Vaughan closed-door council meeting illegal, watchdog says
Vaughan council was in breach of the Municipal Act when it created a new management position in secret, a watchdog has found.

TheStar.com
Sept. 8, 2016
Noor Javed

An in-camera meeting of Vaughan council — in which councillors restructured city management, created a new deputy city manager position and immediately appointed someone to it without informing the public — was illegal, a closed-meeting investigator has determined.

In the report, posted on the city’s website, the investigator also found that the decisions appeared to have been “brokered” prior to the meeting.

“Council was in breach of the Municipal Act when discussing the decision to create this new position,” wrote investigator Nigel Bellchamber.

During a meeting April 13, council went into a closed session to choose a candidate for city manager on the basis that it dealt with the “personal information of identifiable individuals,” Bellchamber wrote. Council came out of the meeting with a brand new position and staff member in the role of deputy city manager responsible for legal services and human resources.

According to the investigator’s report, a complaint was filed about the meeting the next day.

In a memo to council, city clerk Jeffrey Abrams said the report from Bellchamber is “advice to council.”

“The advice provided in the investigator’s report does not invalidate the outcome of council’s appointments,” said Abrams. “The investigator’s findings were in respect of compliance with the open meeting procedures of the Municipal Act. There were no findings that the decisions taken by council were without authority, made in bad faith or ‘illegal.’ ”

The Municipal Act stipulates that council meetings must be public, but can go in-camera if they involve matters such as litigation, solicitor-client privilege and labour relations. In this case, the investigator concluded that Vaughan council did not fully disclose the items that would be discussed in-camera, discussed matters that could have been done in public and made “substantive decisions,” which is prohibited by the act.

Longtime city hall watcher Carrie Liddy, who filed the complaint, said she was watching the outcome of the meeting closely because of the “revolving door of senior management at the city.” Since 2013, the city has seen four city managers in the role — Clayton Harris, Barbara Cribbett, Steve Kanellakos and current manager Daniel Kostopoulos.

According to the findings of the investigation, the city manager at the time, Kanellakos — who was also the acting clerk at the meeting — said he was not advised in advance of the meeting that this would be an item for discussion and it “took him totally by surprise” that council made the organizational change. He was also not asked his opinion about the merits of the position, even though he had decided against a similar position during a restructuring a few months earlier, the investigator’s report says.

“It would strain credibility to believe that nine members of council could make such a substantive decision, with significant budget and human resources implications, in less than 11 minutes, in the absence of a professional and comprehensive staff report, unless the decision was effectively made outside of the formal process,” wrote Bellchamber. “The public deserves to see decision making in an open and deliberative forum, even if it does not have the automatic right to be consulted on such decisions.”

A closed-meeting investigator is an independent accountability officer who is called in if the city receives a complaint about a closed meeting. The investigator can report findings to council, but does not recommend any sanctions or penalties.

Bellchamber wrote in his report that, as well as contravening the provincial Municipal Act, the city violated its own procedural bylaw when it didn’t make clear what would be discussed behind closed doors. A discussion around corporate restructuring would not warrant a need to go into closed session, he concluded.

Moreover, instead of appointing someone to the position of deputy city manager, council should have led a competitive recruitment process to fill the post in public, he wrote.

Liddy said she thinks the meeting should be “nullified” and the decisions that were made at the meeting re-evaluated. She believes the city should hold public meetings to amend the city structure and hold public meetings to refill the deputy city manager position.

“This report is an important report, as it demonstrates the City of Vaughan is the wild wild west when it comes to governance. Anything goes, until the watchdogs . . . catch them,” said Liddy.

Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua didn’t respond to the Star’s request for comment.