'A selective witch hunt': Peter Kelly responds to critical report

Charlottetown's CAO is striking back at a report issued this week that accuses him of acting outside his authority while he was working as the CAO of a small county in Alberta.

The inspection report was commissioned by the Alberta Department of Municipal Affairs, at the request of the County of Westlock, where Kelly worked from September 2014 to March 2016.

The report says Kelly exceeded his authority as CAO — and contravened the province's Municipal Government Act — by negotiating a land lease and authorizing site improvements to develop a municipal property without an authorizing resolution from council. 

The inspection report goes on to say the enhancement work cost $375,707. An amount that Kelly disputes, saying the costs were $190,000.

In a written statement issued Friday afternoon, Kelly called the report "lacking, disappointing and incomplete at best. Often appearing as inaccurate and biased."

'Was this a selective witch hunt to find a scapegoat?'

Kelly reiterated his position, put forward a year ago when the controversy first surfaced, that his actions were in fact authorized through two motions passed by council — regarding the lease — and that a clause in the lease agreement with the tenant of the property outlined work to be done by the municipality.

"This clause, for whatever reason, was overlooked and/or not commented on by the investigators," Kelly stated.

For whatever reasons, it appears they decided to use selective pieces of information and forego other unsettling issues.- Peter Kelly

Kelly said he was advised "that the investigation was supposed to be an overall review of the county's operations over an unspecified period of time on a wide range of issues … For whatever reasons, it appears they decided to use selective pieces of information and forego other unsettling issues."

Kelly said investigators, "used my name and outlined my supposed oversights throughout the report, yet other noted oversights by other administrators or management were not given the same prominence … Was this a selective witch hunt to find a scapegoat? From what I see, it appears so."

Missing documents

One thing both sides, Kelly and the inspectors agree on, is that documents which would have been helpful to the investigation are missing.

The report itself cited a number of documents which could not be located, including authorized copies of minutes of some council meetings and a signed copy of an amended lease agreement related to the property at the centre of the controversy.

Kelly said some documents were missing when he started his job for the county and said "subsequently, upon my departure from the county documents that I left apparently have gone missing or been destroyed."

Without those documents, Kelly said "the investigators seemed to rely on unsubstantiated and unidentified individual(s) or staff innuendo; with such allegations being presented as fact."

The investigation report noted that county staff had said, "that document shredding logs were inconsistent over the last few years."

The report also quoted one, unnamed, staff member as saying that, while CAO Kelly, "put a policy in place as to what documents had to be kept and for how long, and then he started having the past EA shred documents and was adamant that it all needed to be done before the new CAO started."

'I did what I believe was expected of me'

There is no indication in the report that any documents were improperly shredded, or that any of the missing documents needed for the inspection had been destroyed. Kelly did not address this part of the report in his written statement, and was not immediately available to provide clarification.

In concluding his response to the inspection report, Kelly said, "I certainly am not suggesting that I have not made mistakes in my career, as I have made my fair share … I have never acted out of malice or stood to gain from any of my actions or decisions while working in Westlock. I did what I believe was expected of me, what I believed to be in the best interest of the county, following what I perceived to be a clear council directive."

The City of Charlottetown has said it is reviewing the inspection report on its own, and will provide its own response. Kelly's position as Charlottetown CAO was made permanent earlier this year.

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