Foul aroma

It has been quite a spectacle to watch Mayor Robert Quaiff and a cabal of coupplotting councillors use taxpayer’s money to overthrow the County’s manager—to watch as they attempt to extricate themselves from a mess of their own creation. And then refuse to tell us how much money they spent.

The CAO’s leadership approach no longer aligns with the new council, according to Quaiff. Fair enough. So then, Mayor Quaiff, tell us how much you spent to unencumber yourselves from this burdensome management.

Quaiff has said he won’t comment on the negotiated settlement—ducking conveniently behind the blanket of confidentiality.

But this doesn’t wash. It is not his money. The province mandates that every public employee of the province, its agencies and municipalities who earns more than $100,000 per year must disclose it each year. It is the law. The province does this because it believes it is an important principle that voters understand how much their highest paid staff earn.

It is a principle Mayor Quaiff and council ought to consider carefully.

The former manager earned well more than that last year. He had 19 months left on his contract. He had a good case for a wrongful dismissal action. So the amount Quaiff et al spent on our behalf to part ways with the manager is likely measured in the hundreds of thousands. Perhaps equal to a point or two more on your 2016 tax bill.

Mayor Quaiff can’t hide behind mutterings of confidentiality. We know what the County’s top-earning staff members earn—he can’t choose to keep this specific salary settlement information from the public simply because it’s inconvenient or politically troublesome.

There are valid questions about the utility of public discussion of individual salaries and the inherent weakness of a list that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since it was first tabulated more than a decade ago. But despite its frailty, public salary disclosure gives the public a small measure of transparency. We can ask our government to account for the way it spends our money. When elected officials choose what information they will share, and what they won’t, they believe themselves above accountability.

The question then becomes, why not? Why withhold this information from the voters? If you truly believe you have made a decision that puts this community on a track toward a better future, then surely the cost will have been worth it? If the vision they so eagerly wish to realize is so magnificent and noble that it was necessary to dump their top manager— surely they will have judged the cost as justifiable?

So justify it. Tell us what you spent and why it is was worth spending this amount of money. Was there another way?

Some folks are happy to see the back of Merlin Dewing, no matter the cost. But even they should want to know the price tag of this satisfied feeling. The rest of us should know the amount to determine if, in our own minds, the action was reasonable.

Everything about this sorry episode, appears ham handed, ill-considered and improvised. It is time for the County’s elected leaders to come clean. Vague references to misaligned visions is not nearly good enough. Mayor Quaiff must try to reset after this fiasco.

Council has dithered aimlessly since it passed its first budget in December. There are big challenges facing this community—roads, bridges, spiralling waterworks costs, as well as its promise to once and for all deal with the size of council. This community wants to hear solutions, strategies and pathways forward. But instead, council has frittered away its first 100 days. Now it has thrust itself into a crisis of its own making.

It is not too late to salvage this term of council. But to do so begins with being straight with the residents who fund this enterprise.

It is time for Mayor Quaiff and council to come clean.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca