Erin council reverses rejection of integrity report and wage sanction

Councillors here have now accepted a recent integrity commissioner’s report which concluded Mayor Lou Maieron breached the town code of ethics on numerous occasions.

The move is a reversal of a July 22 decision to reject acceptance of the report and its recommendations.

In a separate 3-1 recorded vote, council endorsed the sanctions recommended by the commissioner, which included a one-month suspension of the mayor’s remuneration and a reprimand. No explanation was offered on what a reprimand might entail.

Council’s decision came following close to an hour of discussion which began as council attempted to pass the minutes of the previous meeting – in which the July 22 decision was made.

Initially, Maieron took offense to the way the recorded vote was listed. It indicated he was the first to vote

on the matter, when in fact he was the final vote. He also wanted the minutes to go into greater detail on the rules of order and who can participate in discussion of issues, what they can say, and what constitutes a pecuniary interest. Maieron also commented he found no reference to such within the code of ethics nor did he get additional information in a follow-up conversation with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

Maieron claimed the only item he tried to briefly explain in an effort to have a decision on the report deferred was to get legal opinion regarding the Conflict of Interest Act.

As the mayor began reading the legislation he believed applied to the situation, councillor John Brennan interjected “… we’re talking about the minutes. You are introducing new things … you did not read this (at the meeting). We are talking about the minutes – not about what you want to add.”

The mayor disagreed.

Councillor Barb Tocher suggested amending the minutes to indicate the mayor had requested he be removed from the chair, but without a vote of support from council, the mayor continued to chair the meeting.

Maieron still disagreed with Brennan. The mayor said he had alluded to the Conflict of Interest Act at the previous meeting, although not to the degree he had at the current meeting.

Tocher clarified that “determining conflict of interest is solely up to the individual  and no one can give them advice.”

Maieron wanted the minutes to reflect that he’d asked for clarification of the rules and none was given.

CAO Kathryn Ironmonger said “in all due respect, it is up to the individual council members to get the agenda and seek whatever legal advice was needed before the meeting. You knew what the item was and had a similar report prior and got legal advice on that.”

Council finally accepted the amended minutes.

Shortly thereafter, in business arising from the minutes, Brennan said following the last meeting, “in retrospect it was probably not correct to have both acceptance of the report and the sanctions in the same resolution.”

He asked that resolution be rescinded to allow council to vote on the two items separately to provide clarification.

Maieron wanted to know why, given the recommendation was part of the report.

Tocher said such a move would require a motion to reconsider the motion in any form.

Clerk Dina Lundy said that although the motion was defeated, it was a decision of council and that decision would need to be reconsidered.

To accomplish that the rules of procedure needed to be waived.

Brennan said “Let’s get this over and done with.”

Maieron tried to make comment at which point he was told he would need to wait until the motion was on the table.

Ultimately, the rules of procedure for council were waived to allow a reconsideration of the vote.

Both councillors John Brennan and Josie Wintersinger supported the move to reconsider the matter – the pair represented the majority of the three votes cast at the last meeting which had rejected the report.

Maieron considered the move unfair as it did not provide him time to prepare a response.

“I think this is a pre-planned ambush,” Maieron said.

He suggested the rules of procedure are waived only under extraordinary circumstances – and questioned whether this was one.

Ironmonger commented “the rules are waived to allow meetings to continue past the 11pm curfew … and we do that on a regular basis.”

Maieron again voiced his opinion that this move was neither fair nor appropriate.

In a 4-1 recorded vote Brennan, Callaghan, Tocher, and Wintersinger voted to waive the rules, while Maieron was opposed.

At this point, Brennan went back to the matter of reconsidering the vote regarding acceptance of the integrity commissioner’s report.

Maieron then wanted to know what new information came forward to prompt reconsideration.

“You can’t just say, ‘I changed my mind.’” he contended.

He said reconsideration should be based on new information that wasn’t available at the time of the meeting.

Maieron said “reconsideration without new information makes council look flippity-floppity.”

Wintersinger said there was some confusion in regard to the legal suit and after some research, “I realized the decision we made was the incorrect one.”

Maieron then wanted to go into detail about the legal case in response to Wintersinger’s comment.

As the mayor began outlining his case, Tocher said, “I don’t think council can be discussing this here.”

Maieron contended Tocher’s comments were out of order.

Because that was a legal issue, Wintersinger said she did believe further comment could be made at the council table.

“I believe I can,” the mayor responded.

“If I’m going to get in trouble, I’m going to get in trouble big time. So to continue on …”

At which point Tocher commented, “I’ve had enough of this circus,” and walked out of the council chamber.

Her departure was followed by Callaghan.

Wintersinger stood up and said, “If we are not going to vote on this we should close (the meeting) because we are just wasting people’s time.”

The mayor said he just wanted to make his point.

As Wintersinger left the room, she said the mayor was just wasting time and tax dollars.

At that point, there was no longer a quorum in the chambers to continue the meeting.

Roughly 15 minutes later, the councillors returned to the table and the meeting continued. A 4-1 recorded vote supported reconsideration of July 22 decision, and another 4-1 recorded vote endorsed acceptance of the integrity commissioner’s report. Voting in favour for both votes were councillors Brennan, Callaghan, Tocher, and Wintersinger. Maieron voted in opposition both times.

At that point it was requested the item regarding the withholding of remuneration be voted on as a separate item.

Maieron declared a pecuniary interest and stepped out of the chamber during the discussion as it involved a potential sanctioning of his wages.

Brennan said that while it was important that council receive the report, he was not in favour of docking the mayor’s pay.

“At this level of municipal government, we don’t do this for the money.”

He added the last time council went through a similar situation, “council voted to dock the mayors’s pay for a month … and that didn’t do much good.”

Brennan believes such a move would only create further hostility and inflame the situation. He felt having the mayor going through the public process should be enough.

Wintersinger commented this was the second time there has been an integrity report.

His declaration of conflict did not stop the mayor from trying to make comments during the discussion – from his location on the other side of the door as the motion was read to council to sanction one month’s wages and include a reprimand

The recorded vote to impose the sanctions was 3-1, with Callaghan, Tocher and Wintersinger in favour and Brennan opposed.

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