Seeking re-election Dec. 12, incumbent CamBay mayor defends hamlet’s finances

During the 2010 Omingmak Frolics in Cambridge Bay, Syd Glawson, the incumbent Mayor of Cambridge Bay, donned his muskox horns to pose with Ollie the Omingmak, the mascot of the community’s annual spring festival. (FILE PHOTO)

As Cambridge Bay’s incumbent Mayor Syd Glawson heads into a Dec. 12 election to keep his position, he wants to set the record straight.

The hamlet’s finance are just fine, Glawson said in an interview late last week.

Comments made by candidate Peter Harte — a candidate for mayor and the hamlet council — to Nunatsiaq News angered Glawson, keeping him up “all night,” he said.

Harte, a lawyer in Cambridge Bay, also caused “quite a controversy on the street and on Facebook,” according to Glawson.

The controversy swirled after Harte told Nunatsiaq News that he wanted to run for municipal office because he’s worried about Cambridge Bay’s finances.

“Cambridge Bay is living beyond its means and that has to change,” Harte said. “It may well be that Cambridge Bay still has the weakest financial position in Nunavut, but without comparisons, it is hard to know. We do know that three years running Cambridge Bay has significant budget variances (to the tune of millions of dollars) and it is not keeping money in the bank that it is legally required to keep there,” Harte said.

But Harte was not quoting a 2011 audited report, when he claimed Cambridge Bay had also ended up more than a half a million dollars short on its reserves, Glawson said.

“He’s way off,” Glawson said. “We’re doing a lot better, and we are not as bad as Peter indicated. ”

As for any variances in the revenues and expenditures, they cancelled each other off, Glawson add.

“But he [Harte] doesn’t see it that way,” he said.

Anyway you look at it, Glawson maintains the hamlet is in way better shape now than it was in 2009, which he first took over from the departing mayor Michelle Gillis and then was re-elected a few months later as mayor.

Former SAO Jay Hutton, hired after Glawson came in as mayor, determined that the Cambridge Bay Housing Corp. owed the hamlet about $800,000 in unpaid bills — and that has since been paid up, Glawson said.

“We were fortunate that we found out where most of our problem was,” he said.

The hamlet’s finances are still in good hands, he said, with the arrival last October of Thomas Ing, who had previously worked for the city of Inuvik.

But Glawson acknowledged that “money” continues to be the number-one hot-button issue among all Kitikmeot mayors.

“There seems to be a lack of money going around,” said Glawson, who chaired the recent meeting of the region’s mayors in Cambridge Bay. “We’re wondering if they’re going to be able to keep us with what they’ve been giving us. They have to realize that we have no way to raise funds in the hamlet, that we can’t borrow or sell things.”

Glawson wants voters to get him another term as mayor to keep the ball rolling in Cambridge Bay.

“I’ve started work which needed to be done in Cambridge Bay and I need to finish it. That’s basically what I’m asking the voters. We gave youth a youth centre, we got that for them, and we got CHARS [the Canadian High Arctic Research Station].

That’s going to be a boom for Cambridge Bay, Glawson said.

“We must be doing something right but we need infrastructure and local jobs,” he said. “We have a plan for housing, for heating homes that we build here in Cambridge Bay, supplying water directly to the homes, taking away the sewage from the homes, not by truck but by utilidor. But it’s going to cost money.”

Glawson faces three candidates in his bid to remain mayor: Jeannie Ehaloak, Harte, who’s withdrawn from the race to become mayor, but will still see his name on the ballot, and James Panioyak.

Thirteen candidates are running for five council seats: Cindy Analok-Villebrun, Richard “Nigeonak” Ekpakohak, Peter Harte, Sarah “Olayok” Jancke, David Kaosoni, Keith Lear Sr., Hugh MacIsaac, Harry Maksagak, Iona Maksagak, Mary Rose Maksagak, Michael Maloney, Shawn Marriott, and André “Akana” Otokiak.

Voters can cast their ballots Dec. 12 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Luke Novoligak community hall.