[quote=“DarcyMcGee”]
Well since you suggest you know what was in Ms Morris’ mind when she offered her response to the Sun, here’s a chance to find out for sure.[/quote]
Can you show me where I suggested that? I thought I was clear when I said that either:
she knew about the payment to Doi, and decided not to disclose it in response to the FOIPPA request
or
she didn’t know about the payment to Doi, despite it being her job to handle such things.
I don’t think I suggested that I knew what was in her mind. Which of those do you think is more likely?
Unfortunately, Kim Morris’s stay in Prince Rupert was temporary. She has moved on.
"And, according to Ms. Steffenhagen, this response came just days after the district paid Mr. Doi a huge barrel of money to recruit his close acquaintances. There is no way that Kim Morris didn’t know this, since she had presumably signed the cheque a couple of days before.
Often the appearance of a cover up is worse than the thing that is apparently being covered up. "
Seems that you’ve accepted the belief that she knew, without the benefit of the other side of the discussion.
And Ms Morris may have been short term at SD but she was also at one time out at Port Ed, so she wasn’t a temporary a resident of the region as you might suggest.
Does this mean you won’t be raising issues at the three meetings then?
[quote=“DarcyMcGee”]
"And, according to Ms. Steffenhagen, this response came just days after the district paid Mr. Doi a huge barrel of money to recruit his close acquaintances. There is no way that Kim Morris didn’t know this, since she had presumably signed the cheque a couple of days before.[/quote]
Ok, I come back to the two possible scenarios: she didn’t know the district was paying Mr. Doi (but she was the one responsible for signing these things), or she did know, and didn’t disclose it to the FOIPPA request.
One of those has to be true.
Yes, and there is an appearance of a cover up here. I didn’t say there was a cover up, just the appearance of one.
Thanks for the correction. I just made an assumption about that, since Gary Doi’s invoice was addressed to her, and that she was the Secretary Treasurer. If she didn’t know about it, then that’s another question. But you are correct in that one shouldn’t make the assumption.
I think you’re confusing her with someone else. She moved here from the Kootenay-Columbia school district, and then moved back there after her time with the district. She never worked in Port Ed. Well, other than her work cutting the staff at the school there.
Flip to the Doi invoice, and you’ll see that I was right:
Addressed to Kim Morris.
Marked “confidential.”
Is it unreasonable to assume that a secretary treasurer would know that these invoices existed? Afterall, they were addressed to her, and they was paid, and they were for large sums of money. I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t know they existed.
Yet, she didn’t supply them in response to the FOIPPA request from Ms. Steffenhagen.
" I then emailed McIntyre, with a cc to Morris and Prince Rupert board chair Tina Last, to ask why I was told in April 2009 that there were no records of a contract with Doi, despite the fact that his bills had been submitted to the district in March. McIntryre told me he would check and sent me a response today, noting that the payment was made to Doi’s company, Focus One, and not Doi (although Doi is the sole director of this company). A search of the system for Gary Doi turns up nothing, McIntyre explained, “so it may be that when the request was processed the person doing the search did not look further to identify Focus One.”
That may offer up part of the answer, though clearly the SD has to do a better job of explaining just what was going on during that period of time.
It may just be a case of a sloppy search done by Ms. Morris (or someone else) for a reporter or maybe your thoughts on cover up will prove valid I guess, won’t know til we actually hear from the person in question if ever. Short of that perhaps the SD could illuminate the issue for us.
As a sidebar, You may be right about my impressions of Ms. Morris’ previous employment, I may have her confused with someone else, I thought for sure that she had moved over from Port Ed, but since I can’t find any documentation to that fact, I’ll acknowledge that I may be wrong on that (though I’ll keep on looking just to be sure ).
As for the greater issue of the day, clearly since these concerns date back over a year now the SD needs to get the issue out in the open with a full review for the public.
They’re spending this kind of money on consultants then they want to close schools to save money? Next time a school board person says this to you, just look them in the eye and say bullshit.
Now someone find out exactly who the consultant was long-time friends with and you’ll find out why he was brought here for such an extravegent cost. Can’t say I’m surprised though - I mean this city coined the phrase: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I’ve heard that phrase since I was 16 in this town.
Stigant was hired by Doi as a temporary superintendent (and is now himself a consultant for our school district). Hauptman, the current superintendent, was also found by Mr. Doi, she was his long-time assistant in his previous job.
