Mississauga Musings

This just in..Fort Erie cleared by Ombudsman...kinda...

http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/UploadFiles/File/Fort%20Erie%20Closed%20Meeting-Final%20(2).pdf

Ombudsman rules in town's favour
Niagara Falls Review (ON)
Thu 07 Feb 2008
Page: A3
Section: City & Region
Byline: RAY SPITERI

Fort Erie's first date with the ombudsman went well.

An investigation by Andre Marin's office into two citizen complaints regarding a private council meeting held last month revealed local politicians followed proper protocol under the Municipal Act.

The Jan. 7 education and training session happened inside the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority's conference room.

"After conducting an exhaustive investigation and interviewing all of the councillors and examining all the available evidence, I am satisfied that the reasons for going into closed session were justified," Marin told The Review Wednesday.

"The meeting ... focused on improving communication and team-building skills ... came within the education and training exception provided for under the Municipal Act."

Marin sent a nine-page report to town hall Tuesday, outlining the results of the investigation.

The report - titled "Enlightening Closed Council Sessions" - noted council had the authority to meet off-site.

On the day the closed-door meeting took place, the ombudsman received a public complaint about the private session. Marin then received another complaint Jan. 16, complaining about the lack of detail provided to the public about the nature of the education and training.

In addition, it was suggested council may have engaged in the planning and discussion of town business during the meeting and that as the PBA's conference room is privately owned, members of the public were effectively prevented from attending, even during the brief open portion of the session.

"Our conclusion is that no council business was advanced during the closed session," Marin's report notes. "While a private meeting location might present an obstacle to public attendance in some instances, I am satisfied that had citizens wished to attend the open portions of the special meeting ... they could have done so."

The names of the two individuals who complained were not released in the report and will remain confidential, as per the Ombudsman Act, said Marin.

Municipal councils are allowed to hold closed-door meetings only to discuss legal matters, personnel issues, property transactions, or for education and training.

Debate can be hashed out in private, but any decision must still be reported at an open meeting and voted on in public.

On Jan. 1, a new provincial law paved the way for residents to request an investigation if they felt a municipal meeting has inappropriately been held in secret.

There is no penalty levied on a municipality if found to be in violation, only an arbitrator's decision on its conduct.

Municipalities either hired an investigator to conduct arbitrations or chose to go with the free services of the ombudsman's office.

Fort Erie council chose the ombudsman. Niagara Falls council appointed Local Authority Services, a company vetted by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

Marin said the Jan. 7 meeting was the first municipal investigation his office conducted since the new legislative provisions came into force.

"I recommended to council that the next time they go into closed session for education and training, they should provide more detail, not just go through the motions," Marin said. "To do so would not only meet the legal letter of the legislation, but would fulfil its spirit."

Mayor Doug Martin said the town has agreed to Marin's recommendation.

He also said he "never had a doubt" town council met all criteria set out under the Municipal Act.

"I am somewhat surprised this even went to a full investigation, but I guess because it was the first one that went to the ombudsman's office, it should have been expected."

Martin said to "follow the ombudsman's example of openness and transparency, " he would like to see the names of those who choose to challenge municipal closed-sessions made public, but doubts that will ever be the case.

"If someone wants to commit valuable municipal and provincial government time and resources on something, there should be some accountability placed on the person complaining," said Martin.

Marin said the problem with making a complaintant's name public is it would "create a chill effect.

"Naming them could subject them to a witch hunt. This is not a criminal prosecution. It's only a recommendation, an administrative process."

rspiteri@nfreview.com

Terrible story out of Missouri!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7234114.stm

I`ll bet there`s going to be some new Security measures put in place around the world.

Sort of like you see in large Law Firms.

Lawyers tend to push buttons.

When I read this story,you popped into my head.

[quote] "not a stranger to the council, where he was often a contentious presence".[/quote]

Sorry.

It`s nothing personal and I`m not suggesting anything.

I hope Politicians start asking themselves why some people get pushed over the edge.

And let me state unequivocally,

I DO NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE

but I understand how people feel they`ve been pushed to the edge.

Everyone needs to step back,breathe deep and think before they act.

That goes for both sides.

My condolences to everyone in this tragic incident.

Feel free not to post this or to post it elsewhere on a more appropriate blog entry.

Don Barber raised our same concerns behind Hazel’s chairing the same template, the Amalgamation of Municipalities Ontario. The City’s Corporate AMO appeals have always been filed premature to over rule our councillors' own decisions after the by-laws are reviewed by their own boss lady.

During the 1986 federal phase out of Mississauga’s local aerospace and military manufacturing businesses and jobs, I had a preview thru my own supervisor’s Sheridan College “Business Courses “curriculum.

When paramilitary practices surrounding the Mulroney-Thyssen Industries were being mandated into our Colleges and Universities headed under “covert paramilitary business ethics” the same strategies used to mislead the opposition enemy in War Theatrics inevitably turn up in the same Watergate, Enron and Conrad Black hearings before the Region of Peel went thru the transitions of “phasing out public hearings” dealing with our job losses since 1997.

