Amherstburg council held improper meetings about police services: ombudsman
Town mayor said ombudsman finding was a bit of a 'surprise'
Ontario's ombudsman Paul Dubé says that Amherstburg council, while acting in "good faith," held meetings about plans to change municipal police services that violated the Municipal Act and their own terms of reference.
Earlier this year, mayor Aldo DiCarlo cast the deciding vote in favour of a proposal for Windsor Police Service to takeover law enforcement in the community for the next 20 years.
But a month before that vote took place, the ombudsman notified town council it was investigating three complaints about meetings of council and a Joint Police Advisory Committe (JPAC) that were closed to the public.
According to the ombudsman report issued on June 27, 2018, these three complaints were investigated:
- A closed meeting of town council to discuss a draft request for proposals (RFP) for policing services on July 10, 2017.
- Four closed meetings of JPAC to discuss the draft RFP on June 1, June 22, July 6 and Dec. 7
- A closed meeting of council on Jan. 22, 2018 that discussed the make-up of the JPAC.
Under the Municipal Act, certain parts of, or entire meetings of council, can be held in a closed, in camera session under certain exemptions.
In the report, Dubé says of all of the meetings he received complaints about, only the council meeting on Jan. 22 should have been a closed session, which involved discussions of "personal matters about an identifiable individual."
Mayor surprised by decision
While DiCarlo understands the ombudsman's position on the meetings, he said his initial reaction was "somewhat of a surprise."
The information they discussed "was very similar to the kind of information we would discuss on the police board," he said, where the meeting would have been held in camera.
One of the exemptions that would have allowed the council and committee to meet privately is if the matter, in this case the RFP, would be permissibly discussed in private under another Act.
The town clerk said in her interview with Dubé that the Police Services Act would have allowed the police services board to discuss the RFP in private.
There was also a confidentiality clause involved in the proposal from Windsor Police Service, which JPAC respected.
Dubé did not find either explanation to be adequate.
He says there wasn't any indication that town council and JPAC considered the exemption when making the decisions to make the meetings private, nor does the Municipal Act allow for closed meetings in order to protect a third party's confidential information.
However, new changes to the Act effective Jan. 1, 2018 may make things different with regards to sensitive third party information, the report says, but they don't apply to the investigated meetings because they happened last year.
No difference in decision for takeover
DiCarlo doesn't think if those meetings were held publicly, it would have changed the outcome for Windsor Police Service to start taking over law enforcement in Amherstburg next year, pending approval from the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.
"A broad range of people" sat on JPAC, from administration staff to people from the police association, he said. "I don't think it would've changed the outcome in that respect."
There will also be no repercussions for the town clerk.
"Nobody's perfect. Issues like this are going to come up with many councils across the province," said DiCarlo.
Amherstburg has been subject to several of these types of investigations in the past three and a half years and were never found to be in contravention of the Municipal Act, he said.
In this specific case, he said they truly felt they were in compliance before deciding to go in camera, and the ombudsman recognized that as well.
"So I think that should give the residents some comfort in knowing that we do generally follow the rules," DiCarlo said.