North Bay’s city council meeting plunged into chaos Tuesday night as councillors defeated a motion calling for an independent forensic audit of Mayor Peter Chirico’s expenses. An amended version of the motion was defeated by a 7-3 vote. The original motion was ultimately pulled after a fiery debate. Chirico declared a conflict of interest at the beginning of the meeting and didn’t participate in the debate. The mayor has been under fire since it emerged that he charged $16,000 in personal expenses on a corporate credit card in 2023 and 2024. Some of these personal items reportedly include dog food, cigarettes and a golf membership. The mayor has said that all expenses that were deemed personal, including some that fell into a “grey area,” were fully repaid. He has since called for the city’s integrity commissioner to look into the matter, but Tuesday night, council debated whether to go a step further and have the expenses subject to a forensic audit. An amended version of the motion, moved by Coun. Jamie Lowery and seconded by Coun. Tanya Vrebosch, called for an audit of all “spending related to the Office of the Mayor” from the beginning of the current council term in 2022 to the present day. The audit would have been conducted by a firm that has “not participated in city audits in the last 10 years” and would have excluded the participation of anyone involved in approving or overseeing the mayor’s expenses. That list includes city officials such as the chief administrative officer, the chief financial officer, the city solicitor and the current external auditor. Once the amended motion was defeated, the original motion, which included a call for Chirico to temporarily step aside from the North Bay Police Board, was then brought before council. Confusion, frustration That motion was then broken down into five bullet points to be voted on individually. But that decision caused confusion and frustration, with councillors unsure of exactly what they were voting on. “We’re looking completely stupid right now,” Vrebosch said. “Changing and breaking it up into five pieces has changed the intent of the motion and we need to bring this back because we need to stop this.” In the end, Lowery and Coun. Sara Inch agreed that the original motion should be pulled from the floor. All the while, Chirico watched on. Lowery said council deserved answers. “What went wrong? There’s two years. Who signed off on it? Who let them pay it back? Who would that authority come from? There’s a lot of things and we’re only going by the information we have,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it corruption. I just think that we’ve got to be a lot more accountable about what we do and how we conduct ourselves.” In a fiery news scrum after the meeting ended, Vrebosch argued the amended motion should have passed because the “scope of the integrity commissioner is very narrow.” “I’m trying to protect them (certain members) and take them out of the process and make sure that we are looking at this as transparent and as independent as we possibly can,” Vrebosch said. At one point during the discussion, Coun. Mac Bain and Vrebosch traded verbal blows about the way municipal politics is being run in the city. “This is not the city that represents me and this council does not represent North Bay. To be honest, tonight I thought it was very disappointing,” she said. “Government, to me, politics, to me, I hold it very high and this council is ruining it. There’s a reason why people think government is corrupt and not transparent. These guys all ran on transparency and tonight they did not show that whatsoever.” Bain told reporters the reason he voted against the amended motion was because it “called into question” the ability of senior city staff that helps the way councillors govern. “I believe the integrity commissioner’s report, the auditor’s report that’s done and the change in policy that will come forward in regard to spending, will all be taken care,” he said. Coun. Gary Gardiner, who said during the meeting that he stands with the mayor, voted against both the original and amended motions. Gardiner said the integrity commissioner’s investigation should play out first. “We have a ruling on his code of conduct, No. 1, right?” he told reporters. “In my opinion, they were questioning his integrity and suggesting almost that there was some criminal element.” ‘Kangaroo court’ Gardiner said Chirico’s children and grandchildren are unfairly seeing everything unfold on social media. “The way this is playing out in social media, it’s a kangaroo court and somebody has to stand up for him,” he added. “The councillors (who) are calling for more information, etc., decided not to attend a closed meeting. We have reasons why closed meetings are held and they’ve turned it into this kind of situation that didn’t have to go this way.” Vrebosch said many taxpayers won’t be happy because an independent audit won’t be conducted. “You want to see the public react to this tonight? Watch their emails, their Facebook messages and their text messages -- this is going to blow up in the city,” Vrebosch said. “The taxpayers need to speak up on this one.” Council did unanimously pass a motion that was moved by Coun. Lana Mitchell that instructs city staff to bring forward a transparency and accountability bylaw, requiring council and mayoral expenses to be published online every quarter. The bylaw will be ready by September.
