Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 02/98) - A public works property manager in the Fort Smith region was told to mind his own business when he looked into the ownership of a piece of property that later became the site of a mini mall and office complex in Fort Resolution.

Vlado Brcic testified at the public inquiry looking at the conflict of interest complaint against Premier Don Morin last week.

Brcic told the inquiry that while reviewing a Deninu K'ue Development Corp. mall proposal, he discovered it was going to be built on the premier's property.

"The title search indicated there was a name of Morin as the title owner," he said.

"I took it to my superior, Mr. (Ralph) Shelton, and I also contacted, at the request of Mr. Shelton, Mike Oram (public works asset management advisor) in Yellowknife, who, in turn, I believe, spoke with his supervisor (Sue Bevington) on this issue."

That process took a couple of days, but Oram phoned back.

"He just said, 'Just do your job and don't worry about who owns the land,'" said Brcic.

Lease negotiations go afoul

On May 23, 1996, Brcic was given permission and the authority from senior management to go ahead and negotiate a lease with the Development Corp. for the mini mall project.

But, later on, Brcic found that the DKDC proposal had changed after the Northern Store pulled out of the deal. The Northern Store was planning to sell a piece of land to the DKDC and lease space from the complex.

"Things had dramatically changed. I think, originally, the building was going to be around 12,000 square feet. And, because of the Northern Store not committing to this project, it had drastically reduced it to just over 8,000 square feet," said Brcic.

"As a government office, and as a prudent move, we couldn't proceed unless we received another proposal form from them."

Brcic contacted the DKDC, but another detailed proposal was hardly forthcoming.

It wasn't until a telephone call from the Deputy Minister of Public Works Ken Lovely to Brcic broke the stalemate.

"He asked what was going on. He received a call by someone saying I was stalling the process," said Brcic.

"He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was following the same procedures and being consistent with what we did last time in asking for this proposal document. Until we received that proposal document, there's really not much we can do. I contacted them several times. He said it sounds reasonable and said if he doesn't hear back from him in the next hour, continue on with what I was doing."

Shortly after the phone call, Brcic received the documents he needed from the DKDC.

Also on June 25, 1996, Nova Construction contacted Brcic to talk about the office complex and to negotiate lease rates.

Nova, given the construction contract, was helping the DKDC in the negotiating process, said Brcic, adding that after short discussions they came to a mutual agreement.

"I've always found that when negotiating a lease, it's a fair lease if the leasee and leaser are happy. If one is making money and the other one isn't, its not a fair lease and I felt comfortable with this."