Cuff: Dysfunctional governance in Sechelt
The role of mayor, council, and senior staff in local government
Governance Audit for the District of Sechelt. George B Cuff & Associates, June 2024.
The District of Sechelt is a small municipality on the Sunshine Coast, north of Gibsons, with about 10,000 residents and a staff of about 60.
It sounds like there’s been a breakdown of the relationship between the mayor of Sechelt and the chief administrative officer, and between the mayor and the rest of council. Chad Pawson describes it as a situation similar to Kamloops or Harrison Hot Springs, where council is consumed by internal conflict. In February 2024, Sechelt initiated a governance audit, conducted by George Cuff.
Separate from the question of what’s happening in Sechelt, Cuff’s report is helpful as a detailed explanation of how a local government is supposed to work. I’d describe it as follows:
The role of the mayor is limited to acting as the chief spokesperson for council.
The current council is responsible for all policies approved by past councils, but they’re unlikely to be familiar with them.
It’s illegal for council to deliberate privately. All council decisions are to be made in public.
Informal channels of communication between council and staff are discouraged.
Knowledge and thus power are centralized in the hands of the chief administrative officer and senior staff, in terms of both operations and governance.
Given this picture, it seems to me that to govern effectively, it’s necessary to have a solid grasp on the entire inventory of current policies, as well as an understanding of which policies are actually implemented in practice. When policies conflict with each other, which policy prevails? Which policies are regarded as outdated? Initially, only the chief administrative officer and senior staff will have this understanding. Effective governance on the part of council requires achieving this understanding.
In product development, there’s continuous negotiation between marketing (which keeps track of what customers want) and engineering (which has the specialized skills and experience to know what’s feasible), to define a product that both meets the customer’s needs and is feasible to build. The role of elected officials is similar to that of marketing: they don’t just need to keep their ear to the ground and know what people want. In order to negotiate effectively with engineering, they don’t need to know enough to do engineering’s job. But they do need to have a good understanding of the basic constraints, so that they’re not continuously asking for things that are impossible, or conversely, letting engineering make all the decisions.
The limited role of the mayor
The mayor is the leader of the community and of the council. But when there’s disagreement between the mayor and the council as a whole, the mayor is expected to express the views of the council.
The Mayor speaks not as an individual but as the lead spokesperson for the Council and its decisions. The Mayor is not expected to speak his or her views as to what he thinks of the decisions made by Council, but rather, what was endorsed by a motion of Council. In doing so, the Mayor is expected to endorse Council’s approved position on any topic and not his own, unless that is consistent with the Council-approved motion. If the Mayor cannot support the approved position of his colleagues, he should request that any official commentary on the topic be assigned to another member of Council who was in the majority (preferably the Deputy Mayor).
This is particularly the case when representing Sechelt to other levels of government. The report recommends that when meeting with a provincial cabinet minister, there should be at least two council members present.
Conversely, council expects the mayor to share information, to keep council and the chief administrative officer in the loop.
Whereas the Mayor may expect that he should have unfettered access to pertinent Council and public-related information, Council also anticipates that the Mayor will immediately upon access to such information (i.e., that which pertains to the business of the District), also pass along this to his colleagues on Council and to the CAO so as to ensure that all are always in the loop. There is nothing in the legislation which would give rise to the Mayor expecting to be the only person holding onto fresh information which no one else on Council has seen. Such thinking will very quickly create an unfair playing field.
The report also talks about the role of the mayor in building bridges and working towards consensus on council, and in maintaining a good working relationship with the chief administrative officer.
The mayor’s direction to the chief administrative officer and senior staff should be based on the decisions of council as a whole, not his or her personal opinions.
The Mayor’s expectation to offer ongoing advice and input to the CAO and senior officers rests in s.116 (d) “general direction to municipal officers respecting implementation of municipal policies, programs and other directions of the council”. Here, the Mayor is entitled to offer counsel to the District’s senior officers in concert with what his colleagues have decided at a Council meeting. This does not afford the Mayor much latitude in sharing their own bias or preferred solutions.