Steffenhagen wrote:
“I concluded at the time that since Doi had recommended Stigant, his assistant superintendent in Okanagan Skaha for seven years prior to Stigant’s retirement in 2006, and Hauptman, who had been Okanagan Skaha’s director of instruction, that he had done the work free of charge.”
Which is what this is all about. He charged a lot of money to recommend these people. And when the school district was asked how much it had paid Mr. Doi (through a Freedom of Information request), the response from Kim Morris was “There is no record responsive to your request regarding Mr. Doi.”
However, the new Secretary Treasurer was able to find the records of payment to Mr. Doi, which are posted above (from the Vancouver Sun link).
Are you sure that Mr. Stigant is still a consultant? That isn’t exactly what it says in the blog piece from the Vancouver Sun.
“The total cost for 37 days of consulting services ($800 a day) plus expenses was $37,241 from July 1 to November 30, according to the Prince Rupert Daily News.”
Now that would seem to suggest that he no longer is on the payroll, though we don’t know for sure, though you seem to suggest you do. Perhaps that’s a question that could be asked of School District.
And again, you fail to completely disclose the tone of the blog piece in regards to the now much discussed response from Morris, again from the Vancouver Sun blog.
" I then emailed McIntyre, with a cc to Morris and Prince Rupert board chair Tina Last, to ask why I was told in April 2009 that there were no records of a contract with Doi, despite the fact that his bills had been submitted to the district in March. McIntryre told me he would check and sent me a response today, noting that the payment was made to Doi’s company, Focus One, and not Doi (although Doi is the sole director of this company). A search of the system for Gary Doi turns up nothing, McIntyre explained, “so it may be that when the request was processed the person doing the search did not look further to identify Focus One.”
It’s disingenuous to your argument to leave out some pretty important aspects of your talking points, taking out the balance as it is. Something which doesn’t help the larger issue of finding out some of the background on these consultants and their duties.
They didn’t include anything that was paid after December 2, 2009 in the FOIPPA release.
I don’t think I’ve left anything out. I linked Steffenhagen’s blog post in my very first post in this thread.
Can you speculate on why she would sign a letter saying “There is no record responsive to your request regarding Mr. Doi.”? A clerical error? She didn’t read the letter before signing it? She didn’t know the school district was paying Mr. Doi? Either of those are possible. Whichever it is, she is still accountable for the error.
It’s her name on the letter (despite misspelling her last name as Mercer, she did sign the letter Morris).
The current Secretary Treasurer didn’t have any trouble finding the documents.
Am I echoing the “tone” of Steffenhagen? No.
I don’t think I intended to. I have my own tone
Another interesting mention of Gary Doi in Steffenhagen’s blog from November.
[quote]Okanagan-Skaha district didn’t hold any off-site retreats this year, but trustees cancelled their annual summer leadership conference in Penticton after a public outcry over their promise to pay retired superintendent Gary Doi $52,500 to organize the three-day event.
Zoe Magnus, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local, brought the issue to the public’s attention. “I was very concerned that our district was prepared to pay $52,500 . . . to arrange a three-day conference when we can’t even provide day-time custodians in our school during the H1N1 pandemic,â€[/quote]
I think the letter said “There is no record responsive” because she gave the narrowest possible interpretation to the request … they had no records of payments to Mr Doi because they paid his company … a technically correct answer … but the Sun blogger would be highly unlikely to know those details …
Of course a Secretary-Treasurer would know the terms under which a consultant was hired at a high hourly rate to provide such sensitive advice the board … it’s not like we’re talking about paper towels or floor polish … any other interpretation of events isn’t credible …
Public officials are supposed to work with a requester to clarify what information they are wanting … it’s called a “duty to assist” … citizens cannot be expected to know the inner workings of how a government body retains information.
When the same request was later made to the current Secretary-Treasurer he provided … to his credit … a meaningful rather than disingenuous response. That’s my read of these events …
I’m a bit surprised though that the board didn’t even go through the motions of advertising the position, accepting resumes, considering other applicants etc.
“Who you know” recruitment seems to be common practice here … and part of what ails this place. Seems to create a self-fulfilling prophecy … only hire “who you know”, then arms length applicants are less interested in applying … then people who are known are hired because few others apply …
… and if they do apply, use the fallback excuse that if someone who isn’t known is hired they’ll probably just leave soon because they or their spouse can’t stand the rain … so best to hire people who are known and don’t mind it here.
).
…I wonder if they gave prior approval for that?? I dont think his consultation was worth the expense for that hotel. ARG!!! 
