Old wounds reopened in Ioannoni, city issue
The rocky relationship between Coun. Carolynn Ioannoni and Ken Todd, the chief administrative officer at the City of Niagara Falls, continues.
On Wednesday, the veteran councillor posted to her Facebook page: “Good news. The Integrity Commissioner complaint council passed against me in Dec. 2017, for asking too many questions and was splashed all over the headlines has been dropped. It was frivolous. Funny, they didn’t put out a press release for that or announce it in open council. I was going to keep asking questions anyway!”
At a December council meeting, Todd said staff was going to file a complaint with an integrity commissioner because senior staff felt Ioannoni’s regular comments, at council meetings and on social media, that staff doesn’t answer her questions and not being open and transparent, were hitting at their integrity.
During the same meeting, council voted to also file an integrity commissioner complaint against Ioannoni to look into whether the councillor’s allegations against another councillor in a Facebook post broke council’s code of conduct, which addresses social-media conduct.
On Wednesday, The Review sent an interview request to Todd, the city’s director of human resources Trent Dark and city solicitor Ken Beaman, for reaction to Ioannoni’s Facebook post.
Dark and Beaman did not respond to the interview request.
On Thursday, Todd called The Review and said council’s complaint has not been withdrawn, and that the only way it can be withdrawn is through a motion of council.
He said staff was willing to back off its complaint, based on comments Mayor Jim Diodati made earlier this year about working together and wanting to move beyond past differences.
“We, as a staff, kind of took that to heart and thought, ‘OK, well then, we’ll back off on the complaint and let’s just see how things progress,’” said Todd.
“But what’s happened now, even as of the last day or so, is of really great concern, and even in her Facebook post (Wednesday),
she indicates that she regards the matters that we’ve raised as being frivolous.
“We had a chat this morning and what our belief is, that given that her attitude toward not only our concerns and the fact that she’s out broadcasting her views on social media, we’ve decided this morning that we’re going to proceed — we’re not going to withdraw, we’re going to proceed and continue with our complaint.”
Todd said he and staff report to council, and not to any one individual councillor.
“We take our direction from council. My belief is that council has been satisfied with responses that we’ve given in council to the questions she’s asked,” he said.
“When she continues to go on social media and indicate that’s not the case — we’ve gotten up on multiple occasions and explained things.”
Todd said council’s complaint has been forwarded to Janet Leiper to act as integrity commissioner.
He said Leiper has been formally engaged to look into council’s complaint.
On Thursday, Ioannoni told The Review the staff complaint has already been dropped.
In an email addressed to council, in response to questions from Ioannoni about the staff complaint, dated May 6 and obtained by The Review, Beaman said there are “contemporaneous” similar complaints from Ioannoni about council and staff.
Beaman highlighted the process in finding an integrity commissioner willing to take on the investigation on behalf of the city. He said one firm did not return his phone calls, while two other possible candidates declined. He also said a “preliminary issue” had to be sorted out, as to whether an integrity commissioner would be required, or if the matter be handled as a complaint under the Occupational Health and Safety Act without reference to the councillor’s code of conduct, and thus, “be conducted free of any of the privileges of speech associated with elected office.”
Beaman said he retained someone to examine the issue on the city’s behalf and the person’s opinion was that, where there is a code of conduct in affect, a complaint involving a councillor should be administered as a code of conduct complaint. He said the person provided the advice on April 26.
Beaman said by that time, he was already in touch with another potential integrity commissioner candidate, but that person emailed him to advise he “must withdraw from the investigation” because his firm is acting for the developers of a local project, and believed his “neutrality might be challenged” given the subject of the investigation.
Beaman said he had another person in mind as a replacement, but that person did not return his calls, nor answer an email. He said he then contacted Leiper, whose experience includes time spent as the integrity commissioner of the City of Toronto.
“She is currently reviewing some documents that I have forwarded to her. Ms. Leiper is expected to provide her initial observations tomorrow.”
He said Todd and Dark indicated to him they wanted to withdraw their complaints on May 1.
“Having given the complainants further time for reflection, I forwarded the complaint form to each of them on May 3,” said Beaman.
Beaman said if he did not hear from them “before the close of business on May 4, then the complaints would be considered withdrawn.
“The complaints of Trent Dark and Ken Todd are now withdrawn,” he said.
Ioannoni told The Review: “That’s called, they looked at it and they deemed it not investigable, frivolous, whatever you want to call it.”
She said staff “can’t restart it,” referring to the complaint.
“It isn’t because staff removed it, they couldn’t find anybody to file a complaint against me.”
Ioannoni said there is no integrity commissioner investigation taking place against her now.
“I have been contacted by (Leiper) but it is not about a complaint against me. We were informed she is interim IC. It was because of my pushing about their five-month-old complaint did I even get the email from Beaman. I have confirmation she is investigating a complaint made by me. Not the other way around.”
Diodati said the city was finding it difficult to retain an integrity commissioner to handle both complaints because of the way past integrity commissioners and their reports have been received in Niagara Falls.
“Based on the trashing on the part of certain councillors … integrity commissioners around the province are refusing to deal with Niagara Falls because they don’t want their reputation besmirched or dragged through the mud by any individual,” he said.
Diodati said Ioannoni has been a “consistently negative distraction” for all of council.
“It’s everybody else, it’s not her, I guess,” he said.
Diodati said Ioannoni has also “chosen to poke the bear,” being staff.
“We’ve got a hard-working, dedicated and loyal staff at the city. They care about this city, and they work so hard. They’re very committed to this city, they love this city,” he said.