco access to city hall and to be able to travel on behalf of council, but kept the remaining three sanctions in place.
Noting he was in favour of keeping the other sanctions in place, Coun. Dean Billingsley said it was important to not limit Branco's ability to be a councillor.
Coun. Wayne Nelson, who brought the review forward, noted the provincial government was in the process of moving Bill 50 through the legislature, which will remove the ability of municipal governments to sanction councillors.
"I don't know when bill 50 will be intro will be passed into legislation," he added, while voicing his support for lifting the sanctions on Branco. "Much of our conversation with regard to going to different conferences and meetings is to make sure that we have the best information we can to make decisions at a council table level by becoming more informed. I would argue that by not allowing Coun. Branco to maximize his learning, we are restricting his performance at the council table."
The code of conduct requires all communication between councillors and staff to go through the city manager. Staff are allowed to reach out to councillors, but must include the city manager in their correspondences. These rules were put in place by city council.
Branco was sworn in Aug. 28 after winning a by-election which was called after Coun. Kevin Lonsdale resigned his seat. He had previously sat on town council in 2020, where he was also censured after being found in violation of the city's code of conduct bylaw and then came in second place in the race for the mayor's chair. Prior to that, he had served as a city councillor for 10 years before resigning in 2017 for personal reasons.
