Mississauga Musings

Should be interesting...

MEDIA ADVISORY-Ontario Ombudsman to Address Fort Erie Council
Marketwir

Fri 30 Nov 2007
Dateline: TORONTO, ONTARIO
Time: 12:49 PM

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Nov. 30, 2007) - Andre Marin, Ombudsman of Ontario, will address the Fort Erie Council and respond to their questions about the new provisions of the Municipal Act which come into force on January 1, 2008. The changes allow the public to complain about closed-door meetings of municipal councils, boards and committees. If a municipality does not appoint its own independent investigator for such complaints, they will go to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman was invited by Fort Erie Council to explain how his Office will handle complaints and investigations concerning in-camera meetings. The municipality has yet to decide whether it will appoint its own investigator or refer complaints to the Ombudsman.

When: Monday, December 3, 2007

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Where: Council Chambers, Municipal Centre, 1 Municipal Centre Drive, Fort Erie

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Ombudsman Ontario Barbara Theobalds Media Relations Advisor (416) 586-3423 Email: btheobalds@ombudsman.on.ca

or Ombudsman Ontario Linda Williamson Manager, Communications and Media Relations (416) 586-3426 or Cell: (416) 319-7391 Email: lwilliamson@ombudsman.on.ca

...right on!

Fort Erie council trades molehills for mountains
Niagara Falls Review (ON)
Sat 01 Dec 2007
Page: A3
Section: City & Region
Byline: Larocque, Corey

You'd think Fort Erie's Mayor Doug Martin was Hamlet, the way his town council is wringing its hands over how to comply with a new law to make Ontario's municipalities more open.

The ombudsman or not the ombudsman. Oooh. The drama.

Fort Erie councillors seem to have a unique way of making mountains out of molehills. They've managed to take an issue that could easily be settled by a coin-toss and turn it into a three-month ordeal, provoking a war of words with the provincial ombudsman, Ontario's so-called watchdog.

All this dithering about how to comply with a simple new law feeds the public's cynicism about government - all government - being generally slow and sometimes inept.

Premier Dalton McGuinty brought in a law requiring every municipality to appoint an "investigator" to look into any complaints that a council held a private meeting that should have been public.

Municipal politicians do most business in public. They're allowed to go behind closed doors to discuss legal, human resources, or property issues. (When you're firing an employee or suing someone, you might have to say nasty things the whole world need not hear).

Starting Jan. 1, any citizen who thinks his or her council held a closed- door session improperly can file a complaint and the investigator swings into action.

Supposedly, McGuinty is encouraging transparency at the municipal level, but it's going to turn into a toothless tiger because the investigator's powers aren't well-defined, the consequences aren't clear, and the process will be too cumbersome.

Nonetheless, the law gives councils two options - a), designate an outsider as an investigator, or b) let Ontario's ombudsman Andre Marin do it for them. Even easier - if a municipality doesn't do a) by the end of the year, the law will do b) for them, automatically.

Yet somehow Fort Erie council has gummed this up.

Mercifully, Niagara Falls council decided lickety-split. Mind you, they made the wrong decision from a fiscally responsible point of view.

Niagara Falls hired Local Authority Services, a company owned by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, as its investigator. A lot of Ontario's cities have done the same thing, often because of a perception the ombudsman is too critical of municipal politicians. (All the more reason to like him).

Hiring LAS will cost the city a $600 annual fee and $1,250 a day when an investigator has to look into a complaint.

That's a waste of money and a duplication of service.

It might seem like small potatoes, but the owner of a Niagara Falls home worth $160,000 pays about $935 to the city in property taxes. A two-day investigation would suck up the property taxes paid from three average homes.

The investigator is McGuinty's baby. If he insists councils have one on standby, he should pick up the cost.

And he's willing to do it.

The Ontario ombudsman is a $9.5-million operation, Funded by the people of Ontario. Including the 30,000 in Fort Erie and the 82,000 in Niagara Falls. (It does a lot of other things, not just investigate private council meetings.)

That office is going to be there whether Niagara Falls and Fort Erie make use of it or not.

Any investigator - the ombudsman or someone else - will use the same criteria and will arrive at the same conclusion. Any investigator will dig into the complaint. If the politicians can justify their private meeting was about a legal, human resources, or property matter, they're in the clear. If the talks were about something else, they're in trouble.

It's pretty black-and-white. So why pay good money for a service someone else will provide for free? Especially when there won't be a significant difference in the outcome.

If a council holds its private meetings properly and has nothing to hide, there should be no fear of any investigator. And no drain on property taxes.

There's probably time for Niagara Falls to go back and revisit its decision.

And by its dithering, Fort Erie hasn't made a decision, right or wrong.

The way the two councils handled a straightforward issue should worry the people of both communities. The way politicians handle little decisions gives voters a good sense of how they handle the big ones.

[ED: "Anonymous" included a second offering from The Sarnia Observer. It will be posted in a separate feed]

[ED: As promised, with thanks to "Anonymous"]

Sarnia Observer

We had to chuckle at Doug Reycraft chiding Sarnia for not hiring retired administrators from his organization's new business venture to investigate complaints about closed-door meetings.

The president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario claims Sarnia made a mistake when it opted instead to have Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin do it, at no cost to the city.

As we see it, by unanimously rejecting AMO's expensive services, Sarnia was acting as a responsible and accountable order of government.

The ombudsman, whose services are free, has proven an effective watchdog that investigates government maladministration with honesty and integrity.