Reading ,Shredding, and Reading Some More

My dining room table is strewn with papers. I have to sort and file in alphabetical order.

Legal opinions will be the fattest file. They date from the first weeks of the first year of the term.

Three solicitors were asked at different times to advise on the same issue.

Does a confidentiality clause at the end of an e-mail carry weight?

Yes it does.

One opinion sought was whether or not I have the right to state an opinion.

Yes I do.

I received the solicitor/client advice from George Rust D'Eye written in December 2007. It wasn't presented to Council until May 6th 2008. It was circulated at the beginning and scooped up at the end of a meeting. No time to notice small details like a discrepancy in dates.

That was the schemozzle about the "leak" of the closed door decision to refuse to sell land to York Region to establish new headquarters for York Region Police Headquarters in Aurora.

The decision was made in September 2007. Hit the headlines in November. A slow leak I guess.

Thirty-one months later, the decision has yet to be reported out by Council to the public. Had there been no news report, the public would still not know they did that.

Some documents are missing from the mass. Opinions from two separate lawyers on the matter of phone logs being monitored," privacy being invaded", egregious wrongdoing by person known. Turned out not to be wrong at all. Legal fees paid by the town for that witch-hunt are still not known. No documents were ever seen by anyone except the Mayor.

Obviously... they will not be in my files.

There is the former to the former clerk's record of an interview he and the Mayor conducted with candidate Nitkin of Ethicscan for the position of Integrity Commissioner.

Mr.Nitkin's contract is in the pile. Signed eight months after he was retained. The Code of Conduct is there. Material from the single workshop he was allowed to conduct. Unattended by two Councillors and the Mayor.

During the workshop, Mr.Nitkin revealed there had been a meeting with "a committee".

But no committee had been appointed by Council.

His first decision is mine to behold. And share.

After that, there were a flurry of e-mails and nothing more.

There's former CAO John Rogers' first contract of employment. The Town's Procurement Policy. The Memorandum of Settlement . The Town's Recruitment Policy.

There's an up-to-date copy of the Municipal Act, which is something of a bible for municipal councillors. It helps to understand the purpose of regulations and how they have been interpreted and enacted for nigh on fifty years

Closed doors meetings are allowed to protect the municipality's interest.The privacy intended to be protected is not political.It is personal.

There is no such thing as political privacy. All that must be open and transparent.

Aurora's Procedure Bylaw, the longest in Christendom. Bourinot's Rules Order. Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules. Several landmark rulings by eminent judges, over the centuries, on the authority of a councillor or alderman to speak her mind frankly and freely, without fear or favour and to call a spade a spade in the course of her duties.

The exercise has been wearing and I'm not done yet. But it has been entirely necessary and satisfying.

Without resources to stand her ground in the face of adversarial jackanapes, a Councillor could find herself harried.... from pillar to post.