Thank you for your comments Mr. Wrye; they represent your distorted perceptions on how our Town should be governed.
Frankly Mr. Wrye, as opposed to your beliefs and feelings surrounding the mysteries and/or unanswered questions regarding Brideau’s Employment Contract I care about facts, and in particular about the missing public records in the minutes, which I should be able to find, if the provisions of the law and especially the ones of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) were followed correctly. All different “interpretations” I shall call violations.
When you then state that you are “in agreement with the contents of the letter that Mayor Stead wrote to Roy Brideau”, it means little to me and misses the point.
- Were the majority of all Councillors “in agreement”?
- When should this agreement have taken place?
According to the law it should have been done in an open and public session of Council and could not have been done in an in-camera one. And there were no public meetings between February 05, 2007 and February 15, 2007.
There are more “in-corrections” than the first line of the Amendment letter Mayor Stead sent to Brideau on February 15, 2007. Are you unable to see them or simply choose to ignore them?
It is amazing as well that you - after serving on six Council terms - do not understand that governing the Town of Wolfville cannot be compared with how corporate and/or private business entities run and handle employment and salary issues in a more or less secret fashion.
You - as a government official - can not apply such handling and you, the Mayor and the other Councillors are indeed accountable to the public - the residents of Wolfville - and transparency should be the key word that separates the governing of the Town from the running of a corporate and/or private business.
I do not know if Brideau “is a valued leader of the staff of this town”; I have no access to his complete yearly work evaluations from 1997 until at least February 2007. And if you try to claim that I have mistreated Brideau by asking legitimate questions about his mysterious Employment Contract, you again miss the point.
Regarding the more than $100,000 Brideau gets paid a year in salary and including the Town’s tremendous increases to his retirement funds, I had a word with government officials in Halifax some months ago. I was told that a comparable yearly salary would range from $80,000 to $90,000 in total.
In addition to the more than $100,000 I would like to have the yearly salaries of “Assistant Executives to Roy Brideau” added, to get a clear understanding of what the job function of the CAO does actually cost the Wolfville tax payer.
And I am still waiting for an answer from the Review Officer under the FOIPOP on how Brideau’s yearly salary and retirement contribution increases read between 1996 and 2007 and how the total amount paid by the Town has almost doubled.
It is almost funny that you all of a sudden become very sensitive in relation to violations of the MGA regarding the content of the in-camera session on February 05, 2007. When you write that you “cannot comment” because it would be “a violation of the Act”, are you confirming that the four decisions/directions - as stated in Stead’s letter dated February 15, 2007 - were made during the in-camera session? This for sure would be a violation of the Act, for the four decisions/directions had to be made publicly and outside the in-camera session and published in the minutes.
I can assure you that I have absolutely no interest in the discussions which might have happened within the in-camera session and which you do not have to disclose under the Act.
With this in mind I have a major problem to understand how you might violate the Act while commenting on and/or answering my questions in the common interest of Wolfville residents and tax payers, unless you see it a fact that the decisions/directions were made in-camera.
You cannot have it both ways Mr. Deputy Mayor!
Your comments seem to be “distractions” from the truth and do not provide any answers. I shall listen carefully if you have something more substantial to say. And I fully agree when you write that “people are entitled to the truth”. Reads well on paper Mr. Wrye, does it not?
The Town solicitor made it clear that during the in-camera session in February 2007 Council did give direction to staff of, or solicitors for, the municipality to negotiate Brideau’s compensation package as part of his Employment Contract.
In my article “Update 1 on Wolfville and the Roy Brideau Issue”, I had raised questions like:
- Did Council entitle and authorize staff Stead (the Town’s solicitor stated that “Council did give directions to staff …”) to negotiate and finalize Brideau’s compensation package?
- Did Council provide staff Stead with a carte blanche?
- When was this done by Council?
- With what motion brought to the table by whom?
- Carried with what majority?
- Did Council authorize staff Stead to ignore/delete important provisions of the original Employment Contract in favour of Brideau only?
- Was it the intention of the majority of Council to provide staff Stead with “directions” to increase the Town’s yearly contributions to Brideau’s retirement plan from 5% (original contract) to 12 % and 15% and 18% of his yearly salary?
- Was it the intention of the majority of Council to provide staff Stead with “directions” to delete the provision in Brideau’s original contract that his work performance had to be fully evaluated at least once in a year as a base for potential yearly salary increases by providing salary increases four years in advance?
- Was it the intention of the majority of Council to provide Mayor Stead with “directions” to change Brideau’s Employment Contract with this 2nd Amendment that way that Brideau does not really have to work at all and the Town will have to pay more than $100,000 a year for his presence at theTown hall?
- Is there no Councillor with courage to stand up and disclose to the Wolfville tax payer and the public what actual directions were given to Mayor Stead and by doing so re-establish the trust into our Council?
These questions are still unanswered!
Maybe, the whole Brideau issue reeks at least of favouritism due to the fact that Stead and Brideau have worked closely together for more than 12 years.
As far as the election goes, I was not disappointed that the voters of Wolfville saw fit to elect others in your place Mr. Wrye. It is unfortunate however that the “un-democratic” election system made it happen that Mr. Stead became re-elected even though the overwhelming majority of voters rejected him. He was lucky that there were four candidates campaigning for the Mayor’s office, thereby splitting the votes.
My predictions are that, without your influence and support in Council, Mayor Stead will have a challenging four-year term ahead.
Lutz E. Becker / November 13, 2008
C/ Wolfvillewatch
Comments:
st said...
thanks for your concern.
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