Item 2 Agenda June 22nd ....The Gig Is Up

FS10-020. Pre-Audit 2009 Operating Budget Report as at December 2009 is six pages of an account of everything that happened to the taxes the town collected in 2009.

Over the years, I've been in the habit of listening and leaving that stuff to the experts ,who are paid big bucks for being so.

I no longer have that confidence.

I wasn't at the June 22nd meeting. I understand Council didn't get to the business agenda until ten-minutes to ten. almost three hours into the meeting held for the purpose of dealing with the Town's business.

Item 2, the Pre-audit 2009 Operating Budget Report. was given short shrift by Council and disposed of within ten minutes.

It appears the Mayor had a consultation and set up a delegation from Aurora Tigers Hockey Club with a request from them for a grant of $15,000. to subsidise a hockey tournament. Apparently the talk swirled around for hours, as it usually does when it seems the outcome may not be what the Mayor intends.

I have read and re-read Item 2 . I find something new each time. Truth to tell , I've been waiting for the year end Audited Financial Statement. I looked forward to seeing how the Auditors dealt with the budget for legal expenses and the Water Rates Report and the increase in rates.

This post is about overspending the 2009 legal services budget in the amount of $167,147.

If you are looking for it, it's the last item under the Chief Administrative Office Heading.

Explanation for the deficit in Report No. CFS 10-020 is as follows:

"Legal expenses are higher than budgeted based on additional reliance on contract legal staff
required to fill the vacant Town Solicitor position and other legal matters incurred during the year."

Well now, isn't that just a fine and dandy explanation

Except that:

When the 2009 budget was struck, the town was well aware of reliance on external legal services because of having a vacancy in the town solicitor's position. That circumstance was known. We had been without a solicitor for most of 2008. There was no reason an estimate of costs for external services would not be included in the 2009 budget to accommodate that reality. And no reason for a deficit as a result.

There would however, have also been no reason to include a budget item for retention of the legal services of solicitor John Mascarin to "investigate" the written and verbal comments of a Councillor made during public debate of town business.

There would be no reason to include a fee for services for several consultations with Council, of preparing a written complaint on behalf of Council and submitting same, all neatly packaged and iron- clad, or so they thought, to the Town's Integrity Commissioner on July 29th in the Year of Our Lord 2009: to be dismissed scant weeks later, as wholly political in nature.

As we all know, I have failed on several occasions to obtain answers to my question about legal costs incurred during years 2007, 2008,2009 and 2o10.

The refusal was elaborately contrived. .

Councillors are frequently advised by administrative staff, if they have questions on any report, not to hesitate to ask for answers. .

Well!!! I do have questions which I no longer ask. Because answers , despite the above assurance, have been refused in the past.

So!!!! Like Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot, I have to follow the clues and sniff out the answers.

I deduce legal fees incurred by the Mayor and Council, not the Town, and paid to solicitor John Mascarin for the purpose of processing a failed complaint against a Councillor , to the Town's Commissioner of Ethics, were in the area of $167,147.; the amount of the deficit.

They would have to be assumed to be the "other legal matter incurred during the year" as noted in Report No.CFS 10-020.