Peterborough city council has voted against penalizing Mayor Jeff Leal for breaching city council’s code of conduct by intimidating councillor Alex Bierk and by bullying councillor Joy Lachica in relation to the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment.
At council’s general committee meeting on Monday night (June 2), councillors voted 7-3 in favour of a motion from councillor Gary Baldwin for no penalty, with councillors Bierk, Lachica, and Keith Riel voting against the motion. Mayor Leal had recused himself from council chambers during discussion of the report and also did not participate in any votes related to the report.
Baldwin brought forward his motion in response to the findings of a joint inquiry report from the City of Peterborough’s integrity commissioner Guy Giorno, which also concluded the mayor did not breach the code of conduct by influencing general committee’s decision on the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment for the private advantage of himself or his wife.
Baldwin’s motion included a two-part amendment to the original agenda item, which was only for council to receive the integrity commissioner’s report. The first part of his amendment proposed no penalty for the mayor for contravening the code of conduct, and the second part of his amendment proposed referring remedial measures suggested by the integrity commissioner to staff for consideration.
In his report, Giorno’s recommendations noted that it is the role of council to determine a penalty, if any, for a member of council who contravenes the code of conduct. If council decides on a penalty, it can either be a reprimand or a pay suspension for up to 90 days.
Giorno also noted council could adopt one or more remedial measures in addition to a penalty, and suggested such remedial measures could include providing “focused training related to harassment, abuse, bullying and intimidation,” amending the code of conduct to add a definition of bullying, reconciling the code of conduct with the procedure by-law to define council meeting conduct that is the responsibility of the meeting chair versus the integrity commissioner, and reviewing the code of conduct for its use of multiple terms related to private interest.
In putting forward his motion, Baldwin briefly summarized the allegations against Mayor Leal and the integrity commissioner’s findings, selectively quoting from the report with respect to the mayor’s comments to councillor Bierk that “You’re going to regret you ever said that” and “I’ll carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey” after Bierk mentioned the mayor’s wife by name during a general committee meeting.
“The integrity commissioner has concluded that the mayor’s words to councillor Bierk were figurative, and cannot be reasonably be interpreted as a threat of physical violence,” councillor Baldwin said. “This is an important distinction. The integrity commissioner concludes that the mayor’s words were inappropriate, and the mayor has apologized in public.”
While acknowledging that the mayor’s “carve you up like a turkey” comment was “a figurative expression that was not meant or reasonably interpreted as a threat of violence or physical harm,” Giorno had added in his report that “intimidation is not confined to physical threats.”
“The ‘regret’ and ‘turkey’ comments, taken together, were reasonably understood to threaten consequences for having angered the Mayor by mentioning the Mayor’s wife,” Giorno writes in his report. “Certainly, Councillor Bierk took the comments that way, and he was intimidated.”
With respect to Lachica’s complaint, Baldwin noted that the integrity commissioner found the mayor had contravened the code of conduct, but did not mention that Giorno had concluded that Mayor Leal had bullied the councillor.
“What I find unusual in this circumstance is the mayor, rightly so, has chosen to recuse himself — he’s not in council chambers, not involved in the discussion, and will not be involved in the decision-making process — while other parties, either directly named or indirectly, are sitting here and will be participating in the —,” Baldwin said before being interrupted by a point of order from Bierk.
“It’s an unfair criticism to name me and councillor Lachica as having some pecuniary interest in this situation, where we are in fact the victims of what happened,” Bierk pointed out. “Mayor Leal recused himself because there is a pecuniary interest (for him) — we’re dealing with his pay. And if we were dealing with my pay or councillor Lachica’s pay, or any other conflict as stated in our code of conduct and our municipal guidelines, we would recuse ourselves.”
At this point in the meeting, councillor and meeting chair Andrew Beamer asked members of the public in the gallery to be respectful with “no verbal outbursts.”
After outlining the punitive options available to council, Baldwin offered his perspective on the mayor’s response to the allegations.
“My own impression, having known the mayor for 58 years, I believe in my heart that the mayor apologized in public,” Baldwin said, before looking across the chamber and saying “Shake your head, councillor Lachica, that’s fine.”
Lachica then raised a point of order, calling Baldwin’s comment a “disparaging remark made in a cross-talking fashion that’s out of decorum for councillors to do to another councillor” and asking Beamer to rule it out of order. In response, Beamer said he hadn’t noticed the comment and added he would do “a better job … of paying attention.”
After apologizing to Lachica “and the public,” Baldwin asked CAO Jasbir Raina whether he could speak to his experience with Mayor Leal “with respect to any behavioural concerns you have or any red flags —”
Councillor Keith Riel raised a point of order, saying the CAO’s opinions about the mayor have “nothing” to do with the integrity commissioner’s report. As Beamer was ruling the question in order, Lachica also raised a point of order, saying the nature of the question to the CAO was “inappropriate.” Beamer said he would allow the question.
As Raina began answering the question, Bierk raised another point of order, saying “This has nothing to do with the report that we’re discussing.”
“We’re talking about a very specific event between the mayor and members of council,” Bierk said. “The report makes no mention of the relationship between the mayor and staff.”
After Beamer allowed Raina to answer the question, the CAO called Mayor Leal “extremely professional” in his dealings with staff and in his behaviour and said he had seen no “red flags.”
In his comments, Riel said he wanted a motion that wouldn’t be “a slap on the wrist and do nothing.”
