West St. Paul council calls emergency meeting on fire hall controversy
CBC News | Posted: October 21, 2014 5:51 PM | Last Updated: October 21, 2014
Wednesday is election day in West St. Paul but it's also the day the municipality is holding an emergency council meeting at the request of one of the mayoral candidates.
Dan Garcea, currently a councillor and one of two candidates for mayor, called for the meeting to dispel what he says is misinformation about his role in a controversial fire hall deal.
Not only is the meeting scheduled for election day, it’s also scheduled to be held in-camera.
Last week CBC News reported that the provincial Ombudsman was investigating issues around tendering and potential conflict of interest relating to West St. Paul's new fire hall.
A confidential letter from the Ombudsman's office, obtained by CBC News, said the Ombudsman initiated the investigation to determine whether “there was a conflict of interest in the actions of Councillor Dan Garcea pertaining to all tenders and proposals submitted to the RM by S&J Construction or the Garcea Group of Companies, of which Councillor Garcea is/was an employee.”
The letter also said the ombudsman was reviewing whether the decisions and actions of the municipality pertaining to tenders submitted by S&J Construction or the Garcea Group of Companies for the fire hall and other municipal projects were consistent with the RM’s tendering and procurement process.
Yesterday Garcea criticized the CBC News story and made public an Oct. 17 letter the municipality received from acting provincial Ombudsman Mel Holley concerning the investigation.
"A letter from the ombudsman last week clearly states this investigation is to look into the rural municipality’s tendering process etc., not me or anyone specific," Garcea said in West St. Paul council chambers Monday afternoon with supporters sitting in the audience.
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In his letter, Holley writes, “...while a specific councillor has been named in the media as the subject of an investigation, the entity being investigated is the RM. While the actions of an individual councillor have been raised by the complainant, we note that the responsibility for ensuring compliance with statutory and policy requirements rests with council…”
“We don’t investigate individuals,” Holley said in an interview Monday with CBC News, “We investigate the actions of public bodies and entities.”
“So we’re not really investigating the councillor we’re investigating his actions,” Holley explained.
“We’ll come to a determination, you know, on the basis of the information as to whether or not it appears he’s in a conflict of interest,” Holley said.
“At the end of the day, this isn’t about him [Garcea] it’s about council. Because they are the ones who are responsible for the rules and for enforcing them,” Holley said.
'Horrified' over leaked letter
Holley also said letters written by ombudsman investigators are normally kept confidential and he was “horrified” that someone had leaked a copy of the letter to CBC News.
He cautioned against anyone drawing conclusions from the letter.
“What if he’s, you know, at the end of the day found not to be in a conflict of interest? What if we find the rules weren’t broken?” Holley said.
In his October 17 letter he wrote, “the fact that there is an ongoing investigation cannot and should not be taken as indicative of any finding or conclusion in respect of the validity of the allegations.”
Garcea said in an interview, “I was not in a conflict of interest and that’s what I’m assuming that (ombudsman) report, once it’s received, will be disclosing.”
He added, “I would welcome that report so we could clarify a lot of this.”
CAO confident in investigation result
West St. Paul chief administrative officer Brent Olynyk said in an interview that he thinks the ombudsman investigation will show the municipality managed the fire hall project correctly.
“There’s some citizens out there that are not happy with how fire hall was constructed and that's their prerogative but I think the facts will point that the administration followed all the rules," Olynyk said.
He added that he thinks details of the ombudsman investigation should have remained confidential until completion.
Holley said he expects to have a first draft of the ombudsman report in early November.
Garcea and another councillor, Ron Michalishyn, wanted the emergency council meeting to happen yesterday (Monday) to deal with issues around the fire hall project.
Mayor Bruce Henley told CBC News the meeting didn’t happen then based on legal advice because proper notification was not given.
Garcea said the meeting tomorrow will also deal with a consultant's report into the fire hall project.
He said the report will show that a community effort helped save money on the cost of the project.
Garcea said he has been working to have the report made public but a council resolution last June said the report would “remain private at this time” and be forwarded to the ombudsman.
Garcea and Henley are the two candidates seeking the mayor’s job in Wednesday’s vote.
The council meeting is scheduled to be held in-camera starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.