Sir: In the battle between John Cryderman and C-K’s city hall, city hall and council are losing. Whether they realize it or not, their continued resistance to legitimate and legal requests for information raises all kinds of suspicion and concern, amongst even the most trusting taxpayer.
But surely the people we have ‘leading’ this community must realize this – don’t they? Are they that naïve, or do they really have something to hide?
The evasive action taken by city hall in response to Mr. Cryderman’s requests for travel expense details around Mayor Hope’s forays into Asia are particularly questionable. The very fact that this issue is still going on two years after it started and the Privacy Commissioner’s Office is now involved reflects very poorly on our municipal leadership.
Their flimsy excuses about the availability of the expense details in question is nothing short of insulting. I work in a business and a job where travel expenses are incurred, and submitted with detail. That detail is not required simply because of a unique company policy, it is required because Canada Revenue requires it be done this way.
C-K accounting will not be exempt from this. And in relatively easy fashion I can ask to have these expense details looked up either by the time period that an event happened or by the event itself. Those expenses will detail mode of travel, food, accommodation and other miscellaneous expenses.
I would bet my paycheque that C-K’s JD Edwards accounting system is equally capable of doing the same, and it won’t take 88 hours, or even 44 hours of staff time to get it.
Throughout this entire ordeal it feels as if C-K officials have done everything possible to block Mr. Cryderman’s efforts, likely hoping he would give up his pursuit. Many in fact would have given up after originally getting quoted $1,320 (two employees time of 44 hours each at $30/hour) to compile the information. So why does city hall continue to dodge, stall, avoid and refuse? If nothing wrong has been done and there is nothing to hide, there is no reason whatsoever for these evasive actions. So why is the information not being released?
On the request for travel expense details, city hall basically has two options when it comes to responding to the request for information – a version of “Yes” or a version of “No.” “No” basically implies one of two things – you either can’t or you won’t produce the information and neither of these positons are optically appealing, or frankly, acceptable. They both suggest that city hall either follows no accounting protocol or they are spending our tax dollars irresponsibly to the extent that they have to hide it.
There is only one way to clear the optics, and that is to provide the information. Again, if you have done nothing wrong, there is no reason to withhold the information. Continue to withhold it and you are demonstrating guilt.
The situation is only exacerbated with Mr. Cryderman’s recent request for information pertaining to a previous council decision around fire and ambulance services. Again, city hall seems to be doing whatever it can to not be transparent, despite Chatham-Kent CAO Don Shropshire’s statement that “We take our commitment to transparency seriously and our record demonstrates that.” Well, Mr. Shropshire, your office’s record in fact does not demonstrate that.
City hall and the people that work there – including the mayor and council – would do well to remember who their employer is. You work for the public, and the public is people like Mr. Cryderman and me, and my neighbors across rural and urban Chatham-Kent. You are accountable to us, and taxpayers in democracies all over the world are getting fed up with public employees who seem to have lost sight of that. Their growing lack of accountability and sense of entitlement is offensive. This withholding of public information is a good example of that, and it’s nice to see someone like Mr. Cryderman refusing to accept it.
Rick Youlton
Chatham
