Vote fallout
County council debates merits of legal proceedings to determine whether vote in one district was valid
A county councillor who had to go to court to win his seat is questioning whether the legal advice the municipality received was good enough.
Coun. Peter Boyles, who won a municipal seat in district 9 by one vote but was jeopardy of losing it because of a complaint filed by a citizen over the ballot box being removed from a polling station, said the entire issue should never have gone to court.
“The letter sent to council was thrown out by the judge,” said Boyles during Monday’s financial service meeting. “The judge also asked why county council never had an opinion on this case one way or another. You spent all of this money. Why was the CAO and some members of county council wanting this to take place on a frivolous letter?”
Council agreed unanimously in an October meeting to let the Supreme Court decide if the vote was valid after a ballot box was removed from a polling station on election day to allow two residents to vote from their home. The vote to move ahead with legal proceedings was done before the new council was sworn in.
Four months later, the Supreme Court ruled that the ballots were valid and Boyles was sworn in as councillor for district 9.
Boyles has been asking for a breakdown of the legal costs involved in the case that eventually determined that the ballots taken out of the polling station were valid.
It was revealed this week that legal research and court costs totalled $12,000, but Boyles said he isn’t only concerned about the money spent.
“Has the county now made this a precedent?” he asked. “If there is a problem with a council election, the county will pay for it? I think council was given some bad legal advice.”
Financial services chair David Parker said he believed the problem is with the Municipal Government Act. He said the fact that the outgoing council can pass judgment on a new council is wrong and creates hard feelings.
“We have to have faith in our legal counsel and we voted unanimously to proceed to court,” he said, adding that in the future counsel should be prepared to ask some difficult questions before agreeing to advice provided by staff.
Shortly after his comment, council agreed to continue any discussion on the topic in camera.
“If we have a bone to pick with our solicitor, we should do it in their presence and in camera,” Parker said. “I have no interest in debating this in a public forum. We are done.”
Warden Robert Parker said Tuesday that Boyles had the right to speak on the topic, especially since he was the person adversely affected by it, but when the discussion turned to personnel issues, it needed to be taken in camera.
Asked if he thought it was $12,000 well spent, the warden said he can see both sides of the debate.
“Legal work costs a lot of money and getting the right answers cost a lot of money. It is an open question. Did we need to do it? It was a unanimous decision by the people there and when you make the decision, you need to pay for it.”
He said council has asked for a review of the municipal election in an effort to make things better, but it’s difficult to plan for the unknown.
“Something totally new could come up next time,” Robert said. “How can that contentious issue be dealt with and by whom? We want to have a review of the whole election process to make it function better.”
He said there were some complaints about the number of polls this year and locations, but there were new changes such as the reduction of districts and the use of one returning officer for four municipal units.
Council decided early on that one returning officer would be used for the county, Pictou, Stellarton and New Glasgow since the same person was hired to conduct a plebiscite on amalgamation in May.
“It was a lot of work for the returning officer and she did a good job of handling it, but you can always learn from the election you had. If things didn’t go smoothly, it is not the fault of the MGA, but how we are doing it. We need to work with the returning officer and people with them to see where the hitches are.”