Garden City wants supervisor for NPCA
St. Catharines councillors are calling on the premier of Ontario to immediately appoint a supervisor to take over Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, following in the footsteps of Port Colborne.
They also want regional council and the NPCA board to address the issue of one of its members “providing misleading information” to St. Catharines council at an earlier meeting.
It’s the sixth motion St. Catharines councillors have adopted calling for changes to NPCA since last December.
Merritton Coun. Jennie Stevens, who made the motion Monday for a supervisor, said Welland MPP Cindy Forster will be introducing a private member’s bill in early 2018 to allow Queen’s Park to appoint a supervisor to run NPCA.
“Support of this amendment by the way of a motion from this council, as well as other area municipal councils, is an important step in supporting the amendment,” Stevens told council, which voted 10- 2 in favour.
Port Colborne city council passed a similar resolution calling on Ontario’s premier to immediately appoint a supervisor to take over the operations of NPCA on Nov. 27.
“This is symbolic. We’re desperate to have some action on this front,” said Port Dalhousie Coun. Bruce Williamson. “All four MPPS have expressed concern about the conservation authority, so that’s why I’ll be supporting it.”
In October, Williamson made a motion that called for the province to appoint a supervisor to take over the operations of NPCA. At that time, council referred the motion back to city staff for a report after NPCA board chair Sandy Annunziata and chief administrative officer Mark Brickell attended council as a delegation and were grilled for more than an hour about the authority’s affairs.
The staff report, which council hasn’t received yet, is supposed to touch on the mandate of NPCA, its human resources practices, concerns from residents, a response from NPCA, input from St. Catharines’ planning and building department and more.
St. Patrick’s Coun. Mat Siscoe argued Monday that Stevens’ motion should be referred back to staff for the report council requested in October. He said city council agreed they wanted the information when Williamson brought the motion forward and they shouldn’t be ready to say yes to the motion now without the information. His referral was defeated 7- 5.
Council did adopt an amendment 10- 2 by Port Dalhousie Coun. Carlos Garcia asking regional council and the NPCA board to address the issue of one of its members “providing misleading information.” Garcia said when the NPCA chair was at city council answering questions in October, Garcia asked him if the auditor general offered to do an audit and NPCA refused.
“I asked the chair right here, ‘ Is that not correct that the auditor general offered to do this and you refused’ and he said ‘ no’,” Garcia said.
But Garcia said a transcript of the conversation between the NPCA chair and the auditor general clearly states that the auditor general offered to do an audit for free and was turned down.
City council has passed five previous motions about NPCA.
In December 2016, council voted to ask the province to step in and audit NPCA.
On Jan. 16, it asked all Niagara politicians sitting on the NPCA board to launch a third- party investigation into the organization.
It called for an overhaul of the way members are appointed to NPCA’s board on March 6, supporting a motion by Pelham town council asking for citizen appointments on the board with expertise in environmental and conservation issues.
On March 20, St. Catharines councillors asked that the city’s annual $ 1.7- million contribution to NPCA be withheld until NPCA accepted the auditor general’s offer to audit the authority.
Last week on Dec. 11, council passed a motion to request the NPCA board disclose the total amount it spent on lawsuits against St. Catharines resident Ed Smith.
“Let’s hope our Christmas present is going to be that no more NPCA stuff comes in front of us,” Mayor Walter Sendzik joked after the vote. “That would be a great Christmas present for everybody.”