Incident Resulted In Police Attending
It is reported in the Daily that the RCMP have had a plain clothes officer in attendance at council meetings out of concern during the contentious Leadercast incident.
During the June 23rd council meeting there was a plainclothes officer in the audience and apparently the RCMP were also summoned during the meeting responding to a complaint about a speaker at the meeting.
I was present at this meeting and personally witnessed the event, and was surprised when I became aware of a plainclothes officer in the audience who appeared ready to remove a speaker from the podium. I understand by the Daily report he was there out of concern for the Leadercast fiasco.
Who was out of order?
I have now sent two emails to Mayor Ruttan seeking to know why the speaker was ruled out of order, and as yet have received no response. Perhaps our Mayor is waiting for one of the consultants hired for the governance review committee to explain it to him.
What I witnessed was a taxpayer speaking in opposition to a pitch from a society for city support and funding for a boathouse at Brechin boat ramp. The speaker drew attention to the fact that the proponent was the same person who collected the full grant for 2014 to operate Centre Stage on Victoria Road, only to walk away. Effectively not honoring the agreement for which the society was paid $11.350. There was no refund for the six months the society was paid for from July - Dec. 2014.
When the speaker started to make that point (without naming the person) Councilor Brennan immediately instigated the 'out of order' request, which Mayor Ruttan agreed with. When the speaker challenged the ruling the Mayor once again called him out of order and when the speaker was reluctant to not be heard, he attempted to continue.
At that time I became aware of the officer in the gallery, who appeared to be making his way to the podium to remove the speaker. Apparently he had a second thought as he sat down without removing the speaker, who by this time was leaving the podium of his own will.
When the Mayor tells me what was out of order, I will gladly stand corrected if I am wrong in thinking our Mayor was wrong with his ruling.
Interesting. Please do follow up with your developments.
ReplyDeleteWhen you constantly have the same person (now a boathouse) asking council for tax money you have to have citizens stand up and question her! Most of council is too chicken or her friends.
ReplyDeleteThis person feels she can just ask, bully and get whatever city money she wants for whatever she wants.
Disgusting!
The multi-coloured light bar on the delegate podium needs to be moved to the mayor's desk where a Roberts Rules of Order officianado, sitting at home watching on TV, could then notify Chair Ruttan with light combinations of what he should do at certain intervals to run the meeting properly. Ruttan has shown time and time again he does not have a clue.
ReplyDeleteWho cares why there were police there? If I felt threatened in front of a mob, I would want police presence as well. You're constantly casting stones, Jim. I suggest you run for mayor or council if you've got it all figured out.
ReplyDeleteThe point of the article, is not why the police were present, it was whether the Mayor was 'in order' calling the speaker out of order simply because he didn't like what he was saying. Still waiting for the rule used to support the out of order ruling. If you don't care about police being potentially used to silence members of the public speaking their mind .............. well then.......... what can be said about that?
ReplyDelete