The City of Belleville is parting ways with its integrity commissioner.
The decision was made during council’s regular meeting on Monday night with those in favour of the move saying Tony Flemming’s work had been “sloppy” and that his firm Cunningham Swan, of Kingston, lacked experience in dealing with municipal issues.
Over the past year Fleming had investigated eight complaints from Belleville councillors and according to his annual report, one of those complaints lacked the merit for further investigation, one was withdrawn, three reports were completed and issued to council and three more were still being investigated.
Some estimates at Monday’s meeting suggested the city paid close to $60,000 in integrity commissioner reports last year alone.
Mayor Mitch Panciuk told reporters after the meeting that he doesn’t think Fleming would be surprised by the decision, noting that his quality of work wasn’t the only reason for his firing.
“He was double-ending, representing both the city as our integrity commissioner, but also acting as the plaintiff for a landowner who was taking the city to court. We had expressed our concerns and he seemed oblivious, or did not care, about that matter. It’s difficult to conduct code of conduct issues when our integrity commissioner himself wasn’t willing to do it.”
City Clerk Matt MacDonald says there was a clause in the contract that allows the city to terminate the deal without penalty.
Councillors made the decision on a 5-3 recorded vote with one absentee, after Councillor Chris Malette was expelled from the meeting during discussion on the motion.
Mayor Panciuk, along with councillors Bill Sandison, Pat Culhane, Kelly McCaw and Sean Kelly all voted in favour of the firing, with councillors Paul Carr, Ryan Williams and Garnet Thompson all voting against.
Belleville Councillor Paul Carr, during a meeting of City Council, on August 10, 2020. (Photo: David Foot / Quinte News)
Councillor Carr says it didn’t make sense to fire Fleming in the middle of his two-year contract and thought council should have done more due diligence before coming to that conclusion.
“Certainly there’s a lot of emotions in politics. Sometimes you have to set those aside and look at the facts. We could have very easily got back to this particular item, but unfortunately we got a little sidetracked and a lot of emotion. I think we could have still waited and got more information.”
Councillor Malette was removed from the meeting after he took exception to Mayor Panciuk’s repeated use of the phrase “hotel gate” in referencing a prior complaint to the integrity commissioner and called the afternoon’s proceedings a “farce”.
Malette tells Quinte News he could have fallen on either side of the debate in the end and after more discussion with Fleming about his work and future, but felt some on council had already made up their minds.
“It was clearly predetermined before that to do a preemptive strike judging by the way everyone had their prepared motions, their statements were written. It was a foregone conclusion that the Mayor appeared to have a majority on that vote, so it was unfortunate how that unfolded.”
The mayor says he understands Malette’s passion, but councillors need to keep control of their emotions.
“You can’t call council and the work that we do a farce if you’re a member of council. He probably let his emotions get the better of him. We want to use rationale and reason as we discuss things, sure we want to have some passion sometimes, but you want to keep your emotions in check.”
Belleville Councillor Chris Malette leaves Council Chambers after being expelled from a city council meeting on August 10, 2020. (Photo: David Foot / Quinte News)
Since the city is mandated to have an integrity commissioner, the duty will fall to the Ontario Ombudsman for now, with the search beginning in earnest for a replacement for Flemming.
Mayor Panciuk says moving forward, staff will give its input on potential replacements for Flemming, but he’s hoping the screening process may be more in-depth, potentially including in-person interviews.
He added that Belleville is not alone in swapping out its integrity commissioner, suggesting some changes could be made to the provincial legislation to fix the common issues that tend to arise.
The three cases that were still being looked into will now be sealed and it will be up to the new integrity commissioner to decide if they want to continue pursuing them.
Councillor Garnet Thompson also made a notice of motion to have whoever the new integrity commissioner is come to a council meeting to answer councillors questions as soon as they are hired.
