Timmins council votes against reprimands for councillors who broke code of conduct

Timmins city council voted 5-3 Tuesday not to reprimand two councillors for disparaging remarks about the mayor, despite an integrity commissioner's ruling.

Meeting on Tuesday evening, city council in Timmins voted against reprimands for councillors John Curley and Bill Gvozdanovic.

Both councillors filed complaints with Deborah Anschell of ADR Chambers, the city’s integrity commissioner, about Mayor Michelle Boileau following a special council meeting in June that Boileau ended abruptly.

The councillors claimed that Boileau didn’t have the right to unilaterally end the meeting.

In turn, the mayor filed complaints with Anschell about the behaviour of Curly and Gvozdanovic. She claimed their complaints were “frivolous, vexatious.”

While ruling that the mayor was within her rights to end the meeting, the integrity commissioner ruled that the two councillors violated the code of conduct when they made public comments critical of the mayor.

Those comments violated Section 6.1 of the code of conduct, Anschell ruled.

Disparaging comments

“This provision prohibits any council member from making any disparaging comments about another member,” she wrote in her report.

“It is clear (from) a plain reading of the quotes above, that both councillors made disparaging comments about the mayor.”

At Monday night’s meeting, separate motions were introduced, one to approve the reprimand for Curley, the other for Gvozdanovic. Each councillor declared a conflict on the motions on their own reprimand.

However, the majority of councillors – by a 5-3 vote -- said that the ruling by Anschell was sanction enough, and each motion was defeated.

“I think it’s time to put this behind us,” said Ward 5 Coun. Steve Black. “We need to do better as a group.”

“I was not in attendance at this meeting,” Ward 5 Coun. Kristen Murray. “But I’m hoping we can move past this.”

Ward 2 Coun. Lorne Feldman agreed, saying the report from the integrity commissioner was punishment enough.

“Let’s start tackling issues instead of people,” Feldman said.

“I just want to move ahead.”