Private police board meetings weren’t improper: Hall

Peterborough Police Services board chairman Bob Hall says the board hasn’t been meeting in private over topics that should’ve been discussed in public – even though two board insiders say it has.

Hall said at a meeting on Thursday night that the Police Services Act is fairly “vague and open” in its description of what must be discussed in private and what must be discussed in public.

A lot is left to the discretion of the board chairman, Hall said: “It’s a judgment call.”

But Mark Sandler, a Toronto lawyer appointed by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC) to oversee board meetings for the first half of 2017, disagreed.

Sandler served as administrator of the board from January to July 2017 because the OCPC considered the board dysfunctional.

Over those months, Sandler participated in meetings and guided the board; then he wrote a report containing recommendations to improve the board’s operations.

On Thursday, the board discussed those recommendations for the first time.

One was that the board develop a policy to govern the use of closedsession meetings; Sandler wrote that some closed-door meetings should have been open to the public.

“The board had, in the past, excluded the public for reasons that were not permitted under the Police Services Act,” he wrote.

But Hall saw that as a matter of opinion.

“Mr. Sandler saw the rules as very prescriptive,” he said Thursday.

Hall said that as a former city councillor for 17 years, he has lots of experience chairing closed-session meetings. He also said Sandler failed to point out specific instances where the board should have discussed something in public.

But Ken East, another board member, sided with Sandler.

“We used them (in-camera meetings) to avoid public scrutiny far too frequently,” East said.

Every time a lawyer was mentioned in connection with a matter, he said, that matter was discussed in private – and that wasn’t always a good reason to go in-camera.

“I respectfully disagree with Mr. East,” Hall said. “Solicitor-client privilege is solicitor-client privilege. I don’t think it (the closed session meeting) was overused.”

Meanwhile, one of the most striking recommendations in Sandler’s report was not mentioned at the meeting: that Mayor Daryl Bennett never return to the police services board.

Bennett has made “inflammatory, divisive and inaccurate comments” about seniors leaders of the police force, Sandler wrote.

The mayor hasn’t been on the police board since he was suspended by the OCPC in 2012 for an investigation into allegations of misconduct.

In 2014, after a lengthy hearing, the OCPC found Bennett guilty of all 11 allegations against him – including a finding that he made public comments to undermine both the force and Police Chief Murray Rodd.

But when Bennett vowed to take the findings to court, the OCPC dropped 10 of the 11 findings against him (the only one that stuck was that he made disrespectful comments about Rodd).

Now that the findings have been dropped, Bennett is free to return to the board – and in August, he announced he would return this fall.

In an interview following the meeting on Thursday, Hall said the board had nothing to discuss in the matter.

“It was a really a recommendation for the mayor to consider,” Hall said. “We’ll work with anyone who’s a member here. It’s not for the board to decide.”

Yet the board reviewed several other recommendations from Sandler on Thursday, and decided to adopt some of them.

For example, the board will open some committee meetings to the public (ie: smaller meetings of a few board members, as they discuss topics such as the budget).

They will also consider holding board meetings in the neighbouring townships of Selwyn and Cavan Monaghan (which city police patrols on contract), and changing the venue for the Peterborough meetings from the upper level boardroom in police headquarters to someplace such as the ground floor boardroom, which is far easier to find and therefore more accessible to the public.