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Vancouver councillor wants more transparency at City Hall
Suzanne Anton says nothing they do should be a secret
Denise Wong Nov 27, 2010 18:22:55 PM
Be the first to Comment  0 Recommendation(s) VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Vancouver's lone NPA councillor wants a gag order lifted on city staffers because people can't get information out of City Hall the way they used to.

Suzanne Anton wants City Hall to let staffers talk to journalists on record before their reports go to council. "The public's ability to know what is going on at City Hall is much diminished."

She says City Hall is becoming a sealed fortress. "We have very professional city staff. They're perfectly capable of separating fact of a file from the politics of a file, and speaking to the media about that. It's most disappointing that they've been shut down."

She says next week, she'll ask council to re-consider the ban.

Anton says it's also disheartening to hear the city's former Freedom of Information and Privacy manager Paul Hancock quit because he couldn't do his job properly. "I think that the mayor must act. I don't know why he wants to have a City Hall, which is so constrained from giving out information."

Anton is calling for a provincial review of the circumstances leading up to Hancock's resignation.