City offers glimpse into Calgary council's secret back room

The City of Calgary revealed a closely held secret on Friday.

It showed reporters the council lounge. That's the room that's just behind the council chamber where the politicians (and invited bureaucrats and guests) go for short, closed-door sessions.

The city decided to let reporters have a look following a request from Coun. Jeromy Farkas.

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"By asking for a public tour of the facility, I just wanted to kind of send a message to the rest of council, as well as have council send a message to Calgarians, that we are focused on opening the doors and making the decision-making here more transparent," said Farkas.

The first-term councillor has railed against what he calls a culture of secrecy at city hall. He believes that council spends too much time in closed-door meetings beyond discussing legally permissible private sessions where personnel, land or legal matters are hashed out.

Most longer closed sessions take place in the council boardroom, which is a short distance away from the council chamber.

But shorter private sessionstake place in the council lounge, which is located on the other side of the wall, just behind wherethe mayor sits in the chamber.

Cushy chairs

The room features enough comfortable living room chairs for the 15 council members and additional guests. There is a desk for the clerk, a few tables, a TV monitor as well as a small kitchen and two washrooms.

An orange foot stool sits in front of one chair. Coun. Druh Farrell tweeted that it belonged to her.

The lounge is a bit too comfortable for Farkas's liking.

"The way that the room is set up, in my mind, is it kind of encourages us to stay a little bit longer than we should," said Farkas, who joined council last year.

On this day, there were two paintings on the wall. One featured a pair of pandas while another was a view of MountAllan, home of the alpine ski events for the 1988 Winter Olympics.

City clerk Laura Kennedy said it's a functional meeting room but also a casual working space.

"It functions well for council, for the purpose they have designed it, and it's working well for them," she said.

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