With Mayor Glen Everitt in Alaska trying to stave off a Tribal Council lawsuit over Dawson’s sewage discharge, and Bill Holmes with a sick daughter in Edmonton, the council table was Byrun Shandler, acting mayor Joanne Van Nostrand, Wayne Potoroka and city manager Scott Coulson.

Dawson Councillor Resigns: One Down and Four to Go

by Dan Davidson

(April 6, 2004) Dawson City’s council is one member smaller after last night’s regular council meeting, when Joanne Van Nostrand, now in her third term, resigned in protest after council was forced to rescind the contract it had awarded for garbage collection and give it to another company under the watchful eye of financial supervisor Andre Carrel, who sat in the gallery with about 25 other people.

During discussion on the two motions that it took to accomplish this act, all councillors present (and Mayor Glen Everitt by speakerphone from Alaska), spoke to the fact that the award they were being forced to make was the wrong one. It was not, said councillors Shandler and Potoroka, an award to the lowest bidder, but an award to the lowest level of service in a situation where that had already proven inadequate. Nevertheless, those three councillors voted in favour of the supervisor’s edict, in motion padded with “whereas” phrases that made it clear they did so under protest.

Van Nostrand did not. She eloquently defended the original contract award to Callison Waste Management and the process by which it was accomplished, pointing out that council had made its decision within the framework of the Carrel report’s financial plan and with the foreknowledge of the supervisor, who had told them he was not interested in the details of the “request for proposals” when they issued it in January.

About 26 people were at the Tuesday night meeting, including Andre Carrel, seen in the middle of the picture wearing the suit and cowboy boots. Photo by Dan Davidson

Following the passage of the resolution giving the contract to Ed Repair, she produced her letter of resignation, which she read with a voice full of strain.

“As mayor and council we are elected to make decisions for the community in the best interests of the community to the best of our abilities, and I believe that I have done the best I possibly could to meet these commitments.

“If our decisions are to be overturned by the territorial government at the threat of removal, then what position do we really represent ...?

“Being a councillor is a huge commitment which comes with little gratitude. The only reason I put my name forward for this position was that I felt I could make a difference and believed in what I was doing. My satisfaction came from knowing that I was doing the best that I could.

“I feel very little satisfaction and very much frustration in holding the position of an official paper shuffler.

“What has transpired here tonight has made it clear to me that this is our new position. We are being manipulated by cheap personal and political agendas which I find offensive and intolerable.”

Thanking the city staff, and supportive citizens of the community, she handed chair of the meeting over to Mayor Everitt. Voice shaking with the emotion of the moment, he thanked her for her years of hard work and adjourned the meeting, adding that he would be giving a lot of hard thought to his own future as mayor of Dawson during the next few days.

Andre Carrel, who had sat with his head down taking notes during the two hour meeting, was just about the first person out of the council chambers. Kathy Webster, a teacher and council supporter, yelled out “Way to go, Andre!” as he left the room.

Said Webster, “I’m very angry that we lost an excellent council person. I think the territorial government has to wear a lot of the responsibility because they are giving Andre Carrel the power to do this.

“The other thing that I ask out loud is where is out MLA? He’s supposed to be defending Dawson. Where is he?”

Van Nostrand, remaining at the council table, was surrounded by hugging well wishers, a number with tears in their eyes, including city office staff.

Mayor Everitt, on the phone from Alaska, indicated that he thought his opposition’s hope had been that it would be him resigning.

Former councillors Shirley Pennell and John Mitchell were clear about their feelings outside the hall.

“I hope Andre Carrel got the message that the citizens of Dawson are steaming mad,” said Pennell. “They have a right to be mad. What’s happening has been done totally illegally. The contract that has just been given for waste management is totally, totally illegal. I think that’s what quite sickening about the whole thing.

“I think the person that forced the council into doing that knows that that is not legal procedure for awarding it.”

“I’ll have to cut a lot of my adjectives,” said John Mitchell. “I’m totally frustrated and angry. I think we all know that there’s different camps in Dawson, the Peter camp and the Glen camp and a whole bunch of the rest of us in the middle. What this has done is draw us all out in support of the fact that we have a municipal council.

“I think some genius in Whitehorse better take a look at the calendar and figure out when the next territorial election is. That’s gonna be the answer. All this baloney, BS or whatever, is gonna come and go, and Dawson’ll still be here. It’s gonna come back around - in spades.”

The head table at this meeting included new CAO David Skid, Minister Glen Hart, Trustee Ray Hayes and outgoing Supervisor André Carrel. Photo by Dan Davidson

Hart Faces Packed YOOP Hall to Explain Decision

by Dan Davidson

According to former financial supervisor Andre Carrel the simple reason why Dawson’s council was replaced on April 13 was that “there was more money going out than there was coming in.”

Carrel was part of the front table panel convened at the YOOP Hall at 6:30 on Wednesday night, the day after, to explain to a gathering of about 130 people just what had happened. He came armed with comparative spreadsheets and budgets to prove that the City of Dawson’s 2003 budget had, in defiance of his own earlier predictions in January, ended with a deficit of $1.14 million.

He had earlier predicted a deficit of $90,724.00.

He had no problem showing how the audit had produced the larger number, though he did not deal with the glaring discrepancy between the two.

When challenged by Mark Lombard, a local carpenter, as to whether the difference between a balanced and unbalanced budget could be found in a line item which showed that government transfers were down by $1.3 million over what had been budgeted, Carrel said it was due to an accounting error which had had the City of Dawson expecting to receive $2.1 million in 2003 which it had already received in 2002.

