LAS- Local Authority Services- Whitby sneaking it in ?
As you will recall, January 1st was the default day that if a Town or City did not appoint a closed meeting investigator citizens could go to the office of the Ontario Ombudsman to lodge a formal complaint free of charge– FREE OF CHARGE, don’t forget that part.
Many had council meetings and rushed through their decisions to go with LAS before Christmas when nobody was noticing. Local Authority Services is a subsidiary of AMO- and they will contract the investigative services to Amberly Gavel of which is owned and operated by ex- municipal employees with years and years of Municipal experience meaning– they must know everyone so how can they really be impartial. There are other people doing investigations but Amberley Gavel is the one that AMO is going to be using.
Now the issue is not on the front pages of the big papers and Municipalities that never got around to making their decision are addressing the issue now, such as Whitby.
Scott Templeton is a friend of mine and I encouraged him to be active on this issue and address his council as I did here in Ajax, let’s hope he is more successful.
Here is an article from durhamregion.com Linda from the Ombudsmen office also is to be credited for returning messages in a very quick turnaround time frame. I have spoken to her a few times and I continue to learn that Town Staff(s) that are creating the reports are not contacting the Ombudsmen office to obtain information and are just making wide speculation as to the methods and experience and time-frame and potential fees for an investigation. Are they relying on information (propaganda) from AMO???
The plain and simple fact is the office of the Ombudsmen has been free access for years and there is no plan to begin now to charge fees to citizens. The office of the Ombudsmen has not been recovering costs from any agency they are investigating. Have they been invited to Whitby to provide information to councillors? Fort Erie hosted the Ombudsmen and I think Niagara Falls did also.
The following statement I put in an email to Scott.
It is true transparency to not fear a 3rd party poking around if need be.
Why would Whitby fear the Province looking into anything ? Who else is from Whitby that may think that way? I encourage citizens to come to watch this meeting, I was very disappointed in the turnout in Ajax when I made my delegation so if the public themselves don’t care why should the Council? If you go to one council meeting go to Whitby’s on March 17th and show your support for Scott.
Another way to look at it is — look at municipal voter turnout, all the people that don’t vote are all of a sudden going to be storming the gates to make complaints on meetings? Ya right, Whitby save your money.
March 8th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
This is not about the money only, but staff mentioned in its recommendation to council that the Ombudsman could in the future charge a citizen or a Municipality for investigations. As mentioned this is only speculation by staff, where they received their information has yet to be seen. I investigated this not only by searching the Ombudsman’s web site, but by contacting Linda Williamson from the communication’s department of the Ombudsman and it was confirmed there has been no mention at the Ombudsman’s office of charging in the future.
Town mentioned that the Ombudsman’s investiagations would be overwelmed with work, well since Jan 1st there has been only one Investiagation that took 2 weeks, at this pase that would amount to an average of 5 to 6 per year, this definately does not look like over work.
This is about Transparency ragrding closed meetings and in-camera meeting. The bill says the investigator should be arms length from council and LAS is not arms length since they work under the AMO (Associations of Municipal Offices), to which Whitby is a Member. If I was arms length from Council I would offer my services for free, but I know all on Council and that would rule myself out. True arms length, and it costs nothing is the Ombudsman’s office to do the investiagtion for a citizen.
If you have a concern regarding this process or would just like to offer support Please attend the Monday March 17th meeting at Whitby Council at 8pm.
To be heard is half the battle, to be acknowledged is the reward!
This is an open invitation to all concerned about open transparency in municipal politics.
Karem: I will be there and Ursula from Mississauga is coming also, in fact she is picking me up from work and we will go straight there. That is correct on the Arm’s length and that is the main problem with the owners of Amberley Gavel who LAS will contract to do the work, I believe and others do also that the possibility of conflicts are too high.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Funny thing……..didn’t Ajax partly base there decision to go with LAS
on a statement that Whitby had made that decision? .
But in reality by default had gone with the Ombudsmen.
So much for homework…………
Remember the joke about Oshawa
Now Whitby wants to go with LAS……..I wonder if there has been some
outside pressure here.
The Ombudsman has served them well so far at no cost .
So whats the problem….saving taxpayers dollars??
The issue with Ajax and Whitby seems to be the province not understanding
municipal issues,…….this is the same province that they want to work
with on downloading and funding …so how is that going to work because
of this supposed lack of understanding are they going to stop lobbying
the province on these issues???
Maybe an invite to the Ombudsman’s office to appear at council could quickly clear up this lack of understanding problem.
I know that they have made themselves available but have not been
invited by either council…..this is free of charge to.
So as it stands now all we have is speculation and rumours reported to
Whitby council.
A private citizen would be ripped apart at council that did not present
real facts in a presentation.
Whitby council should act like a normal household which only pays for
services as needed and only upgrades to more costly services only
when we really have to…..its called budgeting
Scott Templeton….I take my hat off to you for taking on this issue.
I encourage everyone to support Scott by attending Whitby council on
March the 17th.
Alex
Karem: You are correct possibly in that Ajax Council made their decision based on Whitby because a staff report did list Whitby as in the process of recommending LAS, it was not even before their committee yet— way back in November. I have sent an email in this regard and later I will post what I wrote on the blog.