Staples should step down
If Michelle Staples is still the executive director of Social Planning Cowichan it is instantly a conflict of interest. She should have resigned as director immediately after getting elected. Period. If she had any class at all she would have resigned when she announced she was running for mayor but that’s another debate.
For Michelle Staples to maintain the senior post with an organization that is receiving funding from a government where she holds the senior post and facilitates the delivery of funds, it is blatant. There can be no defence in the face of the obvious and apparent. Whatever her reasons, or her justifications might be they are worthless in sight of the fact that she is still the director of Social Planning Cowichan.
Just as important and maybe more so is all six councillors knew about this and allowed it to happen. They said nothing. You have to ask yourself, are they in on it as well? Do they have affiliations with these same organizations? This is exactly why these NGOs need to be fully audited by the feds and councillors must be forced to disclose their associations with these organizations and of their over arching political allegiances to provincial or federal parties.
This entire administration should be removed by the province. There should be an immediate election and a bylaw that prevents anyone who doesn’t live here from running for office here.
C. Thompson Scott
Duncan