New details emerge about NPCA complaint to police
Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority’s director of communications filed a police complaint in January about a citizen’s group critical of the agency, alleging her personal safety was threatened and that the group was involved in a plot to control the agency.
In an email to members of the NPCA board of directors, obtained by The Standard, Krystle Caputo said she called Niagara Regional Police about the political advocacy group A Better
Niagara — a frequent and vocal critic of
NPCA — “in an effort to protect my family and myself.”
In the email,
Caputo said people have a right to free speech but not to a “mob mentality that threatens my personal safety and well-being.”
“Yes, I work for a government agency, but that doesn’t mean it gives you carte blanche to leer at me, call for me to be fired or thrown in jail, or your physical presence to intimidate me,” wrote Caputo, who said she has “borne witness firsthand the lengths this group will go in order to move their agenda forward.”
She said the group was trying to “shame and blame me into complacent silence so the citizen’s group can take back the NPCA.”
Caputo declined to share the specifics of her complaint with the board, saying she had a right to privacy.
Police responded to Caputo’s complaint on Feb. 5, the same day a post critical of NPCA interim CAO David Barrick appeared on A Better Niagara’s Facebook page. In her email to the board, Caputo said she made the complaint two weeks prior.
In an email to A Better Niagara member, NPCA board chair and
West Lincoln Mayor David Bylsma said the police call was related to “a file that started several weeks earlier.”
Police spokeswoman Stephanie Sabourin said the call was principally focused on social media posts.
She said the complaint also involved “people outside the NPCA building, thought to be protesters.”
There was no specific complaint of someone being threatening or intimidating, she said.
After talking to Caputo, police called A Better Niagara executive director Ed Smith to discuss social media posts.
Sabourin said police found the social media posts did not contain threats. Police also found nothing criminal happened outside NPCA offices.
An officer provided the complainant — who The Standard has identified as Caputo — with safety advice, Sabourin said.
Caputo did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story.
After The Standard reported police had responded to a call from NPCA about A Better Niagara on Feb. 5, Caputo emailed the paper saying “NPCA did not call the police on a Barrick critic.”
The Standard asked Caputo if she had filed the police complaint, but she did not respond.
In his email to the A Better Niagara member, Bylsma said Caputo was not contacting police as an NPCA employee.
“The answer lies in the distinction between NPCA staff and a NPCA staff member,” he wrote. “One staff member did call NRP to give a statement on their own behalf.”
In her email to the board, Caputo said police met her at NPCA offices because “that was when they had availability” and that she did not want to explain to children why she was upset.
A review of A Better Niagara’s Facebook posts by The Standard found some pointedly critical of Barrick.
One post suggested Barrick along with several members of NPCA senior staff should be put on administrative leave.
Smith said the last A Better Niagara protest of NPCA was
Oct. 22, 2018, and that the group has never encouraged threatening or harassing posts or behaviour toward NPCA staff.
“I know that had somebody advocated some kind of violence or aggressive action, we wouldn’t stand for it,” said Smith.
Liz Benneian, A Better Niagara director, said Caputo’s allegations are “utter nonsense and are without substance.”