City councillor Robert Kirwan responds on social media to report suggesting he be reprimanded

A Sudbury city councillor says he plans to ask a report recommending he be reprimanded to be deferred.

Recently, the integrity commissioner for the City of Greater Sudbury released a report about complaints filed about city councillor Robert Kirwan. The report states Kirwan "repeatedly abused and harassed members of the public."

The report, written by Robert Swayze, states Kirwan should be reprimanded by council for contravening the code of conduct of ethics for councillors. It's scheduled to be discussed at the upcoming city council meeting on Sept. 24.

The majority of complaints involve Kirwan's social media page called the Valley East Facebook page.

CBC Sudbury has attempted to reach Kirwan for comment. In a written statement, he said he would respond in the coming days. However, on the Valley East Facebook page, Kirwan has posted several posts on the integrity commissioner's report.

In one post, Kirwan states he will be asking council to defer the recommendation by the integrity commissioner.

"I will be asking councillors to defer the report until I am provided with copies of the complaints that have been referenced in the report, Kirwan stated on Facebook.

In his report, Swayze stated "as required by complaint protocol which is part of the code, I served Councillor Kirwan with several of the complaints … and requested a response."

Kirwan also points out that although nine complaints were filed against him, four of those were dismissed in March.

In Swazye's report, he outlines which complaints were dismissed and why. One complaint accused Kirwan of "issuing false statements and speaking on behalf of council without authority," the report said.

"I regard this as an essential part of the democratic process and dismissed several of the early complaints on this ground as well," the report states.

In another post, Kirwan says a complaint filed by the Downtown BIA group is not valid. In the past, Kirwan had suggested that group be dissolved.

"Complaints from groups, organizations and corporations are not permitted under the existing terms of the Code of Conduct," Kirwan said. 

"This complaint therefore should never have been accepted and it should be dismissed as being invalid. Simply being able to identify the officers submitting the complaint is not enough to qualify it as an 'individual' complaint."

In his report, Swayze says he is able to accept the complaint from the Downtown BIA.

"The code requires me to accept complaints from identifiable individuals only and two officers of the BIA provided their names as complainants to comply with the code," he wrote.

"Most of the complaints have several groups and many overlap."