Editor: As a Township taxpayer who attended all but one meeting of the Mayor’s Select Committee on Finance, I feel compelled to refute Kenneth C. Baker’s letter “Council refuses to meet with finance committee,” (The Times, May 13).
Baker encourages mayoral hopeful Jack Froese to “do his homework prior to putting his foot in his mouth.” I would admonish Baker to take his own advice more seriously. I’m very disappointed by his assertions and some of his statements, which I characterize as false.
This letter will undoubtedly be met with disdain and contempt by Mayor Rick Green’s choir of letter writers, who are often short of facts and first-hand knowledge. But the mayor’s orchestrated “six pack” PR spin and the equally aged “the world is wrong and I’m right” stand is now being ignored by an informed electorate that have grown tired of him.
I’m not a councillor, nor a candidate. I speak from my firsthand knowledge and meeting attendance — not from the mayor’s hearsay choir.
Baker’s position that “Council refused to meet with the finance committee” is fundamentally false. Here is a chronology of the events that can be verified by council minutes, official records and press reports from 2008.
1. The mayor proposed a Mayor’s Select Committee on Finance and chose most of the members himself.
2. Council voted to approve the committee and appointments. I don’t think any members of council were opposed.
3. The committee met for 10 to 12 weeks, with staff doing extensive research for them and pouring through reams of documents.
4. Baker said little in the meetings, other than a few questions to staff about why this expense was recorded in this bucket or that, prefaced with “I don’t have municipal accounting experience.” At one point Baker asked the mayor where this all was going, as he did not see any waste.
5. George Luciani did not understand that the recycling program is self-funded by scrap sales and proposed that we switch to bi-weekly pick-up to save money. Luciani also questioned why Township staff needed laptop computers and Blackberrys. Baker pointed out the recycling program is revenue neutral and that more trucks would just be needed when collection did occur. Now Baker tells us that Mr. Luciani (a former Township council candidate), is a person with “extensive finance experience.”
6. Baker left Canada for his annual month-long Arizona holidays after the third or fourth meeting of this committee.
7. A meeting was arranged at a home, with an e-mail inadvertently responded to and copied to Councillor Steve Ferguson. Ferguson then realized he had not been invited to this secret meeting. This meeting was then re-scheduled for a Saturday at the hall. As all meetings are supposed to be public, Ferguson invited the public to be there.
8. When 25-27 members of the public and press attended, Mayor Green claimed this was a “workshop of the committee.” It was essentially an in-camera meeting without any public meeting and vote to take the matter in-camera. When the Bylaw and Community Charter were pointed out to him, he adjourned the meeting. His team went into the mayor’s office. Committee members Ferguson and Councillor Kim Richter refused or were not invited to participate.
9. Despite a report being compiled, the committee met somewhere other than a public meeting and once again, Ferguson was excluded from these report meetings. I have also confirmed and have seen copies of messages sent by Ferguson to the committee, without any reply coming back. Ferguson also confirmed for me that on several occasions he called Baker with questions, and his calls and messages went unanswered.
10. A report appeared before council indicating statutory reserves could be plundered and a host of other nonsense would allow for just a .93 per cent (not zero) tax increase. This proposal would leave major Township infrastructure maintenance unfunded. Ferguson once again sent questions to the committee asking how the calculations were made and based on what information. He has never received a reply as to how the calculations were made.
11. Council approved the report for discussion and asked the Mayor’s Select Committee on Finance to present their findings in detail before a joint council priorities committee/regular council meeting.
12. With Baker away still one month later, Calvin Patterson led a PowerPoint presentation before all members of council in an open meeting, with Luciani at his side. This clearly appeared to me to be a meeting between council and the committee. Official records of this meeting exist. Baker could have accessed these minutes online very easily.
13. Staff took the details from the committee’s report and charted it out on three spreadsheets for Fiscal Years 2009, 2010 and 2011. In 2009, just under a $2 million deficit would occur. By year three, that deficit would balloon to almost $10 million.
14. As municipalities in B.C. are banned from running deficits, Council had no choice but to approve a budget that would cover Township expenses, and more importantly, asset maintenance.
15. Some months later, I walked in to ABC Restaurant to find that all of the members of the Mayor’s Select Committee on Finance (except Richter and Ferguson) meeting in private. I advised the councillors involved and they called the mayor on it. He then stated that the committee asked to meet with him to discuss their future and resignation. This is a contravention of the municipal meeting bylaw and the Community Charter.
These require that in-camera meetings must be voted on in a regular (advertised) council or committee meeting. On the agenda it is noted why this meeting must be in-camera according to the law. The law only allows for in-camera meetings for matters pertaining to: land, legal and labour issues.
As Froese has said, the mayor is elected with a council, and must be a person that works with the council the electorate gives him. He does not get to pick his own team. He must show leadership and share the sandbox. Whether it be Froese or another qualified individual, we need professional adults in Township politics — people who can show leadership and share leadership.
Kudos to Froese for putting his name on the ballot and confronting a systemic smear campaign that clearly displays a lack of integrity and common sense. Mayor Green does not play well with others.
Joe Zaccaria,
Walnut Grove
