Alar Soever, the former mayor of the Town of The Blue Mountains and Grey County councillor, will file a formal complaint about a recent county-led meeting he has called “improper.”
Soever told CollingwoodToday he would proceed with a formal complaint after Grey County council took no action on his correspondence objecting to the meeting being held in closed session.
“I think if they’re going to make major changes like this they should be starting out in a public forum,” Soever said.
On Aug. 8, Grey County led a meeting with all nine local municipalities to discuss the possibility of merging local planning departments. The virtual meeting was held in-camera and was attended by representatives from all municipalities in Grey County.
Shortly after, the county sent out a news release announcing the potential joint planning department initiative.
In September, Soever wrote to both the county and his local council objecting to the meeting.
“Inappropriate matters were discussed in the closed session and the meeting was improperly held,” Soever says in his letter addressed to Grey County council.
On the agenda for county council’s meeting on Oct. 10, was a letter in response to Soever’s correspondence from the county clerk’s department that cited the Municipal Act exemption for “labour relations or employee negotiations and advice subject to solicitor-client privilege” as the reason the meeting was closed.
“The purpose of the joint, closed session all councils meeting was to provide for a meeting where all elected officials in Grey County could receive the same information simultaneously, protect all municipalities’ relationship with the employees affected by the discussion, and to receive advice provided by legal counsel and that it was held in accordance with section 239 of Municipal Act, 2001,” states the clerk's letter.
The letter from the clerk’s department appeared on county’s council’s consent agenda and was adopted and received by council with no comment or action taken. However, Soever’s letter was not included on the agenda.
“If you write council with a letter, you assume it’s going to be public. That is going to form part of my complaint. There is a pattern of trying to keep things closed,” said Soever.
Soever said the use of a labour relations exemption as the reason for the closed session was “bogus.”
“Every decision of council pretty much affects some staff member. If that is allowed to stand, there would be very few discussions council could have,” he said.
Soever’s complaint will be sent to Local Authority Services (LAS), the firm that handles closed-door investigations for the county.
“Should there be a closed meeting investigation resulting from a complaint, the investigator will provide opportunities for improvement and advise if errors were made in staff’s assessment in this process,” the clerk’s department letter states.
