Editor’s Note re: Small town mayor resigns after independent journalist reports $3M in taxpayer funds missing The following report was published July 24, 2024, and since its publication some issues have been brought to our attention.Mayor Arlen Johnston had advised council in May that he was leaving for personal reasons and Mayor Johnston was not on council at the times of the alleged misappropriation of funds. Similarly, Chief Administrative Officer Angela Duncan had not commenced employment with the Village at the times of the alleged misappropriation of funds.The story incorrectly reported the Village has passed a “Destruction of Public Records” bylaw. In fact, the Village has been working on a “Records Retention and Disposition” bylaw. It has received two readings and will only become law if it passes on a third reading. The Western Standard regrets the errors and apologizes to Mayor Johnston, Ms. Duncan and the Village.Arlen Johnston, the mayor of Village of Empress, AB, has resigned after independent journalist Media Bezirgan exposed a $3 million scandal involving taxpayers’ money. Empress, which has a population of just 136 and is located on the border of Saskatchewan, hastily passed a Destruction of Public Records bylaw Thursday, just after the story broke. An RCMP Financial Crimes Unit investigation is now pending after an independent audit of the town’s financial statements found $3,292,339 missing led to complaints filed with the special RCMP unit and Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver. The RCMP unit has already conducted cursory interviews.The complaints alleged it was corrupt deals that paved the way for the disappeared money. The discrepancy in funds follows a private sand and gravel mining operation conducted by a Saskatchewan company. While Empress was granted a provincial license to mine gravel in 2017, with private companies starting the work in 2021, it was not reflected in the audited financial records. .Meanwhile, town surveying and geomatics studies from 2016 to 2023 confirm mining operations were conducted, showing large amounts of aggregate were removed.With the significant anomaly in the numbers detected between 2020 and 2021, concerned residents then began questioning what happened to the more than $3 million. Around the same time, the town curiously changed their aggregate measuring system from cubic metres to metric tons, which Bezirgan noted in his expose “introduced a layer of complexity and potential for error” because “density can vary slightly depending on the specific type of aggregate, moisture content, and other factors.”If the village was truly seeking accurate measurements, officials should have used a uniform unit of measurement, he said. Cubic metres is generally a more accurate scale, because measuring for volume reduces variability. The publication had an engineer measure on-site the density of the aggregate, who estimated 1.65 to 1.75 tons per cubic metre would be equivalent, with the village’s charging rate of $3.15 per ton, to $3,292,339 to $3,512,612 — which reflects the missing sum of money. The town’s aggregate rate has not changed since 2018, per town documents. The same documents estimate aggregate density at 1.63 metric tons per cubic metre, which still works out to more than $3 million. While “the Village of Empress has no comment at this time," Angela Duncan, the town’s chief administrative officer, told Bezirgan, McIver’s office did respond to the Western Standard’s request for comment. “The minister is aware of the allegations regarding the sand and gravel operations. The ministry does not have any information about the independent audit findings cited in the article,” wrote press secretary Heather Jenkins. “The ministry is also aware of the mayor’s resignation from a public notice on the village’s website.”“As there is an ongoing RCMP investigation into this matter, the ministry cannot comment on this issue at this time,” added Jenkins. One resident, who requested anonymity due to fears of social backlash, told the publication, town officials were expected of misappropriating funds. “There are millions of dollars of public funds that have been misappropriated by the CAO, and elected officials continue to cover up the missing taxpayer funds,” the source said. “The Alberta provincial government’s Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ric McIver, is not trustworthy and has shown negligence in matters of public interest. The Premier should remove him. His selective bias and conduct in a conflicted position are detrimental to the general public.”"My message to the people of Empress is to demand accountability for the missing money and to cleanse the corruption that has taken root.”
