Stratford’s Finance and Labour Relations subcommittee meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday, June 18, was abruptly adjourned by its chair after Mike Sullivan made an appearance in council chambers.
Councillor Mark Hunter adjourned the meeting less than 10 minutes after it began, right as Roberth Roth was beginning his presentation to council on its use of the Respectful Workplace Policy. Hunter noticed that Sullivan had entered the chambers after Roth had taken the podium and sat in the back row of the gallery, then he asked Sullivan to leave. A brief back-and-forth between Hunter, Sullivan and Roth ensued before Hunter motioned the meeting to a close.
Shortly after chambers cleared, Hunter said that he took the action to preserve the safety of the city employees in the room when Sullivan entered and refused to leave. Stratford has refused to publicly state its case against any one individual since it issued bans to both Sullivan and Barb Shaughnessy from attending public meetings or contacting city staff, and Hunter was asked for comment on what has - to this point - been a mostly one-sided conversation.
“I understand that there’s a disagreement about what happened in the room,” he said, referring to the February 26 council meeting where the city alleges threats to staff were made. “It was recorded and broadcast, so there’s a matter of interpretation there. What I witnessed were statements that I thought were derogatory to our staff and they weren’t as direct as they might sound - more of an inference that our staff were incompetent or exceeding the bounds of their authority. Administration took this action and whether people agree with it or not is fine, but that action’s in place as a step to protect our staff.”
Hunter said that as long as Sullivan keeps showing up to meetings while his ban - which expires on July 3 - they will keep ending in a similar fashion. So how does the city conduct it’s business in the meantime?
“We have to do what we can,” he said. “Part of the meeting that was missed a few weeks ago has been rescheduled to June 27 (the public meeting about the Krug factory development), and this subcommittee meeting may wind up going to full council. It just means that staff will have some more late nights and longer Mondays, but we’ll get the work done.”
Roth was not happy he was denied a chance to address his concerns over council’s use of the Respectful Workplace Policy as justification for administrative decisions, saying it only served to prove the point he was going to make.
“They’re so afraid of free speech that they literally shut down the municipality rather than hear its citizens - it’s bizarre,” he said. “I believe it’s a question of free speech. Someone said at one point that Mr. Sullivan’s presence made things unsafe - why is he an unsafe person? I didn’t get an answer when I asked that, and someone yelled out, ‘Are you afraid of words?’. What is it that makes them feel unsafe?”
Roth said he plans to return and once again attempt to plead his case at city hall because he still doesn’t have the answers - or the discourse - he was seeking in the first place.
“If there is a legally-defined threat, then call the police, but if there is no legal threat then quite frankly staff and our councillors have no right to feel unsafe,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. It seems to me that they find words threatening and they find criticism threatening. If they don’t, I would have appreciated a better explanation than the one I got.”
