Out of sight, away from criticism: the report of the regional chamber of accounts (CRC) concerning the city of Noyon is kept in double tower in the office of the mayor for weeks. This report, which followed the control of the city’s finances over the period from 2018 to 2024, was to be presented at the next municipal council. Which council, the city has just announced, will take place on Friday December 13.
Superstition? Or fear of revealing the content of this report? Still, the mayor LR from Noyon, Sandrine Dauchellehas decided not to make public the work of the financial magistrates of the CRC next Friday. Consideration of the report was not included in the agenda items. The report itself was also not attached to the documents sent to elected officials to enable them to prepare the council. Conclusion: the people of Noyon will therefore not be able to read this report and the debate between elected officials about the content of this report will not be able to take place either. And this, in all illegality Of course.
Article L243-6: “From its nearest meeting”
What do the texts say? The article L243-6 of Financial Jurisdictions Code is very clear:
“The final observation report is communicated by the executive of the local authority or public establishment to its deliberative assembly, at its nearest meeting. It is the subject of an entry on the agenda of the deliberative assembly; it is attached to the summons addressed to each member of the assembly and gives rise to a debate.
At the time of the last municipal council, at the end of October, the final report had not yet been published. It was a few days later. According to the texts in force, the mayor therefore has the obligation to make it public from this Friday, December 13.
“She plays with fire”
“She is playing with fire,” comments an observer of political life, “the new prefect has not yet had trouble with Sandrine Dauchelle, but we doubt that he will appreciate this new, very personal interpretation of the laws.” The Regional Chamber of Auditors, which has just opened an audit for the Pays Noyonnais this time, should also only moderately appreciate the freedoms that Mayor Dauchelle grants herself. But what next? A procedure before the administrative court? It’s up to House and/or state representatives to decide.
Patrick Deguise, former mayor of Noyon until 2020, is primarily concerned by this report, the CRC having examined, in addition to the first years of Dauchelle management, the last two years of his mandate. The former mayor, who says he is impatiently awaiting the disclosure of the report, “does not understand what Sandrine Dauchelle is playing at”. A Sandrine Dauchelle who “as always, invents her own rules”, he believes. It is true that the mayor of Noyon has just been called to order by the sub-prefect of Compiègne for having completely illegally fired her director of technical services. A sermon from the sub-prefect which, according to our information, Mayor Dauchelle chose to ignore.
Does Sandrine Dauchelle want to avoid a bad Christmas?
“Doesn’t she want to spoil the holidays? Or his upcoming vows ceremony? wonders Patrick Deguise, In any case, she is defying the law for nothing: this report will have to be presented sooner or later. The former mayor of Noyon, notes not without sarcasm: “For someone who claims that she has nothing to reproach herself for in her management, who places all the faults on my back, I am surprised that she wants to hide this report of this kind.
Patrick Deguise was able, like Sandrine Dauchelle and undoubtedly her office, to consult the content of the report. “I had access to the extract from the report which concerns me,” he explains, “but I do not have the right, until it is made public, to share it.” But the opposition municipal councilor is surprisingly confident: “I’ve been saying it for four years: she lies about the real current and past situation in the city, but the longer she can hide this report, the longer she can make people believe what she wants from the last gullible people,” says the former majority leader.
When Sandrine Dauchelle cites a report that she hides
And it’s true that although Mayor Dauchelle shamefully hides this report, she still allows herself to make it talk. This is the case in the separate reprint published with the magazine Vivre à Noyon, in which she takes stock of her wonderful year 2024. She writes there: “The entire municipal team continues to stand together to clean up the accounts of the city of Noyon, undermined for years by former mayor Patrick Deguise. (…) In 2024, in a context of reduction in State allocations, and explosion in energy prices, our accounts were the subject of an audit by the regional chamber of accounts which highlights to what extent point the finances left by Patrick Deguise were left (sic) in a sad state.
Rather than letting the people of Noyon form their own opinion, the mayor of Noyon prefers to give them her biased reading of the report. But we know Sandrine Dauchelle too well to take her statements at face value.
