Herald Editor, Al Kirouac request council appoint a Town's Intergrity Officer.

Feb. 7th, 2005

As reported in The Independent & Free Press, March 2nd, 2005

Quote:

"Acton resident Al Kirouac requested council appoint an "integrity commissioner" modelled after a City of Toronto position, at the Feb. 7 council meeting. Kirouac listed a number of actions taken by the Town recently, which he said benefited only developers and not the citizens of Halton Hills. Council members had no comments or questions."

Actual transcript of the delegation.


“Council, Mayor, Town Subordinates, I’m here today because of an article I read in the Star a few weeks ago - reported by Bruce Demara.

Headlines read - GTA Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker outraged at invitation to Air Canada Centre'. 'Contractor-funded evenings shouldn't be allowed!', said Councillor De Baeremaeker.

The association as most here are well aware, are regular contributors to campaigns of various city councillors, including a few of our own Halton Hills politicians.

To summarize - Councillor De Baeremaeker is calling on the Toronto’s integrity commissioner to look into the problem.

Our problems certainly have the potential to parallel Toronto's. Unfortunately, we don't have the same safeguards in place. So the question is; do we wait for a scandal to surfaces before we act? Well, many in the community already feel they've surfaced.

This town's debt is over $20 million dollars, has an outstanding work order worth $57 million dollars in road repairs, yet, the Mayor, who some have now termed "Tricky Ricky" - along with the blessing of Council, … delegation interrupted by the Mayor - delegate ask; "do I have 5 minutes"? The Mayor replies "no", adding; "I'm going to ask you to respect the office and respect council, here. When you start using Tricky Ricky,
I'm going to dismiss you. You stick to what you're here to speak about". The delegate continues … "decided it was more important to give tax payers money away to friendly campaign contributors water main projects, in the furthest reaches of Halton Hills/Milton area, that - to date - has only benefited council friendly corporations and water main companies.

Mike O'Leary and Ricky Bonnette have been diligent in their publishing efforts in all the local papers,stating; with regards to the Hornby/Milton industrial sewer water main plan - "it's a good thing for Halton
Hills". Yet, even after Sean Haefner contacted them with request for the repayment terms of the taxpayers money being used to finance that water main plan, none was forwarded, nor for the sake of public scrutiny, has any been released or published.

A cloud still looms over the C.A.O. - Andrews departure with regards to what has since been termed 'the golden handshake'. And even after citizens of the community brought their concerns forward to council, looking for answers, other than our Mayor interrupting the respectable community member, telling him he only had a minute left, has failed to deliver in any-way-shape-or-form, a reasonable response to the communities concerns.

We have subdivisions that have been permitted to develop, which coincidentally has council members' streets named after them, in inappropriately permitted water deprived areas.

Another issue; we have concerns as to whether or not the publics trust may have been compromised in an incident that involved the Town's own affiliate - Halton Hills Hydro, and an oil spill that made its way to Fairy Lake, which, the Town's own works department cleaned up, and as a result, could be reminiscent of a Walkerton water scandal, which in that case, centered around a cover-up.

To date, no report has been generated with regards to the spill by either Hydro or the Town, adequately explaining the substance or any of the possible ramifications that relate to the short or long term adverse affects in the lake's environment, or more importantly, the community's drinking water. Many children swim and fish in that lake and it's important that a report be generated for public scrutiny.

The time to establish an integrity commissioner for Halton Hills is now. We need to be sure the publics best interest is being served by the members of this council, who in part, were elected through the funding of various corporations who do business in Halton and Halton Hills respectfully.

I challenge all and any member of this council to do the right thing, by bringing forward a motion to create a position for a Halton Hills Integrity Commissioner to ensure the community's best interest is always being served in this local level of government. Thank you"

The Mayor ask council; "are there any questions"? None are asked and the Mayor responds to the delegate; "You’re done"!

The delegate responds; "Thank you!"