Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Fort Resolution (July 23/01) - After four years of chronic turnover, infighting and general chaos, the Deninu Community Health and Social Services Board says it has turned over a new leaf.

Cara Carriere, 28, was sworn in as the acting chairperson, May 13. She says the board is attempting to start fresh and should be given the chance to prove itself. This comes on the heels of the Cuff Report, which recommends dissolution of the community boards.

"I think the last four years have been a learning experience for all the boards," says Carriere. "We're taking steps towards fixing the problems that were there."

In May, the former chairperson, Bill Norn, wrote to the Department of Health and Social Services to request that the board be dismantled. That letter prompted the department to send a review group to Fort Resolution to see what could be done to solve the board's ongoing problems. The group made a number of recommendations, which are now being carried out, Carriere says.

Also in May, the board's parent organizations, the Deninoo Community Council, the Deninu K'ue First Nation, and the Fort Resolution Metis Council, stepped in and recommended that the board trustees hold an emergency special meeting. As a result of that meeting, the board fired Norn and administrator Elizabeth Stirrett.

The board then signed in two new trustees and hired an outside bookkeeper to straighten the financial records which, by all accounts, were in serious disarray.

Until last week when the current chief executive officer, Jim Bentley was hired, the board had effectively been without a chief executive officer for a year and a half.

When the previous CEO, John Young, resigned at the end of 1999, the board had been unable to find any qualified applicants to replace him. Instead, they hired Stirrett as an administrator.

"Because of the problem of being without a CEO, things weren't being done that needed to be done," Carriere says. For example, the business plan and administration policies weren't completed, she says.

Then, when Deninu Ku'e First Nation held their community elections in December, 2000, Norn and Patrick Simon, two Deninu K'ue representatives on the board lost their seats on the band council. Confusion ensued over whether these members would still be allowed to sit on the board.

Norn refused to step down, but in the following months he failed to show up for scheduled board meetings, Carriere says. With no vice-chair designated, there was no quorum -- meaning that the remaining trustees were unable to have the meetings.

Meanwhile, Stirrett and Norn were able to make most of the decisions without the knowledge of the rest of the board, Carriere says.

The problems of the last four years were caused, in part, by a high turnover of board members -- 16 people through six trustee positions in the last four years -- and confusion over the role and workings of a governance board, says Carriere.

Despite the mess, she says that at no time has the public suffered for all the political infighting and disorganization on the board.

"I can honestly say our programs and services were not affected by what was happening on the board," Carriere says.

She says the new board is committed to working together. With the government poised to make a decision on the Cuff report, they will soon learn if they'll be given the chance to do that.