Councillor launches attack on Iqaluit CAO

Coun. Stuart Kennedy launched a full frontal verbal assault on Ian Fremantle, the city of Iqaluit’s chief administrative officer, at a city council meeting this past Tuesday, but most of his fellow council members don’t seem interested in joining his war.

“Are you finished Stu?,” Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik said, a bemused smile on her face, after Kennedy wrapped up a long series of five statements.

Some of those statements contained comments of a type normally kept in camera, and appeared to be aimed at vilifying Fremantle and the city administration’s work performance.

“I believe the public has to be informed about how council spends public money,” Kennedy said in explaining why he decided to discuss personnel matters in public.

Throughout Kennedy’s diatribe, Fremantle, as he did throughout the meeting, looked down at his desk, making notes.

“These allegations were made as a statement at a council meeting. Every councillor has a right in council to voice their opinion. That’s just part of the job,” Fremantle said in an interview the next day.

Other councillors did not respond directly to Kennedy’s allegations. Coun. Simon Nattaq followed Kennedy’s statement by simply saying, “We’re going out of whack with our own procedures.”

In an interview before the meeting, Sheutiapik said she stands fully behind Fremantle and city staff.

In his five statements, Kennedy made the following complaints, and allegations:

• Paul Aokut, an Iqaluit resident whose freighter canoe was mistakenly removed from the beach by a public works crew during a clean-up, wants $1200 in compensation but has never received a response from the city.

• Members of the city’s Development Appeal Board have not received honoraria payments, and reimbursement for expenses, related to two appeal hearings, one held in June of 2004, and the other in January of 2005.

• City councillors should not have voted, in the fall of 2004, to give Fremantle $15,000 in bonuses. Kennedy said, in public, that councillors ignored a letter of his that alleged that Fremantle is “incapable and incompetent,” and that they did not substantiate their decision to award the bonuses.

• City officials made a mistake last year when they entered into an agreement with a heavy equipment supplier called Toromont to lease seven Caterpillar vehicles under a five-year deal. Kennedy alleged that this arrangement costs too much money, about $700,000 a year, and constitutes “mismanagement.” “I regret that I did not protest this more loudly,” Kennedy said.

• City council is wasting taxpayers’ money by unanimously voting to challenge a recent ruling made by the city’s Development Appeal Board that would have closed down a Tundra Valley spa business. Kennedy is the chair of the Development Appeal Board, and strongly supports their ruling. He alleged that the city is opposing it to cover up a mistake. “They want to cover up the fact that somebody screwed up,” Kennedy alleged.

Kennedy’s statements followed a rancorous exchange of opinions on whether the Tundra Valley spa business should continue to operate.