Wellington North resident Jens Dam says council’s decision not to pursue a judicial inquiry into the $229,000 missing from development charge reserve funds is merely a “step” in his journey to get taxpayers an answer.
Dam appeared at council’s first meeting of the year on Jan. 12 to read a letter he submitted to the municipality in early December.
In his missive, Dam referenced “gentleman’s agreements” made between council and developers in 2011 – agreements that provided discounts under a now-defunct bylaw with the hope of boosting economic growth in the township.
An Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearing initiated by Dam ultimately found the bylaw to be in violation of the Municipal Act.
Council has since reviewed and changed the development charge bylaw and admitted fault, citing confusion over Municipal Act guidelines as reasoning for the mistake.
Dam has stated that explanation is not enough to justify the missing reserve funds paid out to developers.
“None of these explanations constitute a lawful legal framework for the $229,000 … missing from DC reserve funds,” he told council. “As a taxpayer I request our municipal council to call for a judicial inquiry under the Municipal Act into the affairs regarding misappropriation of DC reserve funds.”
In response, Mayor Andy Lennox read a statement on behalf of council and said, “the only way I could rationalize the spending of significant taxpayers’ dollars on a judicial inquiry into this matter would be if there was any evidence of illegal intent.”
He said the errors made in passing the development charge bylaw were a misunderstanding and not made with unlawful intent.
“I freely admit that the process followed to reduce development charges had errors and I accept my share of the responsibility for those errors as a member of council,” Lennox said.
“To this day I am not aware of any evidence of illegal intent on the part of council or staff involved with these errors. If anyone has evidence to support the allegation of illegal intent, I request they bring it forward.”
Lennox added he regrets that the mistakes resulted in costly OMB hearings, but he emphasized council’s decision to create and pass the bylaw without conducting a development charge study beforehand was intended to save money.
“Certainly council and staff could have been more diligent when passing bylaw 44-11 in ensuring an up-to-date study was in place, but I believe contributing to that oversight was a wish to avoid the cost associated with an outside consultant,” he said.
Two motions were brought forward: the first defeated Dam’s request for a judicial inquiry and the second re-affirmed council’s decision regarding the development charge funds. A recorded vote was taken for the motions and both were passed unanimously.
“I think it is inappropriate to attempt to collect these amounts,” Lennox said. “Have you ever done business with a company that didn’t live up to its expectations? … this is how reputations are ruined. I want people to say … this is a community that stands by its word.”
Dam told the Advertiser he does not intend to back down.
“We still do not have an answer to who was responsible for the mistakes that were made,” he said. “Who made the decision to issue the refund and to give the discounts? That question has never been answered and I think the taxpayers deserve an answer.”
Dam says him will now seek legal advice. and go from there.
“What happened yesterday was one step in the process – I’ll seek legal advice as to what my next step should be,” he said. “We need to know who was responsible before the money can come back.”
