Whether or not Tim McEwan is leaving Prince George with more than a firm handshake could well become one of the defining questions of Shari Green's first term as mayor.
The controversy surrounding McEwan, the departing president of the city's economic development agency, Initiatives Prince George, deepened when the long-whispered rumour he was in line for a plush provincial position was confirmed with the announcement he will head B.C.'s Major Investments Office under area MLA and Minister of Everything Christy Needs to Get Elected Pat Bell. For some in this city, it wasn't enough that McEwan, IPG's oft-criticized dry-county rainmaker, was alighting for warmer climes but there was a sneaking suspicion you, us and the City of Prince George had all partly paid for the privilege of anointing the province's latest plumped-up poobah.
Mayor Green has not acquitted herself well in dispelling this suspicion of sour grapes. On Feb. 12, Green told The Citizen McEwan likely received severance pay from IPG. On Feb. 2, she wrote to Councillor Brian Skakun, "I would certainly hope he is not receiving [a severance package] if he is leaving for another job. That would be totally inappropriate and I can't imagine he would do that with taxpayer dollars."
Indeed it would be. The problem is Green's insight into such a deplorable state of affairs was buried in a volumnious answer to a Citizen Freedom of Information Act request and still doesn't answer the question of whether McEwan was indeed fired and whether he was paid severance.
Outwardly, Green says the whole affair is in the hands of IPG's board and "they're doing the best they can." She also told Skakun in that Feb. 2 correspondence that "I don't believe it is in our privy to know the terms" and followed up in a public meeting by saying, while she wasn't "uncomfortable" with the severance details being released, the release should go through a motion of council.
Skakun, who knows a thing or two about freedom of information at this point, rightly pointed out neither the city nor IPG have a choice on McEwan's severance details - numerous rulings and precedents have established arms-length agencies are obligated to release such information to the public without hesitation or caveat.
IPG president Glen Wonders has said the agency will release McEwan's severance. But the delay - and the fact this newspaper had to bark loud and long for the information - is irritating. And if it turns out McEwan was handed a golden parachute from IPG in order to make landing in his lush Victoria feather bed that much softer, the way it was done will make any severance particularly galling - and particularly telling of those involved.
Of larger issue is IPG's status as an arms-length organization and whether it should be more closely tied to city hall. Green was elected, arguably, on a platform of busting chops and heads in city hall in order to secure a better deal for the taxpayer. Yet, in the first major test of her administration, she hid behind the flimsy premise that IPG was a quasi-independent organization and needed to be left alone to manage its own affairs.
The mayor was privy to axing 28 positions off the payroll - the jobs of men and women whose family depended on those incomes.
She should have considered herself privy to whether or not Tim McEwan left with a boot imprint on his ass and a sack of gold under each arm.
And more importantly, she should have considered you and me privy to those
details too.
