Is There More To The John Les Affair......

....Than Just The Land Deals Themselves?

AllTheCornfieldsThatFit
ChilliwackVille

"It's not the crime that kills you, it's the cover-up."

............................................... ............................... ....... . ....Richard Milhouse Nixon

As the first string takes the rest of the weekend off, the scrubs that work for British Columbia's big-time media outlets have continued to nibble at the edges of the 'Solicitor-General John Les Forced To Resign' story.

And they have managed to do little more than confirm the original outlines of the thing that, at the request of the RCMP, a special prosecutor is looking into alleged shady land deals in Chilliwack that took place in the 1990's at a time when Mr. Les was the mayor.

In fact, as the story has been further wurlitzered, the second of two nuggets buried within a short but well-constructed piece written by Paul Henderson in the Chilliwack Times back in February seem to have been lost.

Here's the well known first nugget:

The investigation has been going on since at least March, 2007 when the Chilliwack detachment of the RCMP informed the city they were looking into possible criminal activity of a former employee of the city dating back 10 years......


Which is fair enough, and taken at face value it would suggest that, in the end, everyone else concerned, including Mr. Les, just might be in the clear.

But then there's the second less well known nugget in Mr. Henderson's piece:

....City (of Chilliwack) records indicate that 10 years ago the matter under investigation was looked into by a third-party hired by the city. As a result of that investigation the matter was deemed an "internal staff issue and the employee was subsequently separated from their employment with the city."

So.

Who is this third party that was 'hired' by 'the city'?

And who, specifically, 'hired' him or her at a time when Mr. Les was still mayor.

And who made the decision, at a time when Mr. Les was still the mayor, that this was an 'internal staff issue' rather than calling the RCMP?

Depending on the answers to those three questions everyone, including Mr. Les, may still be in the clear.

Then again, if the answers to those questions indicate that there was, instead, a cover-up....

Well.

That would change things considerably.

Wouldn't it?



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Original Link/Question Source: 'Need To Know' a commenting over at Bill Tieleman's place.


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