The Mayor is entitled to provide his insights to the CAO based on an understanding of what his Council has approved in policy, bylaw or resolution. The Mayor does not have the authority to countermand a decision of Council nor an approved decision, including the budget (operational and capital).
Council is responsible for all current policies
The responsibility of each councillor is
to represent the well-being and interests of the community as a whole;
to participate in meetings and decision-making, which includes reading background materials provided prior to meetings;
to have a view of the “big picture” and set priorities;
to assess current policies inherited from previous councils and determine what needs to be changed;
to resolve local issues and arbitrate conflicts;
to assess and approve the operating and capital budgets;
to protect the safety and security of the community.
A Councillor also has an obligation to take possession of current Council policies and then to ensure that those which have been inherited from prior Councils in fact reflect the views of this Council. We have found that this seldom happens until one of those policies is held up as why a certain action has occurred, or a particular decision has been made by management. Given that every election produces a “new” Council, it is incumbent on Council to review all governance policies and ask themselves the question “are these ours?”
Council is only supposed to talk to senior staff
There are certain keys to ensuring that Council’s involvement with management is appropriate:
Ensure that direct contact is limited to the CAO and direct reports; clarify what is appropriate to be communicated at the direct report level; Identify the protocols at the outset so that each member pf Council is clear as to who they are entitled to speak to on any Council-related topic
Refrain from any form of supervision/guidance on site; if a Council member wants to stop by, drop off the donuts and carry on!
The chief administrative officer is expected to regularly brief council, and to meet more frequently with the mayor:
The CAO can be helpful to the Mayor by providing a “heads up” on any issue which the CAO is certain will be of considerable interest to the Council as a whole. And while the CAO will schedule a briefing for all of Council on key and emerging issues (preferably on at minimum a bi-weekly basis), the Mayor will, out of respect for the position, have been briefed perhaps mere hours or moments before the rest of Council.
Meetings between the two will be held on a scheduled basis, likely weekly, with a small agenda prepared by both of issues of concern at the moment. Meetings on an impromptu basis may also be held as need be, but not so frequently or so lengthy that they detract from the other responsibilities which the CAO has.
Every Council member, including the Mayor, is wise to refrain from overburdening the CAO and the administration with either trivial questions or emails/texts of questionable value. While it should not be necessary to provide greater specificity to this, it would be completely inappropriate for any member of Council to try to inundate the CAO or a department head with an inordinate number of emails and texts simply to illustrate how important, or prepared or curious the member is or, even worse, to badger the employee into a submissive state. This needs to be monitored as it can quickly become the final straw for any employee who is already feeling “set upon” by a member of Council. Given that the Council has one employee, their correspondence should be limited to the CAO unless the CAO has advised that verbal or written communication can be directed to others.
The report recommends that council stay out of operations.
Every new Council will need time to grasp what their system of governance is and how it currently works. Subsequently, each Council should understand that they have a particular “lane” and that they are expected to stay within that lane. In this case, that is called “governance”. If and when that is not clearly understood, those who cannot or will not understand generally attempt to slide across to the management lane where they think that they will have a better fit. It does not work because someone else has been “hired” to fit that lane.
It may be difficult for someone who occupies a managerial position in their day-to-day career to step back and realize that this role of giving out directions is not what is required of an elected Council member. But that is essentially what is required. A Council’s role is oversight, not administration. It is assessing results, not plotting each step.
More
Sechelt council apologizes to SCRD for mayor’s conduct. Bronwyn Beairsto, Coast Reporter, November 2023.
Governance audit asks Sechelt mayor to apologize to council. Chad Pawson, CBC News, July 2024.
Letter: Message of apology from the Sechelt Mayor. John Henderson, Coast Reporter, August 2025.
Sechelt revisits audit recommendations a year after receipt. Bronwyn Beairsto, Coast Reporter, September 2025.
Province appoints municipal advisor to help Sechelt council. Bronwyn Beairsto, Coast Reporter, November 2025.
Sechelt council meeting adjourned amid accusations of ‘campaigning’. Sandra Thomas, Coast Reporter, December 2025.
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