Stoney Creek incumbent Pearson certified to run in election

Stoney Creek Coun. Maria Pearson and city officials say she is a certified candidate for the municipal election after an administrative error was found on one of her nominator’s documents.

“It was corrected July 26,” said Pearson.

Pearson said city officials identified that one of her 25 nominators had forgotten to include a street address and postal code on the documents she submitted May 4. Officials found the omission after her submission and on July 26, a day before the nomination deadline. Pearson said the nominator filled out the document and the clerk certified it.

“It was just an inadvertent error,” said Pearson. “The (nominator) was terribly sorry.”

City staff had until July 30 to certify candidates had properly registered.

The issue, which has been talked about on social media the past few weeks, has been questioned by Hamilton lawyer Craig Burley, after he filed a complaint to the OPP on Sept. 7 over what he described in a letter as “altered” documents Pearson provided to the city’s clerk office.

He initially complained to the city clerk in an Aug. 17 letter, noting the document discrepancy that one of Pearson’s nominators did not include a street address. After his complaint was made, the address was included in Pearson’s nomination documents, but it was a copy that had been placed in Pearson’s paperwork rather than the original page.

Burley asked a city official to see the original copy in August, after the July 27 nomination deadline. He waited days for staff to provide the original document, but he said the page had not been located.

Pearson said she doesn’t know what happened to the original document after she handed her nomination papers to the clerk’s office. She did make duplicate copies of her own documents.

“At no time did I handle the paperwork,” she said. “What happened to it, I don’t know.”

Burley stated in his Aug. 17 letter to the city “it lies within your powers to make any order, within the proscriptions of the (Municipal Elections Act) and its regulations, to preserve the integrity of this election, which I feel in this case has been comprehensively broken ….”

He said he had yet to receive a response from the city. He talked to the Hamilton Police Service, which advised him to take his issue to the OPP. He made his complaint to the OPP on Sept. 7.

Pearson was upset that city staff didn’t respond to Burley’s August letter.

“I had no idea (Burley’s) letter was sent,” she said. “Or why it wasn’t responded to.”

Pearson learned of Burley’s OPP complaint late on Sept. 7. It wasn’t until Sept. 10, after the weekend, that she talked to city officials to resolve the issue.

City officials said they emailed Burley earlier this week explaining what had happened and confirming her candidacy.