The municipal inspection report is a mixed bag for Westlock County councillors, with some calling it scathing and others said it unfairly faults them.
“I was surprised that it was pretty one-sided in terms of the blame was all put on council,” said Div. 2 Coun. Albert St. Louis, noting that some issues, like private in-camera conversations at restaurants have been going on for a long time.
Div. 6 Coun. Mel Kroetsch said he was expecting more on administration.
“All the focus seemed to be on governance and the council and a council gets a lot of its information from administration,” he said. “We act on administration and then we see what administration does from the inside and we try to do our best for the taxpayer, and the taxpayer sees administration from a different point. It’s kind of a catch-22, so in that way I was a little disappointed, but overall it was a very, very good report.”
Reeve and Div. 5 Coun. Don Savage said the report brought to light more issues that former CAO Peter Kelly had a hand in.
“We knew Kelly has pulled some real shenanigans but no one knew,” Savage said. “Even the Fawcett Fire Hall, that’s such a laugh that the blueprints weren’t right and none of those people are here anymore. That’s the first I knew of any of it, really and truly.”
Savage said it was his first time learning Kelly was also working for Charlottetown while employed with the county.
On the other hand, Div. 7 Coun. Dennis Primeau said there were no surprises.
“I think most people have a pretty good idea, but we don’t have the hard evidence — all he has to do is deny,” Primeau said of Kelly. “The hard copy is very, very scathing and it is an extremely good report, so basically the verbal report didn’t do justice to the real report.”
Coun. Ray Marquette said he wants responsibility taken for mismanaged money. On that note, he said he wasn’t surprised that Kelly worked for Charlottetown and Westlock County.
“Regardless if you’re in government, or a ratepayer, you should be held accountable,” he said. “I think for every action there should be a consequence. If money was spent wrongly, someone should be accountable.”
St. Louis said he felt the recommendations skewed in favour of the Municipal Government Act and took power away from council.
“I’m having trouble finding any reason why we have a council,” he said. “It seems to me that we’re not supposed to be looking at the expenditures, we’re not supposed to be involved with road maintenance, we’re not supposed to be involved with a lot — just sit at the front of the hall when something like this comes along and be the whipping boys.”
The report mentioned that some councillors expressed growing pains as they tried to maintain their policy role, rather than a traditional “road councillor” role.
St. Louis admitted that he was one of those road councillors and did it for the people.
“I look at my platform that I ran on in all the elections. In all my brochures my No. 1 priority was the roads and I rode as a ‘road councillor.’ Well, I really can’t run anymore because that’s against the MGA.”
The report recommendation to no longer provide accounts payable reports to councillors and the deputy reeve for approved budgeted expenses is also a sticking point.
“I think the people do want involvement from their councillors and this report sure is going to limit that amount of input, because we’re going to know a lot less than we know now,” he said.
“We’re accountable for the money being spent … by going through the financial statements, we did find inconsistencies and cheques have been pulled. I don’t know where it hurts to know where our money is going.”
Marquette said everything should be public knowledge going forward.
“It’s my money and the ratepayers’ money that we’re spending,” he said.
Primeau said the first recommendation that council has to deal with is parameters around shredding documents.
“I thought Municipal Affairs had parameters around shredding documents,” he said. “It turns out the council is going to have to pass a bylaw on document shredding because to believe that the CAO was able to shred documents of his own tenure, of his own time in office, it’s pretty horrendous.”
However, Savage said things are looking up with new administration at the helm.
“Slowly we’re coming back on and I know that administration has some real good traction and the people feel like they’re a part of our county now,” he said. “They feel like they’re worth something. They’re doing their job. There’s nobody intimidating them and saying there’s going to be changes made.”
