Collingwood councillor walks out of behind-closed-door discussion

“I always believe you should err on the side of the public” -Ian Chadwick
By MORGAN IAN ADAMS Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin September 10 2010
Councillor Ian Chadwick walked out of a closed door meeting Tuesday night, claiming the information presented should have been public.
Council held a special meeting, starting at 5 p.m.; the agenda included several issues to be dealt with in camera, including the Raglan Street servicing project.
Publicly, council agreed to a front-end agreement that will see services — water and sewer, as well as road reconstruction — run from Ron Emo Road to the Poplar along Raglan; the agreement calls for the municipality to be repaid by the benefitting landowners in six-to-eight months.
The cost of the project will be $1.5 million.”I didn’t see anything that did not deserve to be said in public,” he told the Enterprise-Bulletin after he walked out of the meeting following about 15 minutes of discussion.
“There may be parts of it that are, but (what he heard) didn’t fit the criteria as far as I was concerned.”
Council meet behind closed doors.
“I always believe you should err on the side of the public,” said Chadwick.
Mayor Chris Carrier told the Enterprise-Bulletin this morning that staff and the town’s legal advisors determined the issue should be in camera because a legal agreement was being discussed.
Some of the questions asked publicly may have resulted in a duplication of information that council was told behind closed doors, “but for the context and purpose of the discussion, it was appropriate” that it was in camera, said Carrier.
And, there was “only one person” around the council table who decided the information shouldn’t have been discussed privately, he said.
“It would have been better for (Chadwick) to stay for the whole discussion” to determine the purpose of the issue being behind closed doors, said Carrier.