Facilitator helps Calgary city council to get along

City council huddled behind closed doors on Monday to learn a thing or two about how to work together better.

The long-planned session finally got underway after being postponed twice due to concerns about attendance and scheduling conflicts.

On Monday, all 15 council members were present as the session got going with the help of a facilitator.

Prior to going into the closed session, Mayor Naheed Nenshi praised his colleagues for their interest.

"I want to say thank you to council for engaging on the pre-work and really coming today with open minds and open hearts on how we can do this," said the mayor.

Survey part of preparation

Council members were asked to complete a survey ahead of Monday's session.

It asked them whether they agreed or disagreed with a variety of statements such as: "I sometimes get a kick out of breaking the rules" and "I would enjoy spending an entire day alone with my thoughts."

Before wrapping up the public portion of the council meeting, veteran councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart said that she felt other councils she has served with previously were actually more fractious than the current group.

"In my experience, we've had more highly, highly charged interactions and controversy in previous councils that were more, a lot more highly partisan than ours," said Colley-Urquhart.

To that, Nenshi remarked: "Really?" 

"Absolutely," she replied.

There's 'storming' and then there's 'forming'

This is the third council for Nenshi since he was first elected in 2010, and he said there is one thing about the current group that stands out for him.

"I've experienced this with other councils as well. It's just taking a little longer to get from the storming phase to the forming stage in some ways."

Most members of council said they were prepared to give the working together session a try.

However, Coun. Sean Chu did say last month he wasn't exactly keen on the day-long discussion.

"To me, it's a waste of time. We are who we are," said Chu.

At the afternoon break, Coun. Jeromy Farkas said it's been a good session.

He's been the focus of some of his colleagues for being less than collaborative. 

Farkas hoping for more tolerance of dissent

In December, council voted to eject Farkas from a meeting for a social media post he made about council.

That incident is currently the subject of a complaint to the integrity commissioner who is responsible for investigating potential breaches of council's code of conduct.

Farkas said he hopes that his colleagues become more tolerant of differing opinions on matters.

"We need that healthy tension. I'm never going to back down from calling administration, city council and city hall to account," said Farkas. 

"But you know, I have to be part of the team and that's something that I take very seriously myself."

The last two city councils held similar facilitated sessions to help them work together better.