Councils hold too many secret meetings , AWARE Simcoe meeting told

By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe July 26 2010
They came from all over Simcoe County – around 60 people who attended a meeting held in Coldwater on Saturday morning – and their foremost concern  was the amount of business councils conduct behind closed doors.

“Municipalities evade the letter and the spirit of Section 239 of the Municipal Act almost every time they have a closed meeting,” Alan Millard of Orillia said.
The general principle guiding the conduct of meetings of councillors is that all should be open to the public. The Act provides exceptions, but it’s not automatically necessary for council to go in camera because, for instance, a legal or property matter is being discussed.
Millard cited an Orillia example of the public school board selling property to the city and both public bodies negotiated with each other in secret. “Why was that not out in the public?” he asked. “It’s our property.”
Millard said he believes it is illegal for councils to schedule in-camera meetings in advance – and some of them are scheduled weeks if not months ahead. The only way a council can go behind closed doors is by resolution at an open meeting and the process is for that resolution to be voted on just before going in camera, he said.
Millard said that such resolutions should state the general nature of the business being conducted.
He noted that any member of the public can ask for an investigation of whether the in-camera discussion was legal, and he urged citizens to request an investigation for every closed-doors meeting. Councils can appoint their own investigator or use the provincial Ombudsman, he noted
Stephen Ogden of Tiny Township told the meeting that he has asked the Simcoe County investigator (a lawyer in London. Ont.) to look into matters on a couple of occasions and found the process unsatisfactory. Why do councils prefer to pay their own investigator when they can use the Ombudsman free of charge? Ogden asked.
Michael Starr of Tay Township, a criminal lawyer, said in camera proceedings are a violation of the Charter of Rights
As another example,  this was the resolution approving the expenditure of $250,000 on public relations, passed when Simcoe county councillors came out of a closed session in the evening of August 25, 2009 (with no member of the public present): “THAT the recommendation contained in Confidential Item CO 09-033 regarding proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land and litigation or potential litigation, be approved. “
And all discussion of the sale of a section of a County Road to Walker Indistries to permit expansion of its Duntroon quarry on the Nottawasaga Escarpment has taken place behind closed doors, both by Clearview and Simcoe County councils.