Nepotism is generally regarded as the practice of hiring or favouring relatives over others. It’s using personal influence, even power within an organization, to give a friend or family member a leg-up when it comes to an opportunity.
It happens everywhere. It happens here. And no matter what attempts are made, or lip-service offered, it’s something that’s awfully difficult to get rid of. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try, or do our best to ensure it doesn’t become SOP, or standing operating procedure.
The staff of the Town of Renfrew is riddled with nepotism. I’m sorry, but there it is, and there’s no point in running away from that fact.
I could go case by case, person by person, and illustrate that last statement, but my belief is that the practice is in such good health here in Renfrew, that it would probably be more efficient to name the people who got their jobs in a more legitimate and fair-minded manner.
Maybe I’m just jealous and full of sour grapes at the fact that I don’t work there, nor do any of my friends, nor does anyone from my family. And I feel if I were to keep writing about municipal affairs, none of myself, my friends, or family ever will.
But I’ll tell you what. Hire my son when he graduates from school and I’ll absolutely stop writing about you. That’s not nepotism. It’s more a form of corruption. But at least I’m giving the hiring folks some alternatives rather than hiring their best buddy from some township that they worked with previously. You know, mix things up a little.
It’s not just in the hiring of personnel, it also extends into the awarding of municipal contracts. In one case, a sitting councillor’s business was awarded a $400,000 contract for office furniture back when Council decided to renovate Fort Renfrew, something budgeted for $200,000, but then ballooning to over $1 million.
There was apparently a bit of a hiring frenzy during the tenure of a former CAO — Chief Administrative Officer — that had the look of a who’s-who when it came to names on his contact list. I believe the current treasurer was one of those hires. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the treasurer, I’m just saying that she was lured away from retirement apparently, to take on this job, at the behest of a man she had worked with previously for a different municipality.
A former Director of Public Works was hired from a similar position in Napanee. He in turn hired another fellow, a local fellow, to follow him up to Renfrew after having served with him back in Napanee. When the director left his post, the other fellow rose to the rank of Director himself, and how cool is that? But he’s gone now too, and I don’t think it was his choice.
Interestingly, that former director, the first one, was mentioned prominently in the Third Party Report covering the Ma-Te-Way story, a kind of internal investigation in to what exactly happened with that whole thing. The company preparing the report was WSCS Consulting of Perth, Ontario. And apparently, that company has some sort of connection with the former CAO as well. To be fair, I don’t know the ins and outs of this, and I know somebody’s got to investigate and make a report, and I fully acknowledge that Tammy Carruthers, the principal of that company, is a legitimate accountant and fraud investigator. I also don’t know if the contract to do that work was tendered or sole-sourced. But it does qualify as something that, when added to all the other contract awards and hires, certainly smacks of a certain degree of nudge-nudge, wink-winkism. I believe that investigative/reporting work was done for a sum in excess of $200,000, but I don’t have exact figures in front of me. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not pocket change.
I really can’t say how far into the administration this kind of thing extends into. I mean, you have to hire somebody, right? And the contract needs to go to someone, right? And I understand there’s going to be a certain degree of nepotism in any organization. But still, there may be some need of some sort of policy covering this whole thing.
Wait! We can pass a by-law!
Lord knows how we like to do that. But first, maybe get a working group going to look into this. Maybe even pad the working group with your cronies or allies or friends or family. Come up with a frame of reference as a set of guardrails for scope and intent. Get a big box of coffee and some baked treats from Timmy’s. Sit in the Council chambers and swivel around in the chairs. Sit at the table opposite the chair, to give the impression that you’re a big fella around town. Maybe take pictures. They like that that. Post them to the website, that is if you wish to use a bunch of pictures to deflect the citizenry away from what you don’t want them to see, which appears to be the SOP of Fort Renfrew’s crack communications team.
Maybe cough up a couple of hundred grand to have a consultant come in and sniff around, maybe make recommendations, maybe a path forward, maybe even a slide show. It would be entirely consistent if this consultant were related to, or someone who worked with, somebody already at the table.
And then one day, one crisp morning of a fine and lovely day, when we’re all long dead, a report will be presented to Council, who will then defer it for two weeks, then go into closed session so that nobody gets their feelings hurt. Or finds out just what the hell is going on.
And then they’ll pass a by-law, because it’s what they do.
And then they’ll bury it in a badly-handled cardboard box, in a hastily dug hole somewhere on the grounds of the old Rec Centre.
Because that’s what they do.
And that’s what you pay for.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 