We were elected in October. Took office on December1st. Had our first business meeting on December 15th. The Mayor gave Notice of Motion to cancel the contract. It will be heard in January.
Mr. Tsubuchi will not be notified of termination of his contract until February 1st. He will be paid for that month.
Mr.Tsubuchi has been paid almost $40Ks from the public purse. He considered two complaints from a councillor against a councillor. Made decisions which did not require him to be stripped of authority like the first integrity commissioner. Refused to divulge details of his investigation.
He did receive another complaint from a probationary employee of the corporation against the same and only Councillor ever complained about. The Commissioner recused himself this time. Shipped the complaint off to an Integrity Commissioner who is not a solicitor.
The complaint was received on the last day before the moratorium came into effect. The complained-about-councillor received notification later, the investigation ended when the complaint was withdrawn. So that was a wasted exercise.
Mr Tsubuchi's contract was a retainer. Whether or not there was work. a cheque would be issued. We weren't supposed to tell you the fees. Pshaw!
In March, I voted against a new contract being signed. At the time of the moratorium, I urged termination of the contract
Surprise...surprise !!! The only bad-ass to be judged was moi.
The probationary employee who complained, professed amazement that I would disclose the fact. He must have believed it would be a secret between him and me,the Integrity Commissioner and probably one other. He was ill-advised.
The former Mayor made a couple of sly references to it at the all-candidates meeting organized by the Library Board during the campaign. After the election she requested council receive an update.
Mr. Tsubuchi was given a twelve month contract on April 1st of an election year. A moratorium on complaints is generally imposed from August 1st. I say "generally" though a limited number of municipalities have exercised the half-assed permissive legislation to adopt a Code of Conduct providing for punishment of a Councillor, deemed by fellow Councillors ,to talk too much and tell tales out of school in a blog that makes other council members look not as great as they like to think they are.
So a twelve month contract was signed, though only four months of potential use existed for the service prior to a new election.
To be fair, Council was not informed by staff of the August 1st moratorium. That infromation was not reported until July
The new Council was sworn into office on December 1st. We could have had a special meeting that day and directed staff to notify of termination according to the contract. December would have seen the last cheque issued.
It would have been unusual. It didn't happen.
The Mayor gave written notice of motion in mid December. The written notice forestalled another notion from being presented.
It meant the motion to terminate would not be presented until mid January.
John Abel seconded a motion I intended to present in December to suspend procedure to allow the motion to terminate to be presented without notice.
I didn't do it. Didn't want to create the appearance of one-upmanship against the Mayor,at the first meeting of the new Council.
A word between us could have resolved the matter.
I regret the motion to suspend didn't happen.
Am I the only person in town outraged by money being funneled out of the treasury for no good purpose whatsoever.
My God,when I think of the people in need and taxpayers barely able to hold on to their homes, I hate that with a vengeance.
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5 comments:
Evelyn, I too am outraged regarding the IC contract. If Council feels there is that much of a need for one I don't understand why we could not have a sharing agreement with other York Region municipalities or employ one on an as needed basis. Aurora is a small town and having an individual on an expensive retainer who mostly does little to no work is an insult to taxpayers. Adding injury to insult this individual recused himself from reviewing a particular complaint. Was he still paid his monthly retainer for electing NOT to do the job he was contracted for? I remember reading on your blog, when you first shared with us that a new complaint had been filed against you. Was a reason given for dropping the complaint? If it was legitimate rather than political why choose not to see it through?
I don't know why anyone who lives or works in a small town would assume secrecy could be sought or maintained for long. Dark little secrets always manage to come into the light eventually. I suspect that our former Mayor made a grave miscalulation when she launched her lawsuit against citizens, perhaps hoping that they would skulk away silently into hiding to contemplate their fate at the hands of She Who Must Be Obeyed and the Kingdom she foolishly thought was hers alone to rule.
Luckywife
From my perspective the present Integrity Commissioner (how I loathe using this phrase with regard to the man) hasn't 'EARNED' a penny since April 1, 2010.
This is known in certain circles as a political payoff.
Do you recall who the other candidates were and what propelled Mr. Tsubuchi to the gold ring at the end of the pole?
No, in fact you are not the only one outraged by this bullshit , I'm sure the rest of your colleges are just as disgusted but they do not know the rules and process as well as you do , Be patient with your new partners Evelyn and offer your guidance and wisdom, both on this blog and in private, I took more than four years to dig the hole , it may just take another four to fill it in, Hopefully your upcoming team building exercise will help to build some bridges and a beginning to repair the damage to this Town
I am outraged too. I was when each of the two integrity commissioners was retained, and I still am.
I was not impressed by Tsubouchi's performance at the council meeting. I found his attitude supercilious and condescending, although totally in keeping with those who hired him. I was also not impressed by his refusal to answer questions about how the investigation was conducted. He has been a waste of money, but then we knew he would be as he was just another puppet to carry out a specific purpose. Just another expense we taxpayers have had to suck up. That's why I encourage you to do everything possible to prevent us being on the hook for this $43K. I cannot afford to keep shelling out higher taxes to fund council wastages.
Good riddance, I say.
I will not sign this for obvious reasons.
I (a resident) had lodged a complaint to the IC when it was Nitken. Soon after I received a response from him that he received the complaint and would take it under consideration. He was then dismissed. I read that all pending complaints would be heard when the new IC was retained. I gave the new IC some time to review and when I heard nothing I began asking questions of him and senior staff.
The IC and I finally exchanged email to arrange to discuss but due to family issues he never contacted me directly and I now have to consider the complaint dead as the election has happened and 4 of the 6 that the complaint was lodged against are no longer there.
The new Mayor has the details as I have shared it with him.
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