How the Ombudsman Discovered SWSDA.....

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

A STORY THAT SHOULD BE TOLD

One reader recently asked who had asked the Ombudsman to intercede.......

Well..... grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up, relax and let me tell you the story of how citizen outrage was transformed into an investigation of the previously unreachable (I almost wrote untouchable) organization known as the South West Shore Development Authority or SWSDA.

A long, long time ago .... a time shrouded in the mist of previous municipal elections.... when Paulette Scott was Warden of the Municipality of Shelburne and Co-Chair of SWSDA, the Municipality hired a retired Halifax City accountant and financial guy. Having identified what were thought to be irregularities in the operations of the Municipality Council gave him the lofty position of Acting Chief Administrative Officer (aka the Acting CAO).... a fella by the name of Reg Ridgely.

And it came to pass..... that SWSDA was finding it increasingly difficult to find creative ways to finance its various overheads and costs .... off the backs of unwitting municipalities and uninformed taxpayers...... and lo and behold..... a proverbial godsend in the form of a two hundred acre property (known as the Former Nova Scotia Boys School) with over twenty buildings with a replacement cost of over $20 million became available ... and the Province thought.... this is good!

And in a blink of an eye.... the property and $625,000 to maintain it prior to its sale were transferred to SWSDA for the Authority to dispose of.....

AND TO ASSIST SWSDA..... A bold plan was concocted and staff reports were generated by the Acting CAO for the Municipality of Shelburne, for the Municipality to acquire by purchase or lease, the former Boys School as well as another property owned by SWSDA.... the former Naval Base CFS Shelburne.....

and the Warden, SWSDA and their supporters smiled and held meetings in secret..... assuming that the taxpayers would never notice .....

for they seldom paid attention to the machinations of the Municipality during the early summer and the municipal budget season which coincided with the cake and carnivals known locally as Founders Days....

But wait! To The Warden, the former Warden, the Acting CAO and SWSDA's chagrin .... taxpayers began to notice and the crowds attending budget and Council meetings grew larger and the questions asked more persistent and probing!

Hundreds..... nay more than a thousand attended budget meetings.... CBC sent reporters and television crews from Halifax, others started reporting about an obvious rebellion mounting on the South Shore.....

and the Warden, SWSDA and their supporters smiled a little less.... finally calling Mr. Anderson and his good friend Ralston MacDonnell to come help quell the rebellion with soothing words and platitudes, newspeak and double-speak....

But the crowds were not assuaged ..... and they continued to ask questions and remind elected officials that.... new elections were coming and they would be held accountable (and they were.... but that's another story).

And the proposals were defeated..... but not before a petition with more than 500 signatures was compiled and sent to Ministers and the Premier..... and the Ministers and Premier did nothing (and they were held accountable .... but that too is another story...)

And so a small group calling itself "the Concerned Citizens of Shelburne" .... came together and wrote to the Ombudsman to seek the help of his Office in reviewing what had transpired..... and for two years they met with the Ombudsman's Office awaiting the Supreme Court's decision that SWSDA was a "Municipal Body" and therefore subject to the Ombudsman's Act, the Freedom of Information Act and other Provincial Legislation.....

And it came to pass that the investigation was initiated some years later (in the fall of 2008 and after Paulette Scott, Pat Nickerson and Reg Ridgely no longer were in the story.)

The morale of this story is that a small group of citizens have power if they are informed and if they act...... The report and recommendations of the Ombudsman's Office are expected this fall.