A management audit that had the Resort Village of Council suspending much of their business earlier this year has Mayor Brad Pattinson wanting to meet with the provincial Ministry of Government Relations.
He says the audit, the first of its kind in the province’s history, could be a precedent he wouldn’t want to see other municipalities faced with unless some terms of scope are added to the process.
In addition, he says, the findings of the audit – which cost the village $5,300 – were flawed.
“We’ve had our legal counsel read the audit,” said Pattinson this week. “In our view there are some inaccuracies.”
The resort village council would like to meet with Minister of Government Relations Jim Reiter.
“Their office has a copy and we’d like to review it with him and talk about how these processes can be made better for future councils.”
Their recommendations will include addressing the petition process.
“The petition that went around was not really in our view a public petition,” said Pattinson. “It wasn’t at the store, there wasn’t a copy at town hall people could sign, all of a sudden it was submitted to us. The petition question didn’t lodge any complaints in particular ... it just called for a management audit so there was no scope for the auditor to even focus in on.”
He added, “I’m not opposed to management audits, but ... the auditor didn’t go out to the broad community in the middle of summer to talk about the village and how it operates.”
Only the people on the petition were interviewed, he said.
“Well, what kind of an answer would you get?”
The audit was conducted by de Jong & Associates of Swift Current. One of the observations in the audit addressed petitioners’ concerns about an annexation process the village has undertaken (in response to a move by the RM of Meota to have docks and lifts licenced and controlled through their office). The audit said notification of the intended annexation was not sent to the persons from whom the lands were to be annexed.
“This oversight, in communication and perceived lack of transparency by council, was one of the causes of the petition for this management audit,” stated the auditor. The recommendation was that council make sure the administrator has a clear understanding of the process and see that the timelines and correct steps are followed.
Pattinson’s response is “We hired a consultant to do that annexation; our administrator had nothing to do with it. We hired ... people who specialize in annexation processes.”
He said Cochin has partnered with two municipalities to go forward with the annexation because they are not alone in the issue.
“The Resort Village of Aquadeo and the Resort Village of Metinota, that’s a joint annexation, so we contracted to handle all of the annexation process, to go to mediation, to do all those things and somehow this auditor has got it confused. Our administrator played no role other than what we were instructed to do by the consultant.”
He noted the mediation has stalled out.
Another issue was regarding who the village’s fire chief really is. Council member Misti Hulit was advised she could not be the fire chief while she was oncouncil.
“That was a difference of opinion as well about our take on the act,” said the mayor. “The municipal act is pretty clear you can’t be an employee and a council member. We’re still investigating that, we’ll have that answer at our year end.”
David Elder is currently the appointed fire chief, said Pattinson.
Other issues to do with information in the minutes and continuity and conduct protocols have to do with new legislation, he said.
“This council was all brand new people except Misti ... we were all elected, this council, because of the way the people thought the place was being run.”
He said he was asked to run for mayor because even an RCMP investigation couldn’t find the source of $30,000 to $40,000 in missing funds and people wanted a change.
“People wanted waste to stop, so then when we started to implement what we thought was reasonable, what we thought a village government should do, we got hit with a petition. That’s the way it goes.”
