A presentation submitted to the Collingwood Judicial Inquiry by an 'expert witness' was actually prepared by Ed Houghton, the inquiry learned this morning.
Yesterday, a witness named John Scott was called to the stand by Houghton’s lawyer, Fred Chenoweth, who presented Scott as an expert in design-build projects. Scott has multiple decades of experience in construction, and said most of it is in design-build projects, some of which involve pre-fabricated building structures.
Design-build refers to a project managed by a contractor instead of a client, so architects, designers, and engineers report to the contractor and are not hired by the client. Both the Centennial Aquatic Centre and the Central Park Arena are being referred to as 'design-builds' by witnesses at the inquiry.
Houghton was the acting CAO at the time of council’s decision to hire BLT Construction to build two Sprung structures for the arena and pool, and to use proceeds from the 2012 Collus share sale to pay for the facilities.
As part of Scott’s testimony, there was a report he said he authored that was presented to the inquiry. During cross-examination, John Mather, counsel for the inquiry, asked Scott why the metadata for the report stated it was edited and prepared by someone named Ed.
Metadata is embedded information in computer documents that shows who created the document and at what time.
Mather asked Scott specifically if he worked with Ed Houghton on the report. Scott said no.
Scott said he didn’t know why the metadata for his report said it was created by Ed. He said he could speculate his original report’s title page was “rough” and could have been changed. But he said that was speculation.
This morning, Houghton is on the witness stand and is being questioned by Chenoweth.
At the end of Chenoweth’s line of questions, he asked Houghton to explain his involvement with Scott’s presentation.
Houghton said the information from Scott came to Chenoweth in the body of an email, but was not in a “professional” presentation format. Houghton said Chenoweth didn't want the information to go to the inquiry in an email format.
Houghton testified he “copy-and-pasted” the information from Scott’s email into a presentation. He said there was nobody else available to do it at the time, and he was effectively the "back office" for Scott.
Later Houghton told Justice Frank Marrocco, the commissioner presiding over the inquiry, Houghton has "been the secretary in the back office for quite some time because [he] couldn't afford anything else."
He said Chenoweth also said they needed to include Scott’s CV with the report.
Houghton said he called Scott to get his CV, and Scott told Houghton it had already been sent to Brian Dempsey, a local contractor with a business called DBD Systems.
Yesterday, Scott was asked how he got involved in the inquiry proceedings. He testified Dempsey called him to ask him to “help out.”
Dempsey hasn’t come up in the inquiry proceedings thus far, but town records show he donated $300 to Sandra Cooper’s election campaign in 2010. Cooper was the mayor at the time of the Collus sale and during council’s decision to build the recreation facilities.
Houghton testified he “did not even read” all the information emailed by Scott while he was putting it into the presentation.
"All we were trying to do was get that information to you folks for your information," said Houghton. "There was no influence on my part."
He said he was asked by Chenoweth to remove “one or two sentences” and said he thought it was because they weren’t related to Scott’s expertise in design-build and they “may” have related to sole-sourcing.
Houghton said Chenoweth told him to remove those sentences after Chenoweth had a conversation with Scott about it.
The lawyer representing the Town of Collingwood, Will McDowell, said Houghton’s testimony about the presentation of the expert witness was “unusual.”
Justice Frank Marrocco agreed.
Marrocco ordered all documents (including emails and metadata) related to the preparation and material contained in the report delivered with Scott’s testimony to be produced to the inquiry.
Marrocco has adjourned the hearings for today at 11 a.m. and will proceed again with public hearings on Monday, Oct. 21 at 10 a.m.
