ERIN – Officials here have updated to $24,000 the amount the municipality paid its lawyers to fight an Advertiser FOI request for employee severance details.
Erin staff initially stated the town received five legal invoices, totalling $17,794, related to a 2017 FOI request and subsequent appeal to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC).
After the Advertiser asked if there were more legal bills to come, communications officer Jessica Spina told the newspaper the town received one last invoice totalling $6,247 plus HST, bringing the overall total to $24,041.
“The Town of Erin maintains that ensuring the privacy of our current and former employees is of the utmost importance,” Spina stated in a Dec. 16 email.
She added the municipality “remains dedicated to service excellence and operating in an open and transparent way, while continuing to strive to provide residents with accurate information.”
Similar to the town’s initial response to the Advertiser’s Oct. 23 request for legal invoices, the Dec. 16 update does not specify from which firm(s) the invoices were received. The town was represented throughout the IPC appeal by Bay Street law firm Aird and Berlis.
Spina’s Dec. 16 email states the town received two additional invoices (unrelated to the 2017 FOI request) for legal services rendered in response to two Oct. 23 FOI requests from the Advertiser: one for the legal bills and the other for all documents indicating the cost and staff time involved to deal with the 2017 request.
Those invoices, for $722 and $1,912 (excluding HST), bring the grand total for all legal bills related to the newspaper’s three FOI requests to $26,675.
Background
In September, after a two-year battle, the Town of Erin decided to provide the total severances paid to terminated Erin employees from Jan. 1, 2012 to Dec. 31, 2017, totalling $577,719.
(An FOI request filed by a town resident later uncovered the town paid an additional $225,603 in 2018 in severances).
On Oct. 23, after twice previously being denied the information, the Advertiser filed an FOI request for all legal invoices related to the 2017 FOI request and subsequent IPC appeal.
The town’s Nov. 26 response from clerk Lisa Campion provided legal bill totals, but denied the newspaper access to the actual invoices under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Specifically, states the letter from Campion, supplying the invoices would violate solicitor-client privilege and “prejudice significantly the competitive position” of the legal firm(s).
The newspaper did not appeal that decision.
