UPDATED NOV.15 – Stan Westby, City of Powell River’s chief administrative officer, was back at work on Monday, November 14, after a wild week that saw his suspension and subsequent reinstatement.
On Tuesday, November 8, Mayor Stewart Alsgard suspended both Westby and Marie Claxton, city clerk. On Wednesday, November 9, council unanimously voted during a special council meeting to reinstate both senior staff members. A city press release issued the following day stated that council “further decided that there was no basis for confirming the earlier action taken by the mayor.”
Westby told the Peak he had no comment on his suspension.
Claxton did not return to work on Monday. Westby said she is on a medical leave. “She has brought in a letter from her physician,” Westby said. “We wish her a speedy recovery and hope that she returns to work soon.”
Claxton is also the chief election officer, but Westby said her absence will not impact the November 19 civic election. He said he expects Cathy Greiner, the deputy city clerk and deputy chief election officer, will be appointed the chief election officer. Westby also said “we will backfill throughout the organization” to ensure all election positions are filled.
Greiner is scheduled to retire at the end of November. “We are in the process of hiring a deputy city clerk,” Westby said. “We have some challenges ahead of us, but we will rise to them, as we have in the past.”
Over the weekend, Alsgard circulated a statement from him, called “Concern for the Democratic Process in Powell River.” In it, Alsgard said his concern was that in not allowing a council vote to go ahead on his proposed resolution to have a referendum on co-treatment, “there was—at the very least—a strong appearance of political bias being exercised by staff.” Co-treatment is a proposal to treat the city’s sewage at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River division.
Alsgard also wrote that the staff members had in their possession a legal opinion, “paid for by the citizens of Powell River, that indicated a council vote on my referendum question was required.”
However, that is not what the legal opinion stated. Don Lidstone, of Lidstone and Company, explained in a letter to Claxton dated October 14 the provisions in Section 131 of the Community Charter. Those provisions include the following: “The mayor may require the council to reconsider and vote again on a matter that was the subject of a vote.”
At the October 20 council meeting, Alsgard attempted to bring forward to council a reconsideration of a motion passed at the October 6 council meeting. That motion removed from the agenda his proposed referendum question. Alsgard was the only member of council who voted in opposition to the motion.
Westby and Claxton advised Alsgard that, according to the city’s procedure bylaw, he needed a seconder in order to require council to reconsider the October 6 motion.
At the November 3 council meeting, council voted to release Lidstone’s opinion to the public. Read Lidstone’s October 14 opinion here.
The following day, Westby told the Peak he had received a second opinion from Lidstone about the issue. The second opinion indicated Alsgard did not need a seconder and that the city’s procedure bylaw did not take precedence over the Community Charter. Read Lidstone’s second opinion here.
Alsgard also wrote in his statement that he subsequently agreed that the suspension should be lifted, “since I felt it had achieved its purpose in sending a strong cautionary message to staff that any appearance of political bias should be avoided.”
Read Alsgard’s entire statement here.
The Community Charter outlines powers a mayor has to suspend employees. Section 151, part one, states “the mayor must suspend a municipal officer or employee if the mayor considers this necessary.” Part two states, “A suspension under subsection (1) must be reported to the council at its next meeting, and the council may: (a) reinstate the officer or employee; (b) confirm the suspension; (c) confirm and extend the suspension, or (d) dismiss the officer or employee.”
Alsgard told the Peak Thursday morning, before the city's press release was issued, that he had no comment on the suspensions or his actions. “It is related to what you saw in your story in the Peak,” he said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
When asked if he suspended Westby and Claxton because he suspected them of political interference, Alsgard replied, “I’m just going to say, at this point, no further comment,” he said.
Read the city's press release here
Patrick Smith, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University, told the Peak, it wasn't 100 per cent clear from reading both the city's press release and Alsgard's weekend letter that there would be a breach of an in-camera meeting.
"It seems to me some of this information in this weekend letter from the mayor would only have been gotten from being part of the in-camera meeting," he said.
Personnel matters are often one of the subjects that are in-camera for a reason, Smith added. "This is pretty bold and out there," he said, referring to Alsgard's letter. "There's not much left other than their names and phone numbers."
Smith also said Alsgard would be better protected if he had announced the suspensions when he did them. He pointed out that the city's press release, which was a much more truncated version of what happened compared to Alsgard's letter, tried to cleanse the record. "The mayor has re-muddied the waters," he said. "Sometimes these things, given the timing we're at in terms of municipal elections, have a way for the public to extract whatever prices they wish to charge."
Smith pointed to a recent incident in Mission where RCMP officers seized computers of a councillor who was accused of leaking in-camera information. "I think what they found in Mission was that there was no evidence that the person had leaked information on their computer, but it was serious enough that they actually confiscated his computers and examined them," he said.
