Ombudsman finds for council

While some Woolwich councillors did discuss preventing a registered delegate from speaking at a committee meeting on Mar. 22, they did not violate the Municipal Act in doing so, the Ontario Ombudsman has ruled.

Paul Dubé’s office received two complaints about the meeting where Dan Holt of the Citizens Public Advisory Committee was at first blocked from speaking about issues involving Chemtura and the Canagagigue Creek before recalcitrant councillors backed away from that position.

The subsequent complaints surmised that a common strategy had been discussed before the start of the meeting, perhaps at a closed session just beforehand.

Dubé found there was such a discussion prior to the meeting, but he ruled that it did not constitute a violation.

“My investigation found that the committee of the whole for the Township of Woolwich did not contravene the Municipal Act, 2001 during its in-camera meeting on Mar. 22, 2016, or during discussions that took place between the closed and open sessions that same day,” he wrote in a report.