The State of Volunteerism

Volunteers have recently come into the spotlight here in Aurora.

First, Sher St Kitts has come to our attention because the committee she heads has been unclear on how funding for the July 1st parade and how the Dream Team is associated with a Town funded and endorsed committee. This lack of transparency and potential conflict of interest has raised eyebrows and concern in some quarters. At a meeting on Tuesday, this issue was raised in a very confrontational manner -- endorsed by the Mayor and Council.

Before you ask why we used the word endorsed -- understand that when someone attacks a Councillor directly (versus Council as a whole) on a civil matter that is outside the mandate of Council and this is allowed only because Council waives the procedural by-law - that implies endorsement.

The same week, we have seen the resignation of Dave Giroux, the President of the Aurora Minor Ball Association (AMBA) in frustration because Council continues to refuse to honour their commitment to build a senior ball diamond. Not everyday one sees that!

He communicated his reasons through the local papers and has encourage stakeholders to rally around the issues because of the lack of movement on this issue.

We all recognize that stuff happens -- but when they escalate to this level it links directly back to leadership -- by the Mayor and Council.

Why have they not been able to deal with issues without this level of escalation?

Council needs to immediately take the following steps;

1. Clarify the conflict of interest and financial questions associated with the Dream Team and the Town endorsed parade committee.
2. Communicate with the stakeholders in the AMBA about what has happened and why they have not moved forward on resolutions that are a year old. Plus indicate what next steps and timing are in place to resolve the outstanding issues.

We predict if Council doesn't move quickly to address these issues they will continue to fester and will become significant issues at the next election. We all know that is the last thing the Mayor wants. Unfortunately, she may not get her wish.

Stay tuned.

PS -- There are a number of comments related to this post in the previous post When Is An Invitation Not An Invitation?

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Integrity Commissioner

Now that Council has hired their Integrity Commissioner, it will be interesting to watch how they are utilized. There have been a number of accusation made about integrity that would be worthy of consideration.

There has been the refusal to sign the Code of Conduct by Cllr. Buck, and possibly some citizen members. Is it even appropriate to force citizen members to sign? Or the Conflict of Interest accusations around the appointment of Ken Whitehurst? Or even the dismissal of the CAO?

Will the new position be used as a weapon to try to quiet dissenting opinions? Will it be used for a little self-evaluation of their own conduct?

Most importantly, will this third party be able to render third party opinions without having to vet them through Council under the cloak of "In Camera" meetings because of the personnel nature of the issues?

How broad or narrow will the scope be? Remember, they are not full-time. Will they only be used at the discretion of Council, or will citizens have the ability to contact the Commissioner to investigate and report on the behaviours of Council or specific members?

All of these are important questions that need to be answered. Stay tuned, I am sure that activities will shortly start to tell the story.

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Let the Facts be Known

First, let's congratulate Council for taking the initiative to print ads about some recent issues affecting the town. It seems that the awareness created by this blog and the local newspapers has caused them to recognize that pretending that there are no issues doesn't make them go away.

Hopefully this will be the first of many ads communicating the facts about issues of importance to the community. Let's hope that the oft repeated commitment to "providing open and transparent government" is more than just these couple ads.

With regard to Mr Whitehurst, this issue will continue to dog the Mayor right into the next election. She and others continue to ignore the point about a conflict. The issue is not that he resigned or what he is billing the town -- the conflict is that he voted on an item that had a financial impact on himself personally. It is one of the most clear cut cases of a conflict ever seen. Given the number of times this comes up with regard to members of Council -- it is amazing that they continue to pretend it doesn't exist in this case.

Did we really pay a lawyer $2,144.63 to attend a single meeting as part of an overall $12,345.83 expenditure. To be clear, the taxpayers of the community had to pay a lawyer to defend Council against the very people they were elected to serve so Council could act against the will of the taxpayers and appoint a person of their choosing. Talk about a slap in the face.

As for the unauthorized spending by staff, let's hope a lot more questions get answered. Here are a few-- you probably have more. Send them along and we will publish them.

1. How did Council miss this issue when the Auroran reported on it a number of times?
2. How did cheques get distributed without Council being aware of them? The Mayor and at least 2 Councillors regularly review -- and question staff - on the cheque registry. Where were the questions in this case?
3. If proper procurement procedures are in place -- then how did this slip through? Don't taxpayers deserve to understand what happened and what is being done to fix it. General statements about changing roles and working hard don't provide much reassurance.
4. Was this used as an excuse to dismiss the CAO? It seeems the issue has been known for awhile, but only became public when the CAO was asked to leave. Are staff being blamed to cover the real issue -- that Council simply wanted John Rogers out?

It is offensive that Council is pointing the finger squarely at staff about not following procedures. Where are the checks and balances by Council that should also have been followed. If The Auroran spotted the issue, them why didn't Council?

Hopefully the media will continue to keep up the pressure until all the facts become known.

Keep your comments coming. Only through open dialogue will these and other issues get broadly discussed.

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Code of Ethics?

So do tell -- under what part of the much vaunted Code of Ethics is it covered that when the public show concern about an action of Council that you just wait until the issue dies down and do what you want anyway?

This exactly what happened with the appointment of Ken Whitehurst to the position of interim Director -- a mere 2 months after the issue was front page news in the local paper and reported in this blog. I guess they hoped everyone would forget about the issue and they would slide it by without anyone noticing. Thanks to Councillor Buck for bringing it to our attention at a recent Council meeting.

We won't "rehash" this item because we know how much this offends the supporters of the Mayor. It just gets in the way of doing what they want without people being aware of their behaviour.

Well we thought it was important to bring it to people's attention.

Judge for yourself -- agree or disagree -- then talk to your neighbours. But make sure you are aware of what your elected representatives are doing without telling you. So much for transparency!

Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.

Conflict ... what conflict?

There has been considerable discussion in the paper and on the street about the perceived conflict of interest of Council appointing a prominent member of the mayors campaign team to a paid position in the town without any opportunity for a member of the public to apply for the job.

While that is certainly a concern -- the perception of patronage -- it is not by definition a clear conflict of interest.

The clear conflict of interest is a member of a committee proposing a position that they were subsequently hired to fill -- as Mr Whitehurst did. Mr Whitehurst was and is a sitting member of the committee that created the job he has now been appointed too. Resigning does not change the fact that he was involved in making the decision.

The definition of a conflict on interest is when you may benefit financially from a decision.

That is exactly why members of council declare a conflict when a topic is being discussed that may have, or be seen to have, a positive or negative financial impact on them. By declaring a conflict they remove themselves from the accusation of the financial impact influencing their decision.

There is no doubt that Mr Whitehurst is in a conflict of interest. If he wasn't aware of this, then the mayor and Council certainly is and should have avoided the appointment.

For the Council to try and shift the blame to staff for this inappropriate decision is nothing less than a complete abdication of their responsibilities. Council knows they direct staff, not the other way around.

It's time for this Council to step up and show some leadership -- and stop looking for ways to avoid making hard decisions and shift responsibility to others for their poor performance.

Use the links immediately below to comment or forward this post to friends.