“Where’s the beef?”
The long awaited report by the city’s closed meeting investigation into allegations that members of the previous Belleville city council held improper “breakfast meetings” and improper meetings before and after regular council meetings during 2016 and 2017 has been made public.
The complaint making allegations that some of these gatherings of the mayor and some councillors consisted of enough people to constitute a “quorum” were made by Bill Sandison in the run-up to last October’s local elections.
Sandison, who is now a Thurlow ward councillor, became a candidate in that election.
In essence, the investigator, Amberley Gavel Ltd., concluded that the complaint wasn’t worth an in-depth investigation.
Reasons given were that the information was all second-hand in that the complainant had no direct knowledge of any of the alleged “meetings” and that there was no solid detail involved.
In its report, Amberley Gavel Ltd. says it’s not in the business of conducting “fishing expeditions”.
Thurlow councillor Bill Sandison. (Photo: Quinte News)
The firm does make some recommendations.
The reason given for delaying its conclusions was that the allegations were made during an election period and that it is generally accepted practice not to release reports on Municipal Act infractions during those time periods.
