After nearly eight months of review, Stratford city council has now adopted a closed-meeting protocol. Council adopted the protocol and approved two additional amendments at its Sept. 9 meeting. They follow the publication of an extensive review of over five years’ worth of closed meetings by the city’s closed-meeting investigator, Tony E. Fleming of Cunningham, Swan, Carty, Little & Bonham LLP. Fleming found numerous improper votes from 2018- 2023 and ultimately made six recommendations:
• That council and staff obtain training to ensure they are properly following the processes as required under the Municipal Act, 2001.
• That council should work towards creating procedures for topics that arise often, like contracts, land sale or employment decisions.
• That council should have a clear process for moving substantive decision making into open council.
• That council should ensure resolutions are clearly worded and they clearly provide instructions to staff rather than making substantive decisions.
• That council should have clear procedures for moving into open session, including in cases where members are concerned a vote or discussion is no longer properly in closed session.
• And that decisions should not be bundled together, particularly when they are unrelated.
The protocol drafted by the city’s clerks directly addresses recommendations two to five. It outlines the statutory requirements for closed meetings, roles and responsibilities, the process to be followed before, during and after a closed meeting is held, and provides an overview of each exemption and what discussions should and should not include.
According to the staff report, training is being sourced to address the first recommendation and amendments have already been made to in-camera reports to contain separated motions to address the sixth recommendation.
Mike Sullivan, who spoke on the original investigation when it was presented to council in February, praised staff for the most recent report included in the September meeting’s agenda – but he did have concerns.
Included in the recommendation but not the protocol were two amendments allowing the chief administrative officer (CAO) and director of human resources the authority “to hire and promote employees, including authority to issue employment letters, and to adjust salaries in accordance with all relevant policies and legislation,” and to provide authority to the CAO to approve the termination of city employees below the CAO or deputy CAO level where the costs are $250,000 or below, in the opinion of legal counsel.
“It's unclear as to how this proposal is related at all to the closed meeting investigations,” Sullivan said during a delegation. “It appears to be a standalone request to give the CAO the authority to hire and fire any and all staff at their discretion. The exception appears to be if the firing would cause more than a quarter million dollars of payments to an individual, then it has to come to council.
“There were several occasions where council was found to be in violation of the (Municipal) Act by voting on staffing issues. In my opinion, the solution is to exercise care by discussing hiring, not to mandate that entirely to somebody else.”
Later in the meeting, when the item was before council for consideration, city clerk Tatiana Dafoe clarified that before the amendments were passed, the delegation bylaw already contained these provisions, just with only the HR director listed. Staff wished to include the CAO as they are the only employee of council and to increase the current threshold of $100,000 to $250,000 to reflect current employment norms.
The city’s human resources director, Dave Bush, concurred with Dafoe.
“This is housekeeping,” Bush said.
Coun. Cody Sebben dissented from that classification, saying it was much bigger than that. “I read this much differently,” Sebben said. “To me, this is more than just cleaning up the language. This is a significant increase of the authority delegated to the CAO. … I think it's important that council is brought up to speed and is part of that decision.”
In a recorded vote, Sebben was the only councillor to oppose the adoption of the latter two amendments. Councillors Harjinder Nijjar Brad Beatty were absent.
The closed-meeting protocol was adopted unanimously.
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