With respect to Minister [Ed: name] revelations to fraud, Dalton McGuinty’s must have figured out for himself thru to the rushing of his own MPP salary increase , Bills 130, 132 etc…etc… are routine quagmires that are bogging down Ontario’s justice systems.

It’s a shame kindergarten pets like Rambo have been caught up in the cross fire of bad judgment since the last increase in sulfur dioxide emissions downwind of Halema`uma`u Maui volcanic eruptions.

Speaking straight from the horses mouth herself (Aheeem) Mayors mouth, someone should have put the bridle back on the municipalities before Big Yellow rammed the Big Pipe straight thru our Oak Ridges Moraine

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/302135

Hey there, Wayne, just read it.

Confirms what Don Barber has said all along. Power is bought. Even justice is bought.

The part of the Star article that kills me is:

"Says Rick Smith, head of an environment group fighting the Lake Simcoe development: 'If this cost application goes through, there isn't a citizen on God's green Earth that will ever go to the OMB ever again. This is blatant bullying on the part of Geranium and the provincial government cannot allow this to continue.'"

The provincial government is bullied by municipalities and especially AMO (of which Hazel McCallion is one huge player).

There's no accountability --no checks in place, nothing.

Bill 130 gave municipalities more power and gave citizens the illusion that accountability came with it.

Bill 159 (Security Guard Bill) created the illusion in the public that the security industry was now being cleaned up. Yet Bill 159 does not apply to municipality (city) security guards.

Citizens who oppose city halls in Ontario have been banned, brought to court and even arrested.

"raise fears of legal chill"? PUH-LEASE!

And then there's:

"Adam Grachnik, press secretary for Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson, who is responsible for the OMB, did not respond to voice mail requests for an interview."

That dude Jim Watson is former mayor of Ottawa.

Adam Grachnik?..

The other illusion is that we live in a democracy. The government at all levels do their absolute best to keep people in the dark while serving their own --rich, well-connected, friends.

And the media is every bit as "chilled" as many people. What media is left?

Champions of small causes. Or benefitting from the status quo.

And even our elected officials are illusions. It's municipal staff/employees who control the Province of Ontario.

There's a REASON why Onrtario is "DEADLAST" in Accountability among the provinces. The powerful AMO lobby and who's the most powerful of all mayors for --like, forever?

In the "backward" countries, they silence dissenters with knuckle-dusters, or bullets. Here, municipalities and their corporate friends use lawyers.

Quoting:

"This is not a big bad developer," adds Geranium's lawyer, David Miller, of Aylesworth law firm. "This is a developer that's doing its best to comply with the rules, with the science, with the geography, with the people, with the First Nations – with everyone.'"

GREAT "Trust Quality Excellence" line! A bit skinny on the grammar but why quibble?....

Oh. One more thing Wayne. Just a correction if I'm allowed.

You wrote:

"someone should have put the bridle back on the municipalities..."

"put the bridle back"?

I suspect that they were never on in the first place.

I say "suspect" because my research doesn't reach back that far temporally.

The Mississauga Muse:

Hi, Mac's Gang, I appreciate your comments on this tragedy.

I've been giving it a lot of thought --especially the media's response to it.

I've visited their website at:

http://www.ci.kirkwood.mo.us/

and no surprise, their link to "City Council" doesn't. I surfed the site looking for their Freedom of Information Department and the closest thing I could find was a position called the "Public Information Officer".

There are Freedom of Information questions that citizens can use to probe the soul (or lack of one) of a municipality. And I am so, so tempted to drop some down.

For no other reason than I don't think any "reporter" will.

The thing is, I don't really want to. I have enough with the muncipalities here. But I know I can't help myself --can't tolerate an unasked question. Wish that trait wasn't a part of my make-up. I was far happier being oblivious.

Anyway. I've already checked follow-up articles and it's as predicted. Open councils are pondering whether they're too open. The already-existing Fortress-Mentality-Pelco-Wankz are moving to seal their already-sealed city halls even more shut..

Yeah. I have to drop down some FOI's.... *sigh*

Best regards.

I’ll take an $8,795.16 educated guess and estimate our municipal bridle fell off just short of “Thursday, February 3, 1994” because it’s the first time everybody’s (including Hazel and Don Barber) been reading from the same page.

[Ed: NAME] ...... harassment or trying to get rid of those people with trumped up charges against them……by throwing people out of work …. shifted the burden to take care of those people to the provinces and to the municipalities …etc …

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?pub=hansard&mee=14&parl=35&ses=1&language=E#848

Even Maui has emergency flood and volcanic accommodation plans from their hurricane's blow hole. The Mississauga-Saga began when the you know who dudes came up with this idea of re-enacting the 1979 Mavis Road evacuation to extract an addition $66 million a year off the property taxes.

When us children of the province were compensated by Canadian National Railroad, sleeping in the Media Arts wing at Sheridan College was still a better alternative before Peel Region placed the homeless shelter next to the Mavis Road transit sight for future $4.7 million train derailments.

http://www.peelregion.ca/news/archiveitem.asp?year=2005&month=6&day=26&file=2005626d.xml

http://www.peelregion.ca/news/archiveitem.asp?year=2001&month=2&day=27&file=2001227.xml