Member had ‘strong suspicion’ reappointment not in cards: probe

A city ethics probe finds that a Hamilton police services board member suspected he wouldn’t be reappointed — but can’t establish that confidential information was leaked from a selection committee tasked with filing the seat.

Nonetheless, integrity commissioner David Boghosian’s report on the question paints a portrait of tense relations between city politicians and police board members.

His inquiry focuses on whether member Fred Bennink learned through a leak before the announcement of a new city citizen appointee that he wouldn’t be reappointed to another term.

There’s “ample evidence” that Coun. Esther Pauls, who sat on the selection committee for the police board but resigned, was a “strong supporter” of Bennink’s reappointment and was “upset” he hadn’t been shortlisted, Boghosian wrote.

But the “most likely conclusion” is that Bennink “had a strong suspicion” he wouldn’t be chosen due to the reopening of the applications and then applied for the provincial appointment to the board “as a backup plan in case that turned out to be the case.”

This past November, Bennink’s provincial appointment was announced and Anjali Menezes, a family doctor and antiracism researcher, was named the city’s citizen representative.

Menezes became the first citizen board member to be appointed through a reworked selection process that included community members at the hiring table.

In his report, Boghosian recounts that Coun. Nrinder Nann said the selection committee wanted “more ‘representatives of vulnerable communities’ ” on the police board.

“Mr. Bennink (who I note is a conservative, white male) did not fit this profile,” he wrote.

Before the announcement of a new member, Bennink had made public remarks “to the effect of ‘I’m being thrown out like the trash’ and other statements that made it clear” he knew he wouldn’t be reappointed at the city’s representative.

Nann, committee chair, emphasized that she didn’t know who might have disclosed such information, but suspected it had been Pauls given she had backed Bennink’s reappointment and resigned from the selection committee after it decided not to interview him, Boghosian wrote.

Pauls “adamantly denied” that she told Bennink he wouldn’t be reappointed but noted “it was only common sense” for him to “figure out” it wasn’t in the cards given the extended application deadline.

Bennink, meanwhile, “’saw the writing on the wall’” with the committee’s decision to reopen the application process, Boghosian reported.

He “denied knowing” that Pauls had supported his reappointment “and didn’t know why she had resigned.”

Bennink also “staunchly denied” that Pauls or any other committee member had “advised him of anything to do with the deliberations” or his status.