County’s legal bills raised in CMC letter

By DOUGLAS GLYNN Orillia Packet and Times April 8 2010
A letter sent to the Site 41 community monitoring committee (CMC) suggests Simcoe County spent more than $112,000 on legal fees in a 20-month period in the battle over public access to the computer model (Modflow) of the hydrogeology at the mothballed landfill.
Hugh Anson-Cartwright’s letter — which is on the agenda of tonight’s CMC meeting — says he filed a freedom of information request on June 20, 2009, asking for, “amongst other reports, costing information with respect to the decision by the county to refuse access to the Modflow data and the costs associated with the alternate course of action chosen by the county.”
The county was asked Wednesday afternoon for confirmation of the details provided to Anson-Cartwright, but a spokesperson said that because of the lateness of the request, the information could not be provided before Thursday.
Anson-Cartwright’s letter says 22 of the records among the 305 pages provided to him were “invoices from the county’s lawyers, Graham, Wilson & Green, totalling $112,668.61 (with the details blanked out).
“Together with the invoice from Jagger Hims for $133,350 for the Modflow demonstration at the 2008 tripartite meetings,” the letter says, “the total comes to $245,000.
County council voted in August 2009, to launch a legal challenge to an Information and Privacy Commissioner’s order directing the county to obtain the Modflow from its consultants, Genivar.
“The worst part is that all the discussion of their decision took place behind closed doors,” Anson-Cartwright said. “This obsession with secrecy has become endemic in Simcoe County and must end now.”
The letter asks whether all county councillors are aware of the legal costs he cites and, if so, did they approve them? It also criticizes the eight-month time period it took the county to provide the documents sought in his Freedom of Information request.
The CMC meets at 7 p.m. Thursday night in the Tiny Township offices on Balm Beach Road West in Perkinsfield.