Code of conduct legal fees must be eligible expense: Maves

Allowing councillors to claim legal fees associated with bad behaviour is one of more than a dozen proposed changes to Niagara Region’s new council expense policy.

Less than two weeks after regional council approved an interim version of the policy, corporate services committee members Wednesday spent more than an hour identifying changes they’d like to make to the policy that places limits on expenses councillors are able to claim.

One change proposed during the meeting was requested by Niagara Falls Coun. Bart Maves to delete legal costs related to code of conduct complaints from a list of ineligible expenses.

“To me, it comes across as punitive,” Maves said. “That’s how I read it and I found it offensive.”

Other changes to the policy proposed during Wednesday’s committee meeting included allowing councillors to claim more than $65 per day for meals while attending conferences or other overnight events, allowing up to 45 days to claim expenses after the end of the previous month, to turn off the roaming feature on councillor cellphones to avoid charges incurred in border communities, and to allow councillors to claim parking-related expenses.

The proposed changes have yet to be ratified, and the discussion on the council expense policy will resume at the next corporate services committee meeting Oct. 18.

Maves said code of conduct complaints “are being filed like crazy,” being used as a “political weapon.” And the number of complaints are likely to ramp up as the next municipal election nears, he added.

“I don’t think my family should be responsible for covering my legal costs when I get frivolous and vexatious complaints about me — and I will. I know that I’m going to,” he said. “I think legal costs arising from complaints under the code of conduct should be eligible expenses.”

Acting corporate services commissioner Jason Burgess said the Region’s legal department recommended listing code of conduc-trelated legal costs as an ineligible expense for “consistency purposes and for consideration of council.”

However, he said the policy “isn’t 100 per cent in stone.”

“This is us trying to provide as much information and guidance for council to make their decisions,” he said. “There’s not a specific reason yes or no, but it was just trying to provide council with fulsome information and this was one of the recommendations that came from legal.”