“Hush” email from county worries councillors

By Brad Pritchard Innisfil Journal April 26 2012

SIMCOE COUNTY – A confidential email sent by Simcoe County staff to the planning departments of its 16 member municipalities with instructions to withhold information from councils was a bad move, County of Simcoe CAO Mark Aitken has admitted.

The issue was raised by New Tecumseth Mayor Mike MacEachern and Deputy Mayor Rick Milne during this past Tuesday’s (April 24) county council meeting.

Milne said the letter was sent from the county’s planning office and contained preliminary information related to the county’s official plan. The email sought input from municipal planning staff over proposed planning changes being put forward to the province.

Because of the town’s procedural bylaw for sharing information, the email was brought to the attention of New Tecumseth council.

Milne said the issue raised a red flag.

“The transparency of getting an email to our planner and to not even have it cc’d to the mayor and myself is an insult,” he said.

Initially, Aitken said the matter was “blown out of proportion.” He said the intent of the email was to prevent draft plan information from becoming public knowledge, which he said could happen once shared with municipal councils.

He said the county didn’t want the information leaked until an agreement with the province over the Simcoe County Official Plan (OP) is finalized and once county council was given an official update. The county currently has an Ontario Municipal Board appeal with the province over a lack of decision over the county’s OP.

But Aitken eventually apologized for the email, saying it wasn’t the best way to go about the situation. He said the county is trying to be transparent with relaying information to municipalities.

“I understand the information may have been relayed to you and your council as sort of a shut down of information, at this particular point there was no intent to share that information with county council,” Aitken said. “The intent is to share the information with county council before we go any further with putting draft information which may or may not change, into the public realm given the situation we have with the province of Ontario.”

New Tecumseth Mayor Mike MacEachern said the concern, at least on the surface, was that council wasn’t going to be consulted on an important part of the town’s planning process.

“It certainly looks to us, had we not been made aware of this, we would have proceeded down a road where we would have had little to no consultation prior to these being enacted,” MacEachern said.

The town directed its solicitor to send a letter to the county to express the concerns and to ask the county what its plans were to ensure municipalities are kept informed as planning matters continue to be sorted out.

MacEachern maintains it was inappropriate to ask staff to withhold information, saying it was an issue around process.

“We have procedures in place in our municipality to ensure the confidentiality of that information,” he said.

Aitken said county council will receive two updates regarding the official plan in May and June. He said key details will be sorted out, like the outstanding 20,000 population that will be distributed across the county.

“We think it will diffuse a lot of the concerns around the outstanding 20,000 and clarify some of the policies that exist,” Aitken said.