NORWICH – The New York State Comptroller’s office confirmed Wednesday it is reviewing how the City of Norwich has conducted it finances.

The city had a handful of controversies in 2018, many of them closely involving City of Norwich Mayor Christine Carnrike.

The investigation comes after a number of issues came to light in 2018, including the firing of the mayor’s brother, former acting Public Works Superintendent George W. Carnrike, Jr., after he was arrested by the Department of Environmental Conservation for dumping city waste on private property.

His resignation was accepted by the city council and despite the mayor saying she would recuse herself from the decision-making process, she strongly criticized the council at the time and attended closed door meetings deciding the issue.

It also came to light in September the mayor’s current private employer, Burrell’s Excavating, had been receiving free water from the city.

Some members of the city’s common council said they were never told of the arrangement, and Carnrike claimed she was just continuing an older agreement, blaming former Norwich Department of Public Works Superintendent Carl Ivarson.

Ivarson, who hasn’t worked for the city for several years later denied the accusation and said it was the mayor’s arrangement, not his. “...absolutely never happened,” he told the city council.

The city also hired a private investigator to look into former Human Resource Director Deborah DeForest last year, who eventually chose to resign in July. The city has refused to say who it hired or how much was actually spent on the investigation. The city has also not released the findings or offered a reason for beginning the investigation in the first place.

In each instance the city has refuse to release documentation about the issues and several members of the board will still not discuss the topics openly.

The mayor gagged city employees early last year, threatening retaliation if they discussed issues related to the city in public. The mayor has also openly criticized city employees for attending public meetings and threatened to sue The Evening Sun and its staff for covering these stories.

To better inform our readers The Evening Sun will be revisiting and investigating these topics in the coming days and weeks ahead.