Village of Pinehouse to face provincial inspection

Kaeding said the inspection would undertake an overview of the village’s general operations and business activities and provide a high-level summary of the village’s financial situation and obligations.

The independent investigation will be run by Neil Robertson, a lawyer with more than 36 years of experience in municipal law and working with the public sector. The probe and report will take three months.

Commissioner welcomes inspection

The man who recommended the inspection last month is pleased the government is taking action.

“I’m hopeful it’s a signal to the village that they need to provide all the documents requested of them,” Privacy and Information Commissioner Ron Kruzeniski told paNOW, highlighting freedom of information laws. “I also hope it sends out a bit of a signal to other organizations.”

The CAO of the Village of Pinehouse has previously told paNOW they don’t have the human resources nor the training to handle the 16 freedom of information requests they’d received since 2013, but Kruzeniski suggested the 13 reports he had requested over the period was not a significant administrative load.

“That’s about two and half reports a year. I don’t view that as onerous,” he said. “I respect the need for training, and I’m hopeful the ministry and other organizations such as SUMA and SARM can provide training.”

As for the financial resources needed to comply with freedom of information requests, Kruzeniski said it was up to the village to find those resources.

Community watchdog claims there is no accountability

The news of the provincial probe is being welcomed by Saskatoon-based D’Arcy Hande, the community watchdog and advocate who, along with other unnamed people within the community, have made the series of information requests since 2013.

“I’m very pleased and it’s absolutely necessary,” he said. “God knows what else will come out of the inspection. It’s time the administration at the village is held accountable.”

Hande claimed the people he’s working with to try to secure financial information are doing so “under a lot of duress and in an atmosphere of intimidation.”

Hande said he’d now had a chance to review information that belatedly was indeed sent to him by the village recently and expressed concern at the total remuneration being paid to Mayor Mike Natomagan. Hande said Natomagan was given a base salary of $60,000 and was also claiming a $200 per diem expense whenever he travelled outside the village, which totaled another $30,000. Referring to a media report that those figures gave Natomagan a total remuneration higher than the mayor of Prince Albert, Hande found this to be of concern because “Pinehouse has a population 36 times smaller than Prince Albert.”

Hande also pointed to the ongoing lack of response to information requested about the council process that approved interest-free mortgages to members of Natomagan’s family, and what he termed the “layer upon layer of conflict of interest” the mayor was in.

Natomagan is also president of Pinehouse Business North, of the Kineepik Métis Local and of Kineepik Development Corporation, according to Hande.

Several attempts by paNOW to contact Natomagan have been unsuccessful, but CAO Martine Smith has previously said the village had nothing to hide. She previously told paNOW of the need for the village to have more help in responding to excessive freedom of information requests.

When contacted again Monday, Smith said she welcomed the government’s order of an inspection but would have preferred to have it on better terms, suggesting the issue had become political.

CAO claims political agenda

“I’ve been asking for an inspection of my office for six years and I think this comes at an opportune time for another group and not on our terms,” she said. She suggested there was a “political play” underway and she wasn’t sure what the village’s critics “were getting at.”

Asked if she thought Natomagan’s remuneration was appropriate Smith said, “Whether it’s fair or not, I think the comparison [to the mayor of Prince Albert’s remuneration] isn’t fair.”

Smith said Natomagan took on many varying roles and responsibilities for the village, as well as advocacy work often involving travel, that other bigger municipalities could assign to managers.

Asked what she thought the inspection would find, Smith said she hoped for more education.

“I’ve already said it many times, I want to improve the processes and I’d like to improve, and we’re working on a Northern administration for municipalities so we can help those administrators to improve,” she said.

Meanwhile Hande doesn’t buy the argument that the mayor’s salary and income could be justified based on the additional out-of-town efforts he has to make.

“It doesn’t matter what the mayor might be accomplishing outside the village, he’s not been accountable with his expense claims,” he said. “If he is doing that advocacy work there has to be some accountability to the people of Pinehouse so they understand what he is actually doing.”

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow

by Glenn Hicks

Village of Pinehouse to face provincial inspection

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