Sylvan Lake town councillor happy to be back community-building after getting peace bond

2. [You shall] not have any contact or communication in any manner directly or indirectly with Tyler Braun; and

3. [You shall] not attend any known residence, place of work, school, or place of worship of Tyler Braun.

A peace bond is not a conviction or an admission of guilt.

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BACKGROUND: Sylvan Lake town councillor found in breach of Code of Conduct policy for social media post

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Dakin’s case stems from a previously alleged incident in May 2023 where it was said that she slapped a man, Tyler Braun, across the face, at the local establishment she owns.

Braun had then published a public Facebook post about the incident.

Dakin was sanctioned under town council’s code of conduct for a combination of her comments on Braun’s post and a post she made on her own profile, which were meant as a retort to Braun’s comments about the incident.

Her sanctions were to:

Issue a written public apology to the Town by December 5, 2023 for a social media post showing on May 22, 2023
Complete a LinkedIn Social Media Training (Social Media for Working Professionals) and a Pryor Learning (How to Balance Work and Life in Challenging Times) course by January 31, 2024 at the expense of the Town

The Town of Sylvan Lake confirms to rdnewsNOW that Dakin completed the sanctions, and that she’s in good standing with council. Not completing the training could’ve resulted in her removal from council-related boards and committees.

Part of the sanctions was also that the Town would pay for the training, but Dakin, speaking to rdnewsNOW this week, says she stepped up and paid for it herself.

“I’ve never been in trouble before. I’ve sat on every committee you could imagine, and unfortunately, that day, I had to remove someone from my restaurant in a situation where my staff felt unsafe,” she says. “I wasn’t in my capacity as a councillor at all.”

Dakin believes code of conducts are important for setting a standard of public trust, adding that when word of this incident got out, she had plenty of support.

But she admits it’s taken hard work to get her confidence back, describing the act of talking about it as, “heavy.”

She says of the day the incident happened that she was forced to act akin to a bouncer, adding that she’s since hired actual bouncers for her establishment.

“As somebody who is a community builder, I just never wanted it to turn into this. The only reason I ran for council, honestly, was to be a voice for people who feel they’re heard,” she says.

“In the letter I wrote to council, I said, ‘I apologize that this was an undue stress on you.’ But, I don’t think it was handled correctly.”

Dakin claims public pressure from a very small amount of people, perhaps even just one, forced council’s hands into sanctioning her under the code of conduct.

She says the code of conduct investigation came to the same conclusion that she and council already had six months prior, only that now the Town had spent thousands investigating.

It was a third-party complaint against her, she clarifies.

“I told them, ‘I’m human. Could I have done better to not be in that position? For sure. But I’m also somebody that if someone else is getting hurt, yelled at or picked on, I will stand up for them.’ I have to protect my staff first.”

Dakin says she learned some hard lessons, most notably that she shouldn’t trust everything on social media, adding that it was hard not being able to talk about all the details while the legal process was ongoing.

Dakin didn’t miss any meetings of council as the process was happening.

In the 2021 municipal election, Dakin received the most votes of any council candidate (outside the mayor’s seat) with 1,841.

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by rdnewsNOW staff

Sylvan Lake town councillor happy to be back community-building after getting peace bond

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