Chilliwack city councillor Waddington’s expenses to be reviewed by auditor
Sam Waddington — a Chilliwack city councillor, who is also running for mayor — will have his expenses reviewed by an independent auditor, who will pass their findings on to the RCMP.
Members of council held a special closed meeting on Thursday morning, during which they heard submissions from Waddington and his legal counsel, before passing a resolution to have an auditor “undertake a more thorough review” of Waddington’s expenses for his entire term of office.
“It’s a very serious situation in the City of Chilliwack,” said Mayor Sharon Gaetz.
Gaetz, who is running for reelection, and Coun. Ken Popove, who is also running for mayor, recused themselves from voting on the resolution.
Waddington’s 2017 expenses, along with the expenses of other members of council, were approved and made public in June. Those records showed Waddington had spent $17,240 — almost $10,000 more than any other council member. In his four years on council, Waddington has spent almost $50,000.
Waddington said on Thursday that because the matter was under investigation he couldn’t go into detail about what happened at the closed meeting, but he said the decision to conduct a review was political and linked it with his run for mayor and his differences of opinion with many councillors.
Waddington said the review would be “a remarkably expensive endeavour” for the city.
“We are having a conversation about a couple of thousand dollars, and now this whole process that our council has chosen to undergo will cost tens of thousands of dollars for the taxpayers of Chilliwack,” he said. “I think it’s up to the voting public in the City of Chilliwack to discern for themselves if they believe that this serves the best interests of the city.”
At a council meeting in June, Gaetz announced that she had filed a freedom of information request to find out more about Waddington’s 2017 expenses.
In August, council voted unanimously to get clarification about five of Waddington’s expenses, which totalled $1,456.98 and related to his work with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
They related to breakfast meetings that took place during the Renewable Cities, Global Learning Forum in May, two meetings in June at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual general meeting in Ottawa, and a November trip to Ottawa for federation work that involved dinners and an Airbnb rental.
At that August meeting, Coun. Chuck Stam alleged that Waddington had “a strong and reoccurring pattern of entertaining others who have no direct benefits to provide the City of Chilliwack.”
Waddington made a presentation at the Sept. 4 council meeting to respond, during which he said that at no point did he breach the council expense policy and “each of my expenses has been reviewed by our staff and authorized prior to reimbursement.”
Waddington said the review will not change his mind about running for mayor. “This is a small distraction from the big issues affecting our community,” he said.