CAN YOU TRUST THIS REPORT ?
You may recall the furor caused when city hall decided to redact and remove from the public record, a notice of motion read by Councillor McKay on behalf of Councillor Bestwick. They then took the extraordinary move of taking the notice of motion in camera where they decided to reject the notice of motion.
I am sure some lawyer wanting to make their bones could put together a very interesting case of some of the fancy footwork that went on to stifle this motion.
After killing Bestwicks notice of motion it seems staff went ahead and did their own internal investigation. The result of that investigation is a reported 150 page report that will be posted on the city website sometime later this week after FOI sensitive information has been removed.
WHAT IS THIS CITY COUNCIL TRYING TO HIDE?
The quashed motion of Bestwicks was asking for an investigation by a task force made up of three councillors or by an independent third party. One person put forward as a possible candidate was Brian Peckford.
At the August 11, 5:00 pm council meeting, Councillors Bestwick and McKay attempted to bring this matter into an open forum by debating the reasons this matter had been conducted IC. There challenges to the Mayor and councils' decision were fielded by the city's solicitor which clearly demonstrates there is NO issue a council can not discuss in private if they so wish, I repeat NO issue.
This whole scandal has a very odorous quality to it, and suggests there is something about this that staff and council were desperate to keep hidden from the public.
Remember you have a city manager who doesn't feel the public is to participate in the process, and for the past six years a Mayor that seems to agree.
I hope for the sake of democracy there will be an appeal to this whole process, that will result in an independent investigation to see if the results are the same as the one staff has produced.
LOOK FOR 'TRANSPARENCEY' AND OTHER BUZZ WORDS DURING ELECTION
We are coming up to another election this November and I suspect that openness and transparency will be much used buzz words by councillors seeking relection. The following councillors are the ones that have supported this assault on democracy and have clearly demonstrated they have little interest in supporting transparency in action.
Councillor Brennan
Councillor Greves
Councillor Johnstone
Councillor Pattje
Mayor Ruttan
the Fearful Five. They were scared of the Colliery Dams, they are scared of transparency.
ReplyDeleteThe request for an investigation seems to have resulted in shifting the focus from the role that council played and focusing on staff only. What about the role of the councillor who was actively involved with staff with the clear objective of breaking the contract that the Nanaimo Daily News had with the VICC for the booking of the event?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it feel like the prime instigator Fred Pattje is getting off scott free? Isn't he the one that started this? Isn't he the one that presented his evidence to Council about how bad Leadercast was?
ReplyDeleteI won't be letting Fred Pattje off the hook on election day.
Sincerely,
Devon Kruggel