Strait Shores council mishandled investigation into new member, commission finds
Councillors didn’t understand procedural fairness but weren’t malicious, report says
Strait Shores council was not being fair under its own rules when it sanctioned a new councillor for conduct violations before the allegations against him were investigated, a watchdog group has found.
That finding was handed down by the Local Governance Commission of New Brunswick, an independent third party that can investigate code of conduct or conflict of interest breaches at the municipal level.
The investigation was requested by Andy MacGregor, who had joined Strait Shores council after a recent byelection in the southeast New Brunswick community.
MacGregor was sanctioned in February after introducing motions seeking more transparency from council. He received sanctions that effectively resulted in his suspension from council and was barred from municipal property and from contact with other councillors and staff.
The commission's finding, released Wednesday, was the opposite of what the council heard two weeks ago from the consultant who investigated MacGregor's conduct.
The consultant, hired by council after MacGregor was sanctioned, decided his conduct had violated the code of conduct.
After that investigation was complete, the commission started its own and found two remaining members of council, Annamarie Boyd, who is acting mayor, and Tanya Haynes, were the ones who violated the code.
Stacy Jones took part in the decisions about MacGregor, but she later resigned from council, said the report by commission chair Giselle Goguen and members Donna Redmond Gates and Troy Stones.
The commission report said Boyd and Haynes's code breaches "were not malicious, but rather, the result of a lack of understanding of the principles of procedural fairness and the requirements set out in the Code of Conduct ByLaw."
The commission made two non-binding recommendations: MacGregor's sanctions should be lifted, and the whole council, including MacGregor, should get training on code of conduct, governance and procedural fairness.
Both Boyd and Haynes did not respond to interview requests, so it is unclear if the council will abide by the recommendations.
No due process, commission says
The eight-page ruling details the process council used for disciplining MacGregor and said he was essentially "sanctioned prior to council fully processing and deciding" on the alleged complaints against him.
Council also "did not follow the procedures" for submitting official complaints, the ruling says. A resignation letter from former Mayor Jason Stokes, which had called MacGregor "the town bully," does not count as an official complaint, because it does not include specific allegations.
The Strait Shores bylaw says complaints must be made in writing, signed, and addressed to the mayor, or deputy mayor if the allegations are against the mayor. The complaints must then be included in the in-camera session of the next council meeting.
No formal complaints were ever filed about MacGregor, so the commission wrote that it appeared the "non-compliant complaints" had to do with council's earlier history with him.
Before he was elected in January, MacGregor "had many interactions with staff of Strait Shores while requesting various documentation and information related to the administration and the financial matters of Strait Shores," the report said.
Including those interactions in a complaint, however, would violate the code of conduct since complaints have to relate to a person's time on council, not before.
The commission also took issue with MacGregor's suspension, because it is not a sanction available under the code of conduct. Nor was a time limit imposed on the sanction.
These amounted to violations of the code of the code, the commission said, although it wasn't recommending fines or a formal reprimand.
But Boyd and Haynes acted in good faith and on a misunderstanding of the requirements of the code, the commission said.
In an interview, MacGregor said he was delighted with the ruling.
"I handed my submission into the Local Governments Commission because I felt I was being unduly treated," he said Thursday. "And they've wholeheartedly agreed with me.
"You want somebody to stand up and say, 'Hey, you can't do that to this guy.' And that's what I've got here."
Report is 'refreshing'
Geoff Martin, who teaches at Mount Allison University and has a research interest in New Brunswick municipal governments, found the ruling refreshing.
"This is a bit of a wakeup call and also sends a signal regarding the commission on local governance in terms of the approach they're going to take," Martin said.
The commission, set up after communities and rural areas across the province were amalgamated into dozens of new municipalities, showed it won't always defend the local government in a dispute, but is open to hearing the other side, he said.
"It may be that the the commission itself is very aware of the situation where there are there are a lot of people in these new municipal governments and these new units who haven't yet received adequate training,"
Martin said the fact that the commission chose not to impose harsh sanctions will still carry a lot of weight and will act "as a warning to the entire municipal sector of New Brunswick."
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