“I think we are all held to a standard. I think the mayor, as the voice and the face of the city, is held to a higher standard than all of us. If that has been broached, then something should be done about it, and I’m prepared to do that tonight.”
For her part, Lachica said she originally didn’t intend to speak to the integrity commissioner’s report.
“I will speak because what the previous speaker has stated, through a motion, and the message is loud and clear: that it’s okay. That it’s okay what happened in that corridor. That it’s okay what happened a second time amongst council, and what council has witnessed. And that it’s okay, whatever continued occurrences may or may not have occurred.”
She also said, with respect to Baldwin’s comment about the mayor’s apology, that he was not privy to the session between the integrity commissioner, the mayor, and herself, noting there was a reason the investigation took so long for the integrity commissioner to reach his conclusion.
Lachica then described her motivation to be a city councillor, and said councillors should be treated with respect at all times.
“If I ever do this again, and I want to continue to serve this community, I will do it because there’s a bar of respect and professionalism that this council and chamber upholds,” she said. “That’s why I brought this complaint forward — not just for myself, but for the integrity of this work environment and the integrity of this city so that we will not be distracted and we will do the work together that we should be doing.”
“Sometimes things need to be called. The nature of a person can be one thing, but behaviour can be another. And when there’s a pattern, there should be a consequence.”
For his part, Bierk also said he had not planned “to say much tonight unless I had to, and it looks like I have to,” referring to Baldwin’s motion.
“Not only within the motion but the speech that was given, to me, is a continuation of an effort to try to downplay and minimize what happened,” Bierk says. “It was evident in the speech (by Baldwin) tonight, which primarily focused away from the harm the mayor has caused to us,” adding that it was an attempt to characterize “toxic behaviour more mildly.”
“I just wanted to speak up to say that I feel like there has been an effort to downplay what happened. I wanted to speak up to say that I stand in solidarity with my Town Ward partner Joy Lachica, who’s grown to be a friend of mine, who is someone I believe in, and who I believe demonstrated great courage to be a woman, a queer woman, in a hallway with one, two, three, four men and in a toxic violent situation that left her shaken and rattled.”
Bierk noted that Baldwin in 2016 was the one “who rallied council to adopt a code of conduct in the first place, and it was voted down,” and he should understand the need for a code of conduct and abiding by that code of conduct.
“How it was taught to me to make things right is this: if I go and break a window with a baseball, it’s not good enough for me just to apologize for breaking that window. I have to go to the property owner and I have to replace the window, and then I have to be in a position where I’m not throwing the baseball in a direction that’s going to break the glass. And to me, that is a formula in which proper amends can be made.”
“To me, a good leader is someone who most definitely makes mistakes, but there would have been an avenue for these behaviours to have happened, and for the person who did it to make it right, and that hasn’t happened.”
Bierk added that it is up to council to come up with an appropriate way to make the situation right.
“If you around the table feel that the way to make this situation right is do nothing, then we don’t have much in common.”
In his second set of comments, Riel spoke to the specific findings of the integrity commissioner’s report with respect to the mayor’s behaviour, noting that it “fits a classic definition of gaslighting,” and also referred to the use of strong mayor powers as a “vehicle to consolidate authority and to silence dissenters.”
“We must be clear: this kind of conduct has no place in our council chambers, in our city, or in our institutions that purports to represent the public good. It sends a damaging message, not only to us as elected officials, but every resident who expects ethical, fair, and principled leadership.”
In his comments, councillor Dave Haacke said “There’s no greater consequence, to me, than public shame.”
After claiming the mayor’s personal property was damaged as a result of the controversy around the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment, Haacke added “I think the mayor has suffered, and the biggest thing, and I’m going to come back to it, is public shame. And he is ashamed, rightly so.”
In his final comments, Bierk said if council does not reprimand the mayor for breaching the code of conduct, “we might as well rip up that sheet of paper.”
“I don’t believe that the mayor is the victim in this case. I believe what was done happened to her (Lachica) and it happened to me, and I’m not asking for anything outlandish. I’m asking for us to simply uphold our council code of conduct. How egregious the incident was is very well laid out in the report. We are setting a precedent tonight by not acting on that.”
After Lachica objected to the second part of Baldwin’s amendment, that proposed sending the integrity commissioner’s suggested remedial actions to staff for consideration, stating that it was out of order, Beamer ruled it in order. Lachica challenged the chair, and her challenge lost 6-4, with Lachica, Bierk, Haacke, and Riel voting against the chair.
Council then voted on the first part of Baldwin’s amendment, that proposed no penalty be imposed on Mayor Leal for breaching the code of conduct. The motion passed 7-3, with councillors Matt Crowley, Don Vassiliadis, Lesley Parnell, Kevin Duguay, Haacke, Beamer, and Baldwin voting in favour, and Bierk, Lachica, and Riel voting against.
After the vote, Beamer addressed members of the public in the gallery who objected to the vote, saying “Ladies and gentlemen, please” several times, adding “I ask you to be respectful.”
For the second part of Baldwin’s amendment, that proposed sending the integrity commissioner’s suggested remedial actions to staff for consideration, council voted 6-4 in favour, with Lachica, Bierk, Haacke, and Riel voting against.
Council then voted on the main motion to receive the integrity commissioner’s report for information, combined with Baldwin’s two amendments, which passed 7-3 with Bierk, Lachica, and Riel voting against.
Items endorsed by general committee will be considered by council for final approval next Monday (June 9), when registered public delegations will have the opportunity to address council.
