Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Council hopes to turn the page on the Hesse hiring controversy


Admitting that they were wrong in the handling of the issue, but not in the actual hiring, City council addressed the Tanalee Hesse controversy for what they no doubt hope will be the last time.

Council was responding to the findings of the George Paul report, the third party investigation conducted by the Prince George administrator who outlined his thoughts on the controversy.

He also was on hand to answer the six submitted questions of the concerned citizens group, who still have their reservations about the entire controversy and the process that led to the hiring of Ms. Hesse.

The Daily News provided some background on the Monday night session of council, which focused a good portion of its attention to the issue which according to the city’s financial officer has so far cost over 10,000 dollars to investigate.
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While council members may wish to see the controversy move on, that will no doubt be a decision made by the concerned citizens as far as their concerns over the immediate issue goes .
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As for the larger issue of the fall out from the controversy, the procedural process that went astray and the issue of transparency and accountability, those will be issues that the voters and taxpayers in the city will probably update council over as we lead up to the November 15th election.

Concerned citizens pose six contract questions
By George T. Baker
The Daily News
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Page three

“We are guilty. We are guilty. We’re guilty,” said city councilor Joy Thorkelson at Monday’s regular council meeting.

The mea culpa was based on what she saw as errors made by city council in the awarding of non-tendered contracts to Tanalee Hesse, the former temporary Corporate Administrative Officer, and wife of city manager Gord Howie.

While Thorkelson admitted there were errors, she had hoped, as did all of council last night, to put the Gord Howie, Tanalee Hesse hiring problems behind them.
And Thorkelson remained unapologetic about the hiring of Hesse.
“I am convinced by this (George Paul’s) report that city staff did not commit a cover-up,” said Thorkelson.

“Would we do it all over again? We might hire Hesse but we would not do it in the same manner.

The city invited special investigator George Paul to council to answer the six questions posed by the Committee of Concerned Prince Rupert Citizens regarding whether or not there was any wrongdoing by Mayor Herb Pond and city council.

Paul answered for the second time in two weeks that the city erred in its handling of the contract as far as tendering it but that there was no unethical behavior by city staff behind the freedom of information requests or the awareness of the contracts to Hesse.

He did say that FOI requests that are not burdensome should be handled by the city immediately.

“Simple straightforward requests for information from local governments shouldn’t be put through a rigorous and bureaucratic process. A lot of that information should be provided,” said Paul.

Paul recommended that the committee should reapply their FOI request for the full details of Hesse’s activities as a hired contractor for the city.

“That request is certainly reasonable,” said Paul.

In answering the committee’s six questions, Paul advised that Howie had not received a stipend for sitting on community groups and acting as liaison to Tourism Prince Rupert and the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

As a chair for CityWest, Paul determined that Howie has been paid $600 per month, like all of CityWest’s board members.

Paul said that council should not provide the legal opinion that address the legitimacy of the contracts and procedures followed in retaining Hesse’s services.

“It certainly is not good practice and nor is normal practice for local governments to release legal opinions,” said Paul.

Paul found that the request to provide the committee with the same background material provided to himself on which he based his conclusions reached on Oct. 165 to be “reasonable” and again advised the committee to reapply its FOI request.

If the non-tendered contract cost the city some face, it has also cost it some money.

According to city’s Financial Officer Rodin, the city has spent between $9,000 and $10,000 on the investigation.

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