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WEDNESDAY APRIL 1 2015
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RUN FOR IT: And they’re off! Children hunt for Easter eggs at Hillview Preschool in Burnaby. Roughly 150 children came out for Hillview Preschool’s ninth annual Easter egg hunt. There was facepainting, crafts, two Easter egg hunts and a visit from the Easter bunny. For more photos of the Easter egg hunt, go to www.burnabynow.com. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
Mayor says AG woes ‘predictable’
‘I always hope against hope that what I’ve said in the past wasn’t true, but it just comes to fruition too often’ By Janaya Fuller-Evans
jfuller-evans@burnabynow.com
If Mayor Derek Corrigan has an “I told you so” dance, he’s breaking it out right now. More than three years ago, Corrigan spoke out against B.C.’s plan to create a municipal auditor general position, saying it would be a waste of money. “I always hope against hope that what I’ve said in the past wasn’t true, but it just
comes to fruition too often,” he told the NOW. “These things are pretty predictable when you think about it. As I’ve often said, when you make a decision in haste, you get to repent at leisure.” The auditor general for local government, Basia Ruta, was fired in March after refusing a government audit of her own office, saying it should be done by B.C.’s auditor general instead. She is seeking a judicial review of the firing. Ruta took the position in January of
2013, promising 18 audits of municipalities that year. Thus far, the office, which has cost $5.2 million since it was established, has completed three audits. “I think setting up an auditor general’s office is very complicated and getting the level of expertise you need to be able to do that job is very, very difficult,” Corrigan said of the position. “Having highly trained municipal specialists who can assess municipalities is not an easy job description to fill. “It’s not exactly an attractive job to be going off to do audits on municipalities from Spuzzum to Trail, to be put in the position where almost invariably you’re an interlop-
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er, coming in to try to understand a municipal system that probably is unique from others,” he added. The problems faced by the office were systemic and not simply due to one individual’s shortcomings, Corrigan said. “From what I hear anecdotally, they were spending all their time hiring consultants from as far away as Nova Scotia to come in and do work for them, because they just didn’t have the resources available and couldn’t hire the staff that would be necessary,” he said. “Trying to place the blame on one individual, which is what they
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