 | Friday, February 19, 2021
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Spending scandal at regional district shows the need for oversight | | |  | | | It’s a scoop in any city: a senior bureaucrat expensed more than $500,000 to taxpayers over five years on everything from lunches at fancy golf courses to wineries.
The details, uncovered by journalists at Kamloops This Week, lay out the spending habits of former Thompson-Nicola Regional District chief administrative officer Sukh Gill.
“I’m very sad this did happen. It’s given [us] a black eye, no question about it,” said Ken Gillis, the current chair of the board and regional area director.
Gill — who left his position running the regional district a year ago under under-explained circumstances — expensed hundreds of coffees for himself and staff. He expensed tens of thousands at restaurants. And he expensed retirement gifts to employees, including an 18-karat white gold necklace.
All of this was uncovered in tremendous detail by Kamloops This Week reporter Jessica Wallace in a series of recent stories which are well worth reading.
While most residents only found out through the media, Gillis insists the board knew about “a lot of this” before the articles and, since Gill’s retirement, had implemented a number of changes to ensure more rigorous oversight of expenses and limits on what can be charged to the taxpayer, including alcohol.
There’s been no suggestion of illegality here and no comment from Gill addressing the criticism — though plenty of criticism from those still in government.
“It’s very, very clear that there was some excessive spending going on,” said Gillis.
“But we have acted on it, and we have acted quickly and decisively.”
Perhaps. But the situation contains a few lessons for people outside the Thompson-Nicola region of B.C.
One is the importance of local media — there are 162 municipalities in this province and 27 regional districts, and diligent journalists focusing on local issues continue to be a powerful tool to hold them accountable.
Another is the need for mayors and councillors to keep track of what’s happening with regional governments they oversee: a position on a regional board is usually the secondary focus for a mayor or councillor and the taxpayer pressure for keeping spending in check is often more intense in council chambers than in regional offices.
And the other is, the nature of wasteful spending can sometimes be awfully innocuous. When thinking about local scandals, we often look for the crooked land deals or conflicts of interest.
But sometimes, it can be as mundane as charging for a coffee here, a coffee there — until it adds up to $9,177.26 from coffee places over five years. | | |  | | | 2. Vancouver | It’s rare these days when a week passes without someone commenting on the slow pace of action in B.C.’s largest city, but a story by Frances Bula on delays in permit approvals — which Mayor Kennedy Stewart said was a priority two years ago — seemed to touch a greater nerve than most. Is a breaking point at hand?
Read more in The Globe and Mail | | | |  | | | 3. Surrey | In the month since Surrey rejected a motion to begin its council meetings by stating they were on unceded Indigenous land, the nearby municipalities of Delta and Port Moody have been motivated to do the exact opposite. Meanwhile, Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum went on TV and said he hadn’t heard criticism.
Read more in Global News | | | | | |  | | | 4. Burnaby | Derek Corrigan so dominated Burnaby’s political culture as mayor for the better part of two decades that it’s taking some time for a new order to establish itself at city hall. For an example of that, consider a recent division on council over a proposed office and condo proposal by the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union.
Read more in the Burnaby Now | | | |  | | | 5. Three years or four? | For a quarter century, mayors and councillors were elected in B.C. every three years — but that was changed to every four years following the 2014 election. That extra time has already caused enough issues in enough municipalities that some are advocating for a return to the three-year format. Whether the province agrees is another matter.
Read more in the Nanaimo News Bulletin | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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