The City of Summerside, from my experience, has never held anyone accountable for any mismanagement. This failure often leads to situations of great loss of taxpayers’ dollars.
I was maliciously persecuted by senior police officers, senior management, the city’s legal department, mayor and council during the period of 1997 to 2011. After being totally exonerated for internal charges, no one at the city was held accountable. Not even after the P.E.I. courts and Supreme Court of Canada had proven certain individuals guilty of actions against me.
Then followed the Michael Jackson tribute concert fiasco, then the redacted Hopping Report. Again no one held accountable. All of this mismanagement cost taxpayers’ over $6 million. Most recently a city manager was convicted of stealing money from Credit Union Place using city credit cards for over three years. Again, no accountability.
Our new city councillors are very well aware of what I am talking about. What has been told to them, I have no idea. The real question is: have any of them asked, or inquired about all this misuse of public funds?
If they are really concerned our mayor, Basil Stewart, and veteran councillors Bruce MacDougall and Norma McColeman can enlighten them all, as they were in office all during the years mentioned above.
It is well known when wrongdoing is ignored involving high paid employee's in any organization, if not dealt with, one can be assured it will happen again. As we all can see, this is exactly what has happened in the City of Summerside. The victims of all of this are the resident taxpayers. I have heard the statement made: "Oh let’s just forget the past and move on."
That's a poor evaluation of very bad things that happened – people who take an oath of office turning a blind eye hoping it will just go away.
For the ones who should really care, this is not the way municipal government is supposed to work. Many requests for a forensic audit have been voted down by councils in the past, I guess we all know why.
David Griffin,
Summerside
