I must admit, I did split out in laughter when I read the report on the agenda of the operations and administration committee recommending the hiring of an integrity commissioner. I realize this is a process that dates back to the transition between this and the last term of council.
The Nov. 28 report is below.
I find it interesting the cost of this is not included in this report— forcing one, likely, to go diving through thousands of pages of estimates committee and budget work to find any other dollar-sign mention of it. Set that aside for later.
Having seen the hiring, complaining-to and subsequent lapse of an integrity commissioner in the Friendly City of Woodstock to the west, I find it interesting this city is now considering hiring an integrity commissioner. Given what I’m learning about the allegations made against individual councillors by other councillors in the last term, this may have been an attempt to find some sort of rational solution.
Which it can be.
It would only be if council has armed its integrity commissioner with a decent code of conduct and complaints procedure. What cost the City of Woodstock tens of thousands of ultimately wasted dollars over three years were the bad rules that person was given. In that city, a statute of limitations was put on the complaints process— meaning the commissioner couldn’t be asked to investigate anything that happened over six months prior to the complaint being filed.
Scanning the municipal code for Brantford, the code of conduct and complaint procedure doesn’t include time limits. It also doesn’t appear to require signed affidavits for complainants (which Woodstock’s did), but does allow some screening of legitimate and illegitimate complaints.
With a good rule book, the integrity commissioner can be a very helpful tool for council, as well as for members of the public looking for their members of council to be accountable for any lapses in judgment. The commissioner can only recommend a course of action for council to take, but that might be helpful in certain situations.
Such as, hey, why not, the imbroglio over the non-signed bylaw 127-2010.
Brantford
As someone who is intimately familiar with the Woodstock Integrity Commissioner fiasco I can say Hugo is dead right about the complaint procedure and code of conduct. Woodstock’s procedures were written to serve Council, not the public.
Woodstock hired an Integrity Commissioner as cover to put an end to a local controversy that threatened to expose some Councillors and their associates as less than forthcoming regarding their activities on a local board. Once he had accomplished that task he became an inconvenience and was discarded.
Woodstock no longer has an Integrity Commissioner. That’s a whole other story. Maybe Hugo will be able to write it someday.
Thanks for the comment Al.
I don’t think I’ll take you up on the last sentence due to the change in jobs.
Cheers,
Hugo