Under questioning Carrel indicated that only he had caught this error. It had passed by Dawson’s administration, a former YTG supervisor, a deputy minister, an outside accounting firm hired by the government to examine Dawson’s books, and had ultimately been part of a budget which had been approved by the territorial government.

Asked why Dawson alone should be responsible for a mistake made by so many people, Carrel said he couldn’t answer that one, and passed it off to the new Trustee, Ray Hayes, who had been introduced earlier by Minister Glen Hart.

The YOOP Hall was packed for the meeting at which the Minister explained why the council was sacked. Photo by Dan Davidson

Hart explained that Hayes, a retired YTG manager, had been brought on board to help solve Dawson’s problems over the next year, and repeated many times that the whole purpose of the exercise was help the town “for the sake of Dawson and for all Yukoners.”

Working with Hayes will be David Skid, appointed as an interim chief administrative office here.

Both former mayor Glen Everitt and former councillor Joanne Van Nostrand indicated that they were familiar with these individuals and were pleased to see them appointed to these positions, if things had to be this way.

Van Nostrand questioned that they did. Carrel must have known some time ago, she said, that an audit under the new Public Sector Accounting Board standards would produce a deficit. Both she and Everitt had been warned that an inflated deficit would be reflected in this audit by the town’s auditors, B. D. O. Dunwoody.

Carrel denied that this was the case, or that this new system had anything to do with it.

Van Nostrand persisted, giving, in a long statement, what she believed to be the true agenda behind the dismissal.

“I believe that this was a well thought out plan constructed several months ago to accomplish the removal of mayor and council. For some reason, our MLA, representing the Yukon Party, was determined to have Glen and I removed from council.

“This was made obvious during the (municipal) election when both Glen and I were made aware by people visited by our MLA, Peter Jenkins, that he was going door to door campaigning to ask people not to vote for us. When we proved successful in the election, then our MLA had to push another agenda to be successful in having us removed. I congratulate him on his success. A job well done at the expense of this community!”

Van Nostrand questioned the timing of the release of the audit, which was given to council on Good Friday, when there was no way to consult with their auditor, and the timing of the dismissal, on the day after a long weekend, before there was any chance to get an expert opinion.

Hart had earlier said that his final decision was made when he saw the draft audit. Van Nostrand objected.

“DRAFT statements are meant for internal use only. A draft statement should never go outside the City office prior to it being finalized. It is the initial review that is subject to change and may even contain errors. A draft statement is meant for internal purposes only. This draft statement has been used for making serious decisions outside of the city office. Why not wait for the final approved audited statements?

“The only reasons I can think of for acting on the draft statement is: They did not want the council to have opportunity to discuss the statements with the auditor.”

These statements were not addressed by anyone at the table.

Van Nostrand joined in the call from her former council mates for an independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of all matters surrounding Dawson’s financial crisis.

Former councillor Byrun Shandler demanded to know what would be done about issues that were in progress now that a trustee was running the show. There was the potential to gain $250,000 by contesting a legal point in the arbitration ruling, which he said Hart had pretty much released over the last two days, even though council had been enjoined against doing this by the arbitrator. He asked if the YTG would be pursuing that.

He demanded that YTG follow up council initiatives to obtain the nearly $1 million that would be needed to fix the Rec. Centre roof, which a YTG hired engineer had confirmed was in trouble due to substandard engineering and construction.

“That was a good speech, Byrun,” the minister said. “We’re here to help out.” But he did not commit to follow up those issues.

Dick Van Nostrand wanted to know how the advisory board to assist the new CAO and Trustee would be chosen. Not, he hoped, merely political appointees of a certain stripe.

Ray Hayes indicated that he would be drawing up a list of names - he didn’t know who yet, but he was, he said, wide open to suggestions. He would take that list to the minister. It might take a few weeks, he said, asking for time.

“This is one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced,” the retired deputy minister said. He won’t be moving here, but he expects to be here a lot.

Martin Gehrig, speaking strictly as a local businessman, thanked Carrel for having found the problem in the finances, even if he didn’t, he said, like the message.

Miriam Kaytor, asked Hart if new money was going to made available to help Dawson dig its way out of its mess now that the council was gone. The minister eventually replied that he thought that was possible.

Aedes Scheer, with the Humane Society, asked about funding for that agency, which runs Dawson’s Animal Control program in partnership with the town. From what she had heard, the animal control funding was in place, but the money that would run the animal shelter and the society wasn’t. This gave them about six weeks before they would have to close their doors. She was assured it would be looked at.

Scheer also wanted to know about public meetings. Council met in televised sessions twice monthly and she wanted to know what would be happening under the new administration. Hayes said he was open to public meetings.

There was applause for many of the comments made through the night. Van Nostrand was applauded, as were Shandler and Everitt, and even some of the press questions. One of the loudest outbursts, however, came when musher Brent McDonald took the microphone to ask, where, in this time of trouble, was MLA Peter Jenkins?

That, too, did not get an answer.

Erik Magnusson did his best to moderate the meeting and make sure that a wide variety of voices were heard, but Glenda Bolt (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in heritage branch) still felt it was not a happy room, and, in the last speech of the evening, called for a round of applause for all those present and past who had ever sat on council, either for the town or the first nation. The clapping went on for more than half a minute, and seemed a good way to end a tough meeting.