Why is Municipality of North Perth Staff Exempt from Building permits
Just when we thought it could not get any worse in our community, it does! Our municipal Clerk has now been discovered renovating a home without a building permit. It has been more than one person who has noticed that there is no building permit prominently posted in the front window of the house or anywhere could be seen on the property.
I personally confirmed on December 12th and 13th with the municipal Building Inspector that indeed there was no building permit issued. He said that it is up to the person to make application and that he was not going to investigate the issue. This begs the question, why are there laws for the residents, who have in the past faced hefty fines and not for the municipal staff?
But wait, it gets worse! The municipal clerk’s husband somehow (and without advertising the position in accordance with our HR Bylaw) was hired as the “janitor” for the municipality. And now the municipality gives him untendered building and renovation contracts for a business he runs “on the side”. Is any of this sounding a little like conflict of interest or grossly unfair to the other small businesses in our community? Well, if you said YES, you are right.
When I attempted to obtain a copy of the invoice for Mr. Berfelz’s contract services company in the renovation of our local library, I was again, outright refused access to this information. This invoice and alleged “quote” was discussed in open council . Despite the provisions of the Municipal Act in particular Section 253 and our own Accountability and Transparency Bylaw (as required by Section 270 of the Municipal Act) public information regarding cosy employment/business relationships is denied.
More recently, the municipality changed auditors. It was stated in the council meeting that the Management Letter was scathing and that the auditors were not interested in providing their services any longer. This should raise some eyebrows in the same manner as it has with councillor Ludington who persistently challenges our Treasurer regarding increased water and sewer rates for Elma. This is despite our Treasurer telling the public only 18 months previously in a mandatory public meeting that the utility rates will NOT increase. The staff of the Municipality of North Perth believe they have an endless source of income, YOU and ME! They also believe that we will not question their conduct, manner of doing business and rampant property tax increases.
All of this should draw the concerns of the ratepayers of North Perth as indicated in my previous letter to the editor. Not only does staff conceal information that is owed to the public and councillors, but some have been running the operations and using municipal funds for their own personal gain. I maybe wrong in some assumptions, but I thought this type of government behaviour is alleged to be occurring in “third world countries” not Canada or more specifically North Perth. Although, I must say in today’s Globe and Mail the headline is “Former French president Jacques Chirac found guilty of corruption”. Let’s face it, none of us are deeply surprised at the French court conviction, but possibly surprised that a court with all of the politics involved would finally go that far for convict their former Prime Minister (and what about former Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney). We know it can happen anywhere and any time and that is the biggest part of the reason we are in worst economic turmoil in modern history. I, amongst others keep seeing disturbing behaviour within our own local government and for the sake of good governance we keep asking questions of our municipal representatives and our staff. Unfortunately, my questions fall on deaf ears. That is why I am circulating a petition for an in-depth audit of our municipality under Section 9 of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs Act.
RON SCOTT
Thursday, December 15, 2011
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4 comments:
PROVE HIM WRONG. GOOD LUCK NORTH PERTH
Seems odd that you are supposedly attacking one family in North Perth? One does not require a building permit for cosmetic changes to a home. Get your facts straight prior to writing and posting information on a topic that you have no business worrying about.
If you were really concerned about the use of taxpayers dollars you wouldn't be bothering our elected/appointed officials on the use of building permits for one individual. Did you get all the proper permits when you opened you supposed pool hall and kids centre a few years back? If I recall, I didn't see any permits then. Was it structurally approved by an engineer. Are you going to make sure that every home in the community has a building permit to replace some floors and paint some walls? Do we, the public and appointed councillers really care. Not likely.
There is more issues to worry about in this town then one building permit issue and the endless complaints against this family. Give your head a shake Ron. You should know better. You want to do something about our community, think about the money you spend each day, of tax payers dollars, making our municipal officials look into your issues.
As for the appointment of jobs and the procurement process, there is a procurement process in place that really sets the guidelines for the selection of contractors in the community. Unfortunately, our municipality does follow this.
The change of auditors could have happened for numerous reasons, the size of the munipality, time constraints, and so on. Municipal audits can be very time consuming and costly for accounting firms and most of these costs may not be recovered by a budget cost. Thus, the accounting firm may have had to step down from the audit.
Im really interested by the fact that you have noted that you would like an in-depth audit of our municipalities? But your worried about the use of tax payers money? Does this make sense?
An indepth audit could have an unlimited cost upwards of $200-300K of a municipality this size. Whos going to pay for that? Im sure your not offering? As an auditor your job is to report to the municipality on the issues found durign the audit. If the audit didn't report anything, would they really be doing their job.
My only suggestion would be for you to think before you act. Every thing and complaint costs this town money. Which in turn does increases taxes paid by residents and various rates on upkeeping the municipality because they have to allocate other costs towards time spent dealing with the small issues that you have raised.
Remessage if your interested in a discussion of this so called in-depth audit. LOL.
Comment #1 makes sense to me. If Mr. Scot is wrong, presumably an audit would confirm that. As far as $200,000 - $300,000 for an audit of a small municipality, that seems very excessive to me. Chartered accountants are not inexpensive but surely a tender for a competent audit would do better than those figures mentioned.
The previous audit was tendered, as required in the public sector act. As for the fee, who knows what an in depth audit would cost alan, are you putting in a bid? From rons point of view, he wants all building permits and other municipal costs reviewed. This wouldn't be easily costed as a normal audit would only include a sample of costs being traced/reviewed.
I think the more relevant cost issue here, is the fact that this article eluded to the fact that municipal officials were spending taxpayer money on personal purchases. Where the article is supposing to spend more taxpayer money on personal vendetas.
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