NPCA ‘getting worse’ says Campion
Welland Mayor Frank Campion says he’s considered quitting the politically troubled Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, but will stay in his seat to ensure a proper audit of the organization is completed.
In a Friday interview with the Postmedia, Campion said while he thinks the NPCA is doing good work as an organization, he is deeply concerned with the politics of the board of directors and how it has responded to public criticism.
“I don’t disagree with every decision, you understand, but I do have some concerns,” he said. “I think these are serious issues, but they can be easily fixed if the board is just willing to grab these issues and deal with them.”
Postmedia contacted Campion after a secret recording of his opinions on the beleaguered NPCA board of directors was published a week ago on Youtube by Welland resident and prospective mayoral candidate David Clow.
In the four-and-half minute clip of a conversation between Clow and Campion the mayor says “the conservation authority is lost” and that he is “quite offside with the conservation authority right now.”
“I was considering getting off that board about a year ago,” Campion says on the recording. “However, if I get off the board, am I giving up my opportunity to try to change it? And what I am realizing now, despite my best efforts, it’s not changing. It’s actually getting worse.”
Campion told Postmedia that much of his discontent revolves around the political storm that followed calls for a comprehensive audit of NPCA operations, including the public censure and resignation of board member and Lincoln regional councillor Bill Hodgson.
Hodgson resigned from the NPCA board in May, claiming he was being bullied by other board members.
Hodgson had been pushing the board to take steps to reassure the public of the agency’s integrity in the wake of a report circulated last fall critical of the way NPCA operates and accusing the agency of being rife with conflict of interest issues.
A majority of Niagara’s municipal councils, Hamilton council and all four Niagara MPPs called for an audit of the agency.
In Welland, Campion called for an independent audit of the NPCA, and suggested the Ontario Provincial Police investigation might be appropriate.
The board initially declined an offer by Ontario’s auditor general to do an audit for free, but has since changed its mind since it cancelled its bidding process to hire an auditor.
No date has been set for an audit by the auditor general, although a telephone conference to discuss the issue between the auditor general and NPCA board chair Sandy Annunziata is expected within the next few weeks.
In late April, Annunziata moved the NPCA board publicly censure Hodgson, claiming he received information about Hodgson that impacted the hiring of an auditor.
Annunziata said believed there was an “alleged impropriety” involving the bidding process for a firm to conduct an audit before the agency cancelled the process.
Annunziata engaged a legal firm, Gowling WLG LLP, to review his findings before putting Hodgson’s censure to a vote.
After the vote, Annunziata sent an email to several local councils informing them that Hodgson had been censured. Although his email references the Gowling report, the report itself was not included in the message.
To date, the report has not been made public, and Annunziata has refused to disclose the details of the allegations he made against Hodgson.
Lincoln town councillor Paul MacPherson has filled Hodgson’s seat on the NPCA board.
Campion, who voted against censuring Hodgson, said the NPCA’s board’s political issues are of its own making. That is why, he said, he told Clow the NPCA board is “getting worse.”
The mayor said instead of trying to discredit members of the public who are critical of the NPCA, the board should take their concerns seriously and act on them where appropriate.
For instance, after public and political calls for an audit, the board should have immediately accepted the auditor general’s offer, rather than start a process to hire an auditing company, he said.
“If we had done that we’d be well into, if not finished, the process by now,” Campion said.
Campion said he stands by everything he said in Clow’s recording.
“I don’t have a problem with the conversation being recorded, although I think recording it without telling me is not a moral act,” he said. “I would not have changed anything I said if I knew I was being recorded, but I would have expanded my answers to include more clarity.”
Campion called secretly recording the conversation and publishing a portion of it “juvenile and unnecessary.”
In an interview Friday, Clow — who says he intends to run for mayor of Welland in next year’s election — said he made the recording secretly because he believes Campion would not have been truthful otherwise.
He said he made an appointment to meet with Campion, who often meets with residents to discuss their concerns, and the two met for about 20 minutes in a Welland city hall office three weeks ago.
Clow said he waited to release the recording to see if there would be any changes at the NPCA.
In the Youtube video, Clow asks Campion about the NPCA lawsuit against conservation authority critic Ed Smith, whose report resulted in the first calls for an audit.
Campion told Clow he could not discuss the nature of the lawsuit because it is a confidential board issue, but did say he does not support the legal action against Smith.