The impasse has broken and a full year after North Bay Council directed staff to invite acting Integrity Commissioner George Valin to speak before them, the invitation went out today.
It comes on the heels of the defeat of a motion put forward at Tuesday's council meeting by Councillor Bill Vrebosch, designed to block the invitation. A report by City Solicitor Peter Leckie told councillors Valin's appearance was "not required."
See: Five fight, and win, against bid to silence Integrity Commissioner
Leckie's report came a year after Council voted unanimously to invite Valin, but was ignored by city staff.
David Euler, CAO, in an email to BayToday responded to a request about why Leckie did the report, not requested by Council, and why it took a year to surface.
See: City solicitor to Integrity Commissioner: your advice on our Code of Conduct rules 'not required'
"Most of the information included the report had not been previously provided to council," said Euler. "The timing of the report was influenced by a number of factors, including the outcome of a closed-door investigation and information from the City’s integrity commissioner that contradicts the findings of the acting integrity commissioner as to whether the Invest North Bay Development Corporation is a local board.
"The recommendation put forward by staff was not made lightly and time was required in order to conduct the proper due diligence. With Council’s decision Tuesday, the Clerk’s Office is reaching out to the acting integrity commissioner today to determine when he is available to meet with Council and how much it will cost."
Despite the drama surrounding the whole affair, Valin's appearance likely will be a tame event unless a few councillors want a full and open discussion surrounding Mayor Al McDonald's actions in awarding his friend and campaign manager Bill Ferguson's company, TWG Communications a $1.2M contract. The contract was later cancelled by the Invest North Bay Board and the amount owing is still in dispute.
McDonald has never publicly explained his actions.
McDonald's supporters on council will likely try and restrict any discussion about those events.
At the time Councillor Mark King put forward the motion to invite Valin, Councillor Mac Bain immediately spoke up saying, "I just wanted to clarify that it's the recommendations to the changing of our procedural bylaw, not going over the entire (Valin) report. It's just the recommendations about agencies, boards, and commissions and the recommendations about our procedural bylaw, not going through the whole report. Is that correct?" Bain asked King.
King agreed.
