But Councilor Laura Esquivel today told us Moya was indeed not authorized not receive the extra $3,00 monthly. She says evidence is good but the records of that meeting on March 17th of 2006 are better.
Laura Esquivel, City Councillor
“They have concluded, and this is the Ministry of Local Government and the Audit Department, that they believe that there was an overpayment of $3,000 a month going to the Mayor. After this they left the room and they asked us to continue our meeting at which point we deliberated. The Mayor and Councillor Usher chose not to attend this meeting however it was considered a meeting of the council. At that meeting it was unanimously decided that again according to the reports that we have gotten and according to the minutes of March 17th 2006, there indeed was an overpayment and so it was voted that those overpayments must stop and also that it must be repaid to the council because as far as we are concerned it was unauthorized.”
Keith Swift,
But as the Mayor isn’t she entitled to a salary?
Laura Esquivel,
“As a Mayor she does deserve a salary and the law does gives us the possibility to vote on how much we will give ourselves and there are actual dollar amounts minuted in that meeting for who should pay what.
The ten Financial Controller Ms. Pauline Wade was asked to come into the meeting and give us the dollar amounts, the figures that were being paid to the previous council. In that meeting she told us that the previous Mayor was making $3,000 and there was a stipend of $2,000 a month and a transport allowance of $2,700 a month.
Also in that meeting it was voted that in fact it would be raised from a total of $5,000, this includes the salary and the stipend for $6,000 a month. Subsequent to this there was a Central Executive meeting of the UDP where all councillors and the Mayor was invited. This information was given to the central executive of the party and the central executive appealed to the Mayor at that point to please, you need to take it back down to at least the $5,000. In that meeting she did agree to the central executive that it would be brought down back to $5,000 a month, and again this is a combination of stipend and salary.”
Keith Swift,
But how do you explain that the Deputy Mayor, who is saying it was unauthorized but he signed checks?
Laura Esquivel,
“Well I can’t speak for the Deputy Mayor but I would assume that when you’re given a payroll that you need to sign and a list of names, it wouldn’t be unusual that you would see the Mayor’s name on such a document because we had agreed to a salary and a stipend so without him seeing the actual account numbers, which in you showed me the documents and there is no account number written on those documents, I can see where he would assume that this is a regular part of what she should be getting paid.”
Esquivel notes that other councilors have similarly been asked to repay unauthorized expenditure.
