Annunziata wants to preside over NPCA board selection
Sandy Annunziata has less than a week left as a Niagara regional councillor, but he has made it clear he isn’t vacating his seat as chair of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority just yet.
Annunziata was defeated in the Oct. 22 election and like all out-going councillors will be replaced by a councillor-elect when the next regional council is sworn in on Dec. 6.
But in a lawyer’s letter sent to Niagara Region and area municipalities and in an emailed statement to The Standard, Annunziata said he won’t step down as the chair of NPCA until a board is chosen by a process he and the agency’s lawyer say must be followed.
Part of that process, which was not used to select the current board, is a series of board member selection meetings to be presided over by Annunziata.
However, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said Annunziata’s justification is out of step with past practice of choosing NPCA board members — including Annunziata in 2014 — and that it’s unlikely the incoming regional council will bend to his wishes.
“There is a real desire on the part of the incoming council to deal with things swiftly, and the NPCA is one of the top priorities,” said Sendzik. “I think the voters have spoken very clearly about their lack of trust in the current leadership of the NPCA and I don’t think the incoming council is going to be guided by that by leadership.”
The process in the letter also differs from NPCA’s own policies published on its website, which states board members are chosen by Niagara regional council and the terms of board members “aligns with the municipal election” — which would put
Annunizata out of job come Dec. 6.
Annunizata’s letter was sent out Friday and included an opinion by Toronto lawyer Paul DeMelo — who was part of the
NPCA legal team that failed to successfully sue St. Catharines citizen Ed Smith for defamation in 2017 — that insists a 24-year-old provincial government procedure needs to be used to select the new NPCA board.
Citing a 1994 order in council — a directive from the provincial government — the 12 Niagara NPCA board members must be chosen by three groups of local municipalities in selection meetings led by the NPCA board chair.
Niagara Falls and Fort Erie are to appoint a total of four members. Port Colborne, Thorold, Welland, Wainfleet, Pelham and West Lincoln can appoint a total of four while St. Catharines, Lincoln, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Grimsby pick four.
The letter also says the current board — which includes several defeated politicians including Tony Quirk of Grimsby, Bruce Timms of St. Catharines and former Niagara-on-the-Lake lord mayor Pat Darte — will stay in power until a new one is chosen following this procedure.
Annunziata declined an interview request from The Standard, saying it “would be inappropriate to comment on a process that is currently underway.”
The 1994 process Annunziata is attempting to initiate has not been used in at least a decade.
Several area municipalities, including St. Catharines, have put out public calls for people interested in serving on the NPCA. Once those councils have selected their representative, they will be presented to regional council for a confirmation vote.
Region CAO Carmen D’Angelo said it is “working assumption” that NPCA board member terms are finished once a new regional council is sworn in. While he said DeMelo told him orders in council supersede a legislative act, he is seeking an “external legal opinion” by Tuesday afternoon.
He also said it is a hypothetical possibility that a disagreement between the Region and the current NPCA leadership on how the next board is chosen could end up as a legal dispute.