Council calls for Renfrew mayor to resign over project mismanagement
Mayor says he won't resign after problems with rec centre expansion
Town councillors in Renfrew, Ont., have voted in favour of telling Mayor Tom Sidney to resign immediately after a scathing report exposed a lack of oversight and improper handling of contracts for a recreation facility expansion.
The mayor is apologizing to residents but says he won't resign.
A motion passed 5-1 Tuesday night calling out "major cost overruns and delays" and "serious incompetence and other wrongdoing" regarding expanding the Ma-te-Way Activity Centre, now known as the myFM Centre, in the eastern Ontario town of about 8,200 people.
The expansion's opening was delayed two years.
Coun. Kyle Cybulski's motion pegs the mayor as responsible for the breakdown of the project, which dates back to 2012.
The motion points to the mayor's decision to remain in his role despite council passing a non-confidence vote in January, when some councillors alleged Sidney facilitated the project's "failure."
Sidney was a member of the Ma-te-Way project's ad hoc committee and chaired Renfrew's parks, recreation and facilities committee as a councillor from 2014 to 2022.
He was not appointed to the project's working group created last year, the town said.
My stomach turns when I see evidence of what happened to the taxpayers.- Coun. Andrew Dick
The town sanctioned a third-party review of the expansion's oversight and to examine how costs ballooned from $18 million for a 49,500-square-foot building to an estimated $35 million for a 96,000-square-foot expansion.
After conducting more than 200 interviews and reviewing more than 80,000 documents, the findings highlight "unkept promises," a "toxic environment," unrealistic budgets, poor decisions and major concerns surrounding "improper" procurement procedures.
"It was eye-opening, disturbing, gut-wrenching, painful, embarrassing and most of all unacceptable," Cybulski said Tuesday.
"[It] shook me to the core … You are the weak link that allowed this to happen," Cybulski said, addressing Sidney. A crowd of residents attending the town meeting applauded following his remarks.
Councillors Cybulski, Clint McWhirter, John McDonald, Jason Legris and Andrew Dick voted in favour of the motion, while Reeve Peter Emon was the only one to vote against it.
"Will this council stop after tonight? No. There's more to come," said Dick, adding that it wasn't just the mayor who didn't do his due diligence. "I want to make this clear, this is not a witch hunt.
"My stomach turns when I see evidence of what happened to the taxpayers of this town."
The motion is simply an expressed stance of council: under the Municipal Act, councillors don't have the authority to force Sidney to resign.
Sidney, who removed himself from the council table for both motions, told council he will be releasing a statement Wednesday morning.
Early that afternoon he said in an emailed statement he's apologizing to residents that the project wasn't done in a "financially acceptable" manner, but is not going to resign.
"The third party review showed the need to request good and sound information in all aspects of the town," he wrote. "The [Ma-te-Way] project has shown we did not seek it hard enough and I am sorry for that."
Sidney said he's disappointed with council, which in his view, "dismissed the many reasons the third party review highlighted as contributing factors [and] instead they focused their attention on only two individuals."
Findings paint ugly picture behind the scenes
According to WSCS Consulting's 88-page report released last week, there was a major lack of accountability, transparency and staff training at various steps of the project.
For instance, the report found that tenders did not follow an open public procurement process, information was often not shared with council and contracts were not fully disclosed to and approved by council.
It raised alarm bells over the former director of the recreation department "who operated several businesses while employed by the Town" and had a number of "personal relationships" with vendors which impacted competition and pricing.
"The awarding of contracts to businesses whereby personal relationships existed likely resulted in higher costs," reads the finding. The consultant recommended the town implement a fraud prevention or whistleblower policy.
"The procurement policy, while extremely poor, was not followed," reads another finding.
The consultant also found "ample evidence" suggesting the recreation department engaged in sole-source contracts in the Ma-te-Way project as well as others and warned that should be arms-length.
The review states that supply chain issues during the pandemic contributed to delays and "soaring prices," but said more detailed reporting would have given council time to review the impacts earlier.
It also found the project lacked proper oversight and management, which created a harmful environment for staff.
"The toxic environment made it very difficult for staff to challenge the project and provide proper oversight. There was no 'boss' to ensure that policies were followed and Council was kept informed," reads one of dozens of findings in the report.
Mayor, reeve removed from committees
Councillors also voted to immediately remove both the reeve, who was also a member of the Ma-te-Way project's committee, and the mayor from all remaining committees, working groups and external boards.
They again passed the motion 5-1 in favour of removing Sidney from his current role with the Renfrew Public Library Board and an internal employee engagement team.
He will still chair council meetings and represent the town at functions, according to his role set out in the Municipal Act.
Councillors also voted 5-1 in favour of the motion to remove Emon from all committees, with only Sidney voting against it.
"The standard for Mayor Tom Sidney needs to be the same as the standard for Reeve Emon," said Coun. McDonald.
In a press release Tuesday evening, the Town of Renfrew said following the third-party review, council has directed the CAO "to seek legal advice pertaining to the findings and potential recourse … including the potential undertaking of a forensic audit."
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