At the Town of Athabasca’s council meeting on June 7, Coun. Tim Verhaeghe presented motions to disband the administration committee and to disqualify Coun. Nichole Adams.
Council voted against both motions. Councillors Nichole Adams, Tanu Evans, Shelly Gurba and Joanne Peckham voted against the motions, while Verhaeghe, Mayor Roger Morrill and Coun. Steve Schafer voted for them.
In February, council voted to remove Verhaeghe and Morrill from their committees and to take them to the Court of Queen’s Bench for disqualification.
The motions were brought forward during the “council concerns” portion of the meeting, for which Verhaeghe submitted four items.
The items included questions around a Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy (FOIP) request; the administration committee; an in-camera discussion potentially being made public; and the town’s legal bills to date for 2016.
‘FOIP me if you like’
The first item on Verhaeghe’s list was about a FOIP request, subsequent legal bills and how the town’s chief administrative officer handled the situation.
Verhaeghe said he received a FOIP request in March from Adams through CAO Josh Pyrcz.
Verhaeghe asked if and why his response to the request was read by two lawyers from different firms, costing a total of $471, according to legal bills he said obtained from the town.
Pyrcz said the response had indeed gone to two different lawyers.
“It’s my duty as a head of the public body and also as the chief administrative officer to ensure that when we are given information which may indicate to us a potential litigation, that we ensure we’re doing our due diligence,” Pyrcz said.
Verhaeghe also questioned why Pyrcz was seeking legal information about him.
“As CAO Pyrcz said it was under his authority, and I wonder why my employee – namely CAO Pyrcz – was trying to get legal opinions on me,” he said. “I just do not think that this was right. I think this was insubordination at it’s finest.”
To that, Pyrcz said he is an employee of town council and not of individual councillors, and his “first and foremost duty is exercising the policies under the discretion of council, secondly to protecting the corporation from potential liability.”
Adams said she would like to know how Verhaeghe got his information.
After stating that legal bills are public documents, Verhaeghe added, “FOIP me if you like.”
Admin committee
Next, Verhaeghe asked if an administration meeting had been called without notification being sent to himself or the mayor.
“I was the one who asked if we could hold an administration committee for one specific purpose,” Evans said.
He continued, saying the purpose of the meeting was to elect an admin committee chair.
“Further to that, the meeting lasted approximately nine minutes, which no councillor charged for,” he said. “Basically, this was housekeeping and trying to do our job, not something that needs to be brought up by Coun. Verhaeghe in an attempt to pick another fight.”
Coun. Shelly Gurba questioned who called the meeting to order.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but did the CAO allow that meeting? Did you call that one?” she asked, directing her question to Pyrcz.
Pyrcz said yes, he had the authority to commence the meeting, requested by Evans, and left after doing so.
“My concern is this was an improper meeting, possibly even illegal,” Verhaeghe said. “As such, my motion is to remove all who are on (the committee), number one. Number two, to disband the administration committee altogether and simply have council of the whole meet if there is a concern.”
He suggested that the council of the whole could meet before or after regular scheduled council meetings.
“Once again, those who are on the administration committee, in my opinion, think they can run the town without all of council knowing what is going on,” he said.
Coun. Steve Schafer added that he had removed himself from that administration committee meeting.
“It was not meeting as far as a process we could have, that could have become an agenda item at the following meeting,” he said.
Verhaeghe’s two-part motion was defeated, with himself, Morrill and Schaefer in favour and the rest opposed.
In-camera discussion made public?
Third on Verhaeghe’s list was a potential discussion of in-camera information out of camera.
He was referring to Adams notifying the press of a lawsuit filed against the town for negligence. She first spoke to the media about the lawsuit during a break at the May 17 council meeting.
Adams said the information she shared was already public.
“If one reads the editions of the Advocate and its conversations with certain members of the press, I was told that Coun. Adams did disclose an in-camera discussion,” Verhaeghe said. “It’s right there in the paper that Coun. Adams did disclose an in-camera discussion.”
He then made a motion to disqualify Adams from her committees.
“Again, in my respectful opinion, her actions are unbecoming of a councillor, they violate the MGA, the code of conduct, and she should be removed from all of her committees as a result,” he said.
In response, Adams clarified her defence.
“The statement of claim is a public document,” she said. “The lawsuit and the firm representing it is public information; we don’t have secret courts in Alberta. It is also not a secret that we – the town has been served those papers. It is not a secret that the town administration and council is aware of a lawsuit. It is the height of absurdity for councillors to dodge questions and say I can neither confirm nor deny something that is a matter of public record. I did not divulge any in-camera discussion details on this topic, I stuck to the public facts.”
Gurba said she recalled that it was an in-camera item, only because it was a sensitive issue.
“I guess my concern is even which law firm is taking it on at this point,” she said. “It was in camera. Just something to think about.”
Evans said that on April 29, a CAO report was distributed to council with notification of the lawsuit.
“We have been given notice of a lawsuit filed by Verhaeghe & Boisvert Law Firm on behalf of the child who was injured at the skatepark last year,” he said. “It was a brief.”
Adams said the report confirmed the matter was public knowledge.
Verhaeghe, Schafer and Morrill voted in favour of the motion to disqualify Adams. The remaining councillors, including Adams, opposed.
In a later interview, Adams said she did not see a pecuniary interest in her voting on the matter.
“For disqualification, just whether or not I hold an office is not a pecuniary interest,” she said. “It doesn’t affect my pocket book other than my council salary, but we do vote on our own salaries. The same for removing from council committees, Roger and Tim were there, present for that vote when we removed them from their council committees, I believe.”
At the Feb.16 meeting where Morrill and Verhaeghe were voted off town boards, committees, commissions and societies, both were present and voted against the motion. However, both council members – stating pecuniary interest – recused themselves when council voted to take any necessary steps to prepare and execute an application to the Court of Queen’s Bench to have them disqualified.
In a interview, Pyrcz said he had not considered the issue, but if there was a violation of the pecuniary interest clause of the Municipal Government Act, the effect would be disqualification. The matter would have to be brought up by council.
“Councils are set up in the way that they police themselves,” he said. “In this case, this is a matter for council discussion and whatever council decides to do with it, it’s my job to make sure it gets done.”
Legal bills
Verhaeghe noted discrepancies in the town’s reported year-to-date legal fees.
“I asked for our legal bills from the Jan.16 to present date,” he said. “As far as I can tell, legal bills to date are $16,702.04 to March. There will be another bill for Brownlee coming out – at, not the previous meeting, but the one prior to that – and although we don’t have that, I can only surmise that the approximate costs for that will be $2,500. So to date, my estimates are that our legal fees could be approximately $19,000.”
A report on year-to-date legal fees from interim financial officer Rodney Boyko says the total is $13,973.50.
Verhaeghe said one bill cost $6,151.79, more than half the town’s $10,000 budget for 2016-17.
“I also note there was another bill for $213, one for $142, one for $3,550, one for $2,307.50, which all can be attributed to the disqualification motion against Mayor Morrill and myself,” he said. “So, that equals $8,849.79, plus an additional approximately $2,500 to Brownlee. The fees to date for disqualification are approximately $11,349.79.”
He then asked whether or not the town would be going to court over the disqualification of himself and Morrill.
“It’s been four months and I think I deserve to know what is going on,” he said. “Or rescind, apologize and reinstate me to my committees and let’s move on with government remediation. Put the ongoing legal fees and put petty differences aside.”
Pyrcz said he could not answer the question, because he would have to divulge in-camera information.
