New Stouffville council ready to get down to business

Incumbent Justin Altmann ousted

Yorkregion.com
October 25, 2018

Following a heated election campaign in Whitchurch-Stouffville fraught with social media drama, election sign misdeeds and court cases, the message emanating from incoming mayor Iain Lovatt and the new council is it’s time to move on after a chaotic four years.

“We need to turn the page and move forward,” he said. “The last four years have been way too much drama and distraction.”

Voters ousted Mayor Justin Altmann and chose Lovatt as the town’s new mayor on Oct. 22.

With 34 of 34 polls reporting, Lovatt received 5,329 votes, Keith Acton was nearly 1,000 votes behind with 4,421, while Altmann came in third with 3,060. Mayoral candidate Anand Date was fourth with 1,260.

The long campaign afforded Lovatt to go out and hear from residents about what their priorities were. Getting to some 8,000 homes, he said residents spoke about transportation, speeding and staying out of the newspapers as important issues for the town. But moving forward, Lovatt emphasized the importance of bringing new businesses to town quickly. If we don’t start on this right away we will be in serious financial trouble, he said.

Lovatt will helm a council that looks a lot like the old one -- minus Altmann and Ward 6 Coun. Rob Hargrave. Incumbents Ken Ferdinands, Maurice Smith, Hugo Kroon and Rick Upton were all re-elected handily. The two new members of council -- Richard Bartley in Ward 5 and Sue Sherban in Ward 6 -- are no strangers to the dais.

Bartley served as Ward 5 councillor previously before running for mayor and losing to Altmann in 2014. Sue Sherban is a former mayor and served as Ward 6 councillor previously. Both races were close as Sherban defeated Hargrave by 135 votes, while Bartley defeated Mike Humphreys by 81 votes.

The new council members also said it was time to put the Altmann saga behind them. “We need to move forward. I’m ready to get down to business,” Sherban said.

Ward 1 Coun. Ken Ferdinands said residents should be very confident in their new council. He said Lovatt will be a welcome new leader. “We will rely on him to provide good direction,” he said.

Ward 4 Coun. Rick Upton said the previous council got along save for one person. “He split the council. He split the staff and he split the town,” he said. “It’s time to put that behind us.” 

Keith Acton was unavailable for comment on election night. Multiple media members were turned away from Altmann’s event at the Tipsy Cow. He did not respond to requests for comment via phone.

The years 2014 to 2018 were eventful for the town.

In 2015, past CAO Andrew McNeely and assistant Concetta Connolly were both put on administrative leave by the town and eventually resigned. There was no discussion about the reasons for the resignations at the time in council.

The CAO who followed McNeely, Marc Pourvahidi, wasn’t long for the job either. The town sacked Pourvahidi in November of 2016 after he was put on leave earlier in the year. Pourvahidi had been on administrative leave since April 2016 due to a “personnel matter,” as stated by a town news release. The town did not release further details on the decision.

Pourvahidi’s leave of absence -- first stated as sick leave -- followed a revelation that the town had an exodus of 30 employees from January 2015 to April 2016.

In 2017, integrity commissioner Suzanne Craig investigated a “CSI-style” photo wall in Altmann’s office washroom that included pictures of staff, former politicians and members of the public, linked together with black lines and graphics.

Craig’s report found that the wall was “vexatious and disturbing,” and akin to “workplace harassment.”

At the time, council docked Altmann one month’s pay and asked that he apologize to staff. But the mayor adamantly refused to do so, citing errors in Craig’s report.

In March of 2018, town council voted 5-1 to endorse most of the integrity commissioner’s recommendations from an investigation that found Mayor Justin Altmann shared confidential information during an interview and another probe into his failure to apologize for the wall.

The penalties imposed were six months of docked pay as well as the mayor being banned from the municipal office and talking to town staff among other things.

In June of 2018 a new integrity commissioner reprimanded Altmann for a boycott of the New Year’s Eve fireworks and an allegation he made that two town staff members broke into his office during a Whitchurch-Stouffville Chamber of Commerce event.

Last month, a judge found that the town didn’t have the authority to ban Altmann from talking to town staff and from entering municipal facilities among other things after Altmann had appealed the decision in June.