Vote Dick Carpani for Mayor
  Sarnia Ontario Canada

Council should censure mayor

Sarnia city council members were wise to send off a warning to the mayor this week, but in order to have any kind of .impact, they must follow through and censure him from closed door meetings for a reasonable period.

The issue became public at Mondays council meeting when the mayor read a brief statement and stormed out of the council chambers. He is being accused by council of leaking information from an in- camera meeting to an area media outlet. Council wants to meet privately with him and vote on censuring him from in-camera meetings for a designated period of time.

It’s a reasonable response to irresponsible actions by the mayor.

The issue which was discussed in- camera deals with the city's settlement in the Clearwater land deals. The mayor has accused council of agreeing to a bad deal and then trying to gag him for speaking out about it. Details of the agreement are expected to be made public within two weeks.

Good, bad or ugly, no agreements reached in-camera should be revealed publicly before both sides have signed off. Such actions could potentially compromise city business.

If the mayor has contravened the city's policy regarding confidentiality of information gathered from an in-camera meeting, then councillors must act swiftly in order to protect the city's intests.

It appears the mayor has ignored all important city policy under the guise of being on a mission of public awareness. This has been done so he could criticize an agreement he does not support. Regardless of his political motives, his actions were wrong. The issue before council now is one of procedures and policy, not political standpoints.

His comments to The Observer that- as chair of council, he has the right to release any in-camera information at any time, smacks of a politician who is on a self-serving power trip.

(Editorial The Observer 2002-09 15)