Welland supporting Pelham through controversy
Welland has joined three other municipalities in standing behind Pelham in regards to its audit controversy.
The matter came up at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, when Welland politicians unanimously supported a circulating resolution to tell Niagara Region’s audit committee has overstepped its boundaries with Pelham.
“Council unanimously supported the fact that the Region shouldn’t be involved in those things. It’s not part of their mandate,” Welland Mayor Frank Campion said in an interview Wednesday. “Every level of government has a role to play, and that’s not one of them.”
Port Colborne, St. Catharines and Thorold have also stated their support for Pelham. Niagara- ontheLake is poised to do the same next Monday.
This is in response to a resolution from the Region last year over concerns about a supposed undeclared debt worth $ 17 million in relation to the east Fonthill development project. The accusation originally came from former Pelham town councillor Marvin Junkin, who said the municipality was hiding debt. From there, he went to the Region, which has since been invested in the issue.
Despite an audit done by a third party, KPMG, that demonstrates there is no hidden debt, the Region still sent out a resolution, indicating it wanted a copy of that report to examine itself and that it wanted to notify Pelham’s lenders and defer future requests for debentures until the matter is resolved, among other things. The resolution would also be circulated to neighbouring municipalities, local MPPS, the Ontario Ombudsman and the auditor general.
Welland Ward 2 Coun. Leo Van Vliet said KPMG is a noted organization and it’s hard for him to believe that its people would have missed something drastic while conducting its audit.
He said he’s been following the issue very closely since the beginning and that the Region has been spending so much money to investigate this for no reason.
“I don’t believe any of us has a mandate to oversee the other levels of government,” he said. “We need to send a message out there to stand back.”
He noted how other municipalities have had large projects, such as Welland constructing Youngs Sportsplex, without having the Region deeply scrutinizing its financials. He said this is one of the reasons he so strongly supports standing with Pelham.
Welland has a good relationship with Niagara Region, Van Vliet added, saying he understands it has a job, but the way in which it is going after Pelham is not something he said he can sit back and watch.