Two Brooke-Alvinston council members are railing against the cost of an investigation by the Integrity Commissioner.
Recently, the municipality’s IC ruled both Deputy Mayor Frank Nemcek and Councillor Jenny Redick were guilty of breaching the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. Nemcek and Redick were both members of the Alvinston Optimist Club when they voted on a contract between the municipality and the club for the rental of the pavilion. The commissioner found they had indirect interests in the contract and should not have voted.
But the Integrity Commissioner chose not to bring charges against the pair before a judge.
Aug. 10, council got the first part of the bill for the investigation – $11,500. And Treasurer Stephen Ikert was expecting another invoice for the investigation.
“This a disgrace $11,000 for that witch hunt…I think all the taxpayers need to know how much money was spent,” said Nemcek during the meeting.
Redick, who has since resigned from the Optimist Club citing a busy schedule, agreed.
“I think it is disgraceful this is costing the taxpayers $12,000 plus when we are put in this position to represent our municipality and our residents,” she said adding whomever filed the complaint had been “misled.”
Redick added the contract included $500 more in fees which went to the municipality.
“All we did is gain more money for the municipality as counselors and we got our hands slaped and now the municipality is on the hook for $12,000 plus,” she said.
But Mayor Dave Ferguson, who cautioned Nemcek and Redick during the last meeting not to vote on Optimist business, disagreed saying councillors asked questions about that very issue during an education session with the Integrity Commissioner just weeks before they voted on the contract. .
“You were educated twice.”
Just a point of consideration. I think it is very difficult to hold any sort of public appointment, office or position in a small community and not be potentially seen in conflict. It’s normally a handful that step up to be a part of local governance, take part in associations, committees and groups. That same individual(s) easily find themselves having interests in multiple initiatives (IE: arena, council, recreation, fire department, etc). Who really welcomes the killer bees over optics involving a dollar value -10K or someone who didn’t get a part time job for example. This kind of static discourages people from stepping up to help out. I’d like to hope that a threshold would be implemented to where some dollar value or real impact must be met before such complaints can even be made.