SOMEONE ASKED!

-------- Your tax dollars at work ---------

A reader asked..... How is what appears as an expose of the SWSDA CEO's expenses at the Triangle Ale House, relevant to transparency and accountability of a municipal body like SWSDA? (See previous post from Friday.)

That is a really relevant question......

Here's why I posted and wrote the Triangle Ale House post the way I did.

First of all .... most travel expenses of an organization like SWSDA are taken from the "core funding" provided by the nine municipalities that contribute to SWSDA's operations.

Core funding is a particularly precious resource... because it pays for the key human resources applied to socio-economic development in our region and the support facilities, equipment and activities that permit the people we hire to do their jobs on our behalf.

Wasting those resources, limits the potential and actual effectiveness of your organization and your ability to deliver the services that provide the raison d'etre of the organization.

On a day to day basis, sound management, scrutiny and effective administration of SWSDA's core budget is the responsibility of SWSDA's staff from the lowest paid employee all the way to the CEO. They do it through their internal administration systems and with the supervision normally provided by good managers.

In SWSDA's case, final responsibility for financial management and oversight lies with the Board of Directors, who as a group, rely on the Chair and the Executive of the Board as set out in SWSDA's bylaws.

More importantly, Board Members have a further personal legal responsibility of "due diligence" i.e.... paying attention to what's going on!

Part of that responsibility is called "fiduciary responsibility" ... and falls on the shoulders of every Board Member.... not just those who are municipal representatives...

Indeed, municipal representatives sent by Council to be members of SWSDA's Board ..... have a further fiduciary and due diligence responsibility to the Municipal Council that sent them and the electors who elected them to protect and properly apply the resources our communities invest in SWSDA to be applied to our local socio-economic development.

That responsibility I would argue extends to gathering information about SWSDA's activities and ensuring that Council and in turn, taxpayers are sufficiently informed about what SWSDA is doing so that citizens can provide their informed views and wishes to Council respecting the operations of SWSDA.

A good example of this ..... is the threatened lawsuit and supposed indebtedness of the Municipality of Shelburne and in turn taxpayers of Shelburne to SWSDA that Mr. Anderson often raises at meetings and in his interviews with the media.

In this case, between 1999 and 2008 when Pat Nickerson and in turn Paulette Scott were Co-chairs of SWSDA, they each had an absolute personal responsibility to the Council and taxpayers of the Municipality of Shelburne to advise us if Mr. Anderson's statements were true and to see to it that these statements stopped, if they were not true. Both however claimed that they were sworn to secrecy and that they could not share information given to them by SWSDA staff unless they were specifically allowed to do so... talk about the the tail wagging the dog!

That responsibility for advising the public and protecting the interests of the Municipality now lies squarely on the shoulders of our new Warden and SWSDA Board member, Sherm Embree.... not an enviable position to be in if you want to make what may be painful changes while cultivating new relationships.....

SORRY FOR THE CIRCUITOUS ROUTE TO AN ANSWER ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVEL EXPENSE CLAIMS AT THE TRIANGLE ALE HOUSE .....

The Triangle Ale House expenses are a prime example of expenditures that should have been questioned and justified to the satisfaction of staff, the Chair, the Executive, the Board and individual members of the Board of Directors.

HAD THEY BEEN .... THEY PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN REJECTED AND.... the estimated $25,000 could have been used to hire staff or lever additional funds for investments in our communities.

Given my visit Thursday night ..... I see no reason that would justify spending an estimated $25,000 in taxpayers scarce development funds as travel expenses over the past nine years in the Triangle Ale House in Halifax at eight, nine, ten and eleven o'clock at night.

In my view, it is not an environment that is conducive or appropriate for important meetings or discussions about development in Shelburne or Yarmouth county municipalities or in Clare. Is the Triangle Ale House the image we want seared in the brains of potential investors or guests who are interested in our region....? Much as I love the Irish.... I doubt it!

WHO WAS ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH AND ARE THEY STILL NOT PAYING ATTENTION.... YOU TELL ME!