Centre Wellington council was cleared of holding an improper council meeting on Monday night – but that verdict came at a cost to taxpayers.
Meeting investigator Norm Gamble reported that while some minor issues need to be corrected in the township’s procedural bylaw, council acted properly on Feb. 7, 2008 in a closed meeting to consider an application by the Murray Group for a gravel pit near Inverhaugh.
Carol Williams and Daniel Bratton, part of a ratepayers’ group in that hamlet, requested the investigation.
Gamble said there are two things people seem to be struggling with when it comes to municipal council operations.
One of those is planning and Ontario Municipal Board operations and procedures.
His report stated, “Individual citizens and ratepayer organizations are often quite surprised to find how little their local elected council is involved in parts of the process.
“Specifically, many people are unaware that an application under the Planning Act may move from staff review directly to the OMB process without the local council taking a position for or against it.”
That was the case with the pit issue. Council never formally opposed or rejected the application. What council did do was tell its solicitors what might be acceptable if the Murray Group won the OMB hearing.
Gamble noted in his findings, “Subsequently, a council, as in the case of Feb. 7, 2008, may not be involved with the sole exception of advising its solicitors of acceptable terms of a negotiated settlement. The council is neither approving nor rejecting the proposal. It is simply identifying conditions acceptable for and OMB decision.
“A negotiated settlement is then the prerogative of the OMB, with council having no further involvement.”
Gamble added, “People assume there must have been more involvement by their council than is the fact.”
Gamble said a second issue he sees is one that has occurred in other investigations, and that is a lack of discussion by the complainants with the municipality prior to calling for an investigation.
“It’s difficult for a person complaining to deal with a municipality,” he told council. “I know it’s not your staff.”
Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said, “If there is any way we can get the public to work with us … It ends up getting to you and costing the municipality money.”
Councillor Fred Morris was curious about the cause of people’s perceptions.
Gamble said the most common calls for investigation deal with planning issues. He noted he has had only four complaints in all of Wellington County in the two years there has been a meeting investigator.
And, he said, it is not that council and staff do not explain the procedure, but, “For whatever reason, they don’t believe it. Here, staff went overboard,” to explain the procedures.
He said perhaps a step could be built into the process where where complainants meet with council, staff, and himself to start the process. A good discussion there might halt a request for an investigation.
But, Gamble said, he cannot deny anyone who makes a request for an investigation.
Morris said to formally get that to happen, the province might have to make changes in its regulations.
Gamble said another, smaller issue is the reluctance of the complainers to meet at the municipal office, although, he noted they do not have any issue with their names being made public.
In his report, Gamble sated “It sits with the municipality to create the environment to allow concerns to be addressed.”
He also noted that a third consideration he has with the pit meeting investigation, as it is with all other such investigations, is there must be confidentiality.
“For that reason, requests to see or receive copies of background information and closed session minutes were both refused by the investigator,” Gamble said in his report.
He added he appreciated that all the parties showed respect for that.
One of the issues Gamble found was Centre Wellington, common to all municipalities, simply files its closed meetings minutes after approving them in closed session, without a public release.
He said that is not in contradiction of the Municipal Act or the procedural bylaw, but a process that requires a review of all minutes might be considered by council to see if any such minutes could be released.
Gamble also investigated if there were other secret meetings and said, “There is no evidence of that occurring.” He added council and staff are very much aware of the rules about that.
He did note that public misunderstanding of the council process, again, might have caused some people to think there had been.
He stated, “Other discussions with solicitors and staff before and after that date may have caused the question to be asked, and reinforces the investigations opinion of a lack of understanding by the public of the process involved.”
Gamble recommended council review its procedural bylaw to determine how closed session minutes are approved, filed, or may be reviewed for release.
He also suggested a requirement for a motion to return to a public session be part of the standing agenda. Such a motion had been used in the Feb. 7 meeting.
In an interview after the meeting, Ross-Zuj noted she has gone through the process of investigation at the county and the township, and both times the investigator upheld the procedures.
She said she wishes people with complaints or questions would simply “pick up the phone” to ask councillors or staff before going to the meeting investigator.
Gamble has not submitted his bill to date, but she noted the investigation at the county cost taxpayers around $3,000, and this one is likely to cost about the same.
“They insisted we go through this,” she said of Williams and Bratton.
