Council meeting in private to probe expense scandal
Calgary city council will hold a special meeting Wednesday to “expedite” the proposal to investigate Coun. Joe Magliocca’s expenses as two councillors push to expand the audit to include all 14 councillors and the mayor.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi called for the meeting, which will happen behind closed doors, to hear advice from the city manager, city solicitor, ethics adviser and integrity commissioner.
“Many of my colleagues have been asking questions about the ongoing investigation into the expenses of one councillor as well as what we do given that the integrity commissioner has done the right thing and recused himself from that conversation,” Nenshi said Tuesday.
The last time the mayor asked for a special meeting was late October, in the wake of a provincial budget with cutbacks that significantly changed Calgary’s finances.
Council is heading toward a vote on Coun. Jyoti Gondek’s urgent notice of motion on Monday.
Among other things, the proposal asks the city auditor to appoint a specialist to look into all of Magliocca’s 2019 expenses.
But Nenshi said he thinks that discussion should come sooner.
“It’s probably best to get that kind of work underway as soon as possible,” the mayor said, adding it will “expedite” the response by a few days, if council decides on a way forward.
Magliocca has been facing criticism for weeks after Postmedia obtained receipts through a freedom of information request that revealed he expensed two to three times the amount of other councillors at the 2019 Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference. Ten people who Magliocca listed on his receipts for drinks and meals at the conference have since said or confirmed through spokespeople that they didn’t sit down with him in Quebec City.
Last week, the city’s integrity commissioner, Sal Lovecchio, recused himself from investigating a complaint from one of the elected officials on Magliocca’s receipts after it was revealed the councillor also expensed a lunch with him last summer.
The Ward 2 councillor publicly apologized for “errors” in his expenses on Feb. 3, saying he repaid about $2,100 in hosting costs he incurred at the conference last year. He hasn’t responded to Postmedia’s requests for comment since Lovecchio recused himself last Tuesday.
Councillors Jeromy Farkas and Sean Chu say the current move to investigate all of Magliocca’s 2019 expenses should be expanded to include everyone on city council.
Farkas says Gondek’s motion doesn’t go far enough.
“We figure given the severity of this issue, the audit should be extended to every member of council,” he said.
Farkas said the investigation should be expanded to help restore Calgarians’ trust in council.
“It’s an issue that’s been raised for one of us, but it’s going to require action from every single member of council to address,” he said. He said he couldn’t say how much an investigation into all council expenses might cost because the details still have yet to be worked out.
Gondek said Farkas and Chu, who have supported her motion, didn’t send her the changes they’re now proposing when councillors were talking about the motion last week. Farkas said he discussed the idea with her while the motion was being drafted, and he’s hoping it will be accepted as an amendment.
Gondek said it’s a conversation she’s willing to have. “What I want to know from the city auditor is what the resourcing will be that’s needed to do it,” she said.
But Gondek added that she wrote the motion to address the specific problem of “discrepancies” in the Ward 2 expenses.
“Sometimes the public picks up on things like that as being a massive problem in all of council. I would say it’s not that,” she said. “It’s more to do the diligent work to demonstrate that, for the most part, things are fine. And there are these issues we need to address right now.”
Coun. Shane Keating said Friday that concerns have been raised about only one councillor’s expenses, and council should focus on that. At last year’s conference, the 10 council members who went expensed an average of $3,200, including flights and hotels. Magliocca’s costs stood out at about $6,400.
“It comes back to this point of tarring everyone with the same brush,” Keating said. “Kind of get off the bandwagon and get back to reality and say, ‘OK, look at the individual, rectify the situation with the individual and let’s move on.’ ”