Renfrew – Citing a major drain on resources and monopolizing staff time from one resident in her bid to have council or staff members answer several questions and written requests for information, Renfrew town council agreed with a staff recommendation to deal with the growing number of information requests using the legislative powers and guidelines contained within the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA).

The issue of how to answer repeated lines of inquiry from resident Andrea McCormick was on the November 12 council agenda and there was clearly tension between some councillors and staff for what some viewed as deliberate stonewalling to avoid answering questions. 

Mrs. McCormick, who was seated in the gallery, was present at a previous council/public meeting and was one of two speakers at a June 25 public meeting. It is common practice for a council to allow a strict allotment of time, usually a 10-minute maximum, so all residents are heard and not to allow a person to monopolize the set time. 

During that meeting, council scheduled 60 minutes for residents and only Mrs. McCormack and David Ainsworth spoke and council allowed them to go beyond the usual 10 minutes. 

Mrs. McCormack appeared first and talked for 32 minutes. Mr. Ainsworth followed and spoke for five minutes.

Several Topics Addressed

Mrs. McCormick’s matter was placed on the November 12 agenda under Communications and Petitions, with the sub-heading Correspondence From Resident. Her correspondence was categorized as ‘to be received as information’ which means council is not obligated to act immediately and thereby the information is received and staff may or may not be directed to take any action on the item.

The package contained the first pieces of correspondence through an email chain started on October 10 from Mrs. McCormick. Her note to Mayor Sidney was also copied to all of council.

Some of her inquiries contained in the nine-page package include inquiring on various aspects of the Ma-te-Way Expansion Project, short-term and long-term financial information related to the project; any follow-up actions taken in light of the series of recommendations and findings made by the third-party auditors; financial statements relating to the town; and there are references to the town’s various procedural by-laws and inquiries related to the Committee of the Whole structure and its legislative role.

Her last email letter, dated October 22, challenges Mayor Sidney to address her concerns and if he does not, then she requests the rationale for not replying in the spirit of openness and transparency.

“We spent some time talking about communications and the Ma-te-way at the meeting Tuesday,” she wrote. “Clearly, you cannot talk about legal issues at this time. Too bad that is the reason being given for not having a face-to-face meeting with citizens before December. There are some things you can tell them, particularly the work you are doing to mitigate the financial impact on citizens and businesses.”

Acting CAO Replies

The information package also included correspondence from Acting CAO Kelly Latendresse and her attempts on November 3 and 4 to explain to Mrs. McCormick that in some cases, staff are not allowed under the powers of the Municipal Act to reply to residents on political matters and only an elected official is authorized to reply. 

“Moving forward, I want to clarify that staff members are neither able nor authorized to respond to any inquiries of a political nature,” she wrote. “Such matters fall under the purview of the mayor and council, who may choose to address them at their discretion. Going forward, each of your requests will be included in the council agenda under correspondence, and any political questions will be addressed by the mayor and council as they see fit.”

Her correspondence, dated November 3, concludes by informing the writer that her inquiries need to be submitted as information requests through the MFIPPA.

“For any requests requiring staff resources, please submit a formal Freedom of Information (FOI) Request. The FOI process, which can be accessed on our website here, ensures that staff time is allocated appropriately to gather the necessary information. Once received through this channel, we will proceed with the research as required.”

Council Weighs In

Councillor Andrew Dick was the first to weigh in and he was clearly advocating for Mrs. McCormick.

“We have a resident asking questions and when we see these emails come through, these are questions that I want to know the answer to,” he said. “We have now directed this shareholder to go through MFIPA. Some of these questions are pertinent to me. My issue is and there were times she was promised…but Mayor Sidney you said you would answer to her and you never did.

“I know staff are busy but asking her to go through MFIPA … I just don’t know. Those are my concerns.”

He then turned to Mrs. McCormick and apologized for not answering her concerns.

Councillor John McDonald said he has attempted to answer some of her questions, but he felt there should be one point of response.

Ms. Latendresse addressed the concerns of both Mrs. McCormick and council by stating staff can be overwhelmed when dealing with multiple questions dealing with various topics and it can become burdensome.

“With all due respect, while we attempt to answer questions that come in, and when we are overloaded with questions…not just talking about just one resident…but currently we are overloaded at this point,” she said. “We can shut down what we do for the day because a lot of these require research, a lot of staff time. If we have a quarter of the population doing this, we would shut down operations. We get questions every day from residents, but when it turns into a large amount, we have to start to prioritize.” 

She said she was not singling out the writer, but she has submitted numerous questions beginning prior to her appointment as A/CAO.

“It is standard practice, as in the case of Ottawa, that when the information becomes too much for staff to accumulate and put together, that a request goes to Freedom of Information,” she said. “That is unless council directs us to shut down our day-to-day work. To say that we do not respond to residents is incorrect. We also need time to respond to other resident’s questions.

“There are other issues and other residents. And we do not respond to any political questions, but I think there needs to be a balance to how much staff time is spent to reply to residents and our day to day work.”

Councillor Dick challenged some of Ms. Latendresse’s statements. 

“I operate three businesses, I have a client list of 150 people, I sit on town council, and I respond to about 150 emails a day and they are researched and I do not believe that town staff will need to shut down their day to day operations to answer some of these simple questions,” he said.

Mayor Sidney also weighed in.

“At what point do we stop, and we put a system in place and it is there for accountability,” he said. “So if we put the MFIPA in place then that allows staff to devote time to that and the accountability piece is there. I have had residents over the last few years that send me correspondence filled with opinion. So we have to sift through to see what we can answer.”

Before the item was accepted as information, Coun. Dick pleaded with his fellow councillors to take a good hard look at the issue, not as a councillor, but as a human being to see if this is the best way to deal with a resident looking for answers. 

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