The sudden firing of longtime councillor Vince Sharpe over $700 in unpaid dumping fees on Aug. 8 shines a light on the shadiness that can sometimes define small-town politics.
Sharpe had owed the money to the local landfill for several months, so technically the town had the right to give him the old heave-ho.
According to the territory’s Local Authorities Elections Act, "a person is not eligible to be nominated or to stand as a candidate for mayor or councillor if he or she … is personally indebted to the municipal corporation for a sum exceeding $500 for more than 90 days.”
Apparently the town sent the former councillor a number of letters reminding him to pay his bill but he never read them.
“I didn’t open them,” he said. “Which is my bad.”
Indeed.
Now more than ever, we should be insisting that people at all levels of government take the time to read their mail.
The safety and security of all citizens depends on informed and responsible politicians who make that extra effort to do so because if our elected representatives can’t be trusted to keep their own affairs in order, how can they be trusted with anything else?
Inuvik Mayor Jim McDonald said council was following due process when they fired Sharpe and on those grounds, he’s absolutely right.
A bylaw is a bylaw, especially in the detail-obsessed, nitpicky world of some municipal governments, where administrators take a fundamentalist view of their bylaws in much the same way that some religious fundamentalists interpret religious texts.
Due process has been followed to the letter but now council has lost a dissenting and outspoken voice and the town is not better for it.
Last year, an Inuvik Drum editorial observed how Sharpe was somewhat of a maverick who sometimes used curse words during meetings, liked to antagonize the mayor and had a belligerent exchange with another councillor during a heated debate about liquor licensing last year.
The editorial goes on to describe him as a passionate politician who has served on a number of town councils over several decades. Last year, he even helped foil a suspected drug deal when he took it upon himself to open a mysterious package at the Nova Inn.
“As a town councillor, I consider that my duty, to try and protect the community. To me, Inuvik comes first and nothing else,” he said at the time.
As for his adversarial history with the mayor and council, that's what a healthy democracy is all about.
Scrappy exchanges are an important part of functioning governments but they cannot take place without dissenting voices.
Booting Sharpe over a technicality makes it look like politics have been getting a bit too personal in Inuvik, especially when you consider that Sharpe offered to pay the fees on the spot during the in-camera session in which he was fired.
He’s a well-known businessman. He had the money. And the fact that they still fired him makes Inuvik’s town council look awfully petty – and undemocratic.
If we are to believe the mayor’s insistence that it was “nothing personal,” that they were just following the rules, the outcome is no less troubling.
People don't elect politicians to make sure every T is crossed and every I is dotted. They're elected to make decisions. And if they can't think for themselves and outside of the box from time to time, then as elected officials, what good are they?
There is an election in less than two months. If Inuvik town councillors really feel Sharpe has no business being on council that would be the time to make their case and run against him.
Nobody likes an obnoxious colleague but if they happen to be an elected official, they should be acknowledged and debated openly in public, not sneakily silenced.