For the second time in about three months, an Integrity Commissioner report involving councillor Sara Inch is coming to council.
The complainant this time is George Burton, President and CEO of Canadore College.
The commissioner found the code of conduct was not breached.
He also doesn’t accept that the posts were entirely personal.
“One post appeared on a Facebook page that clearly identified the Respondent as a City Councillor”, reads the commissioner’s report. “The other post, by its very nature, affected the City’s interests. The Code of Conduct applied to both posts.”
The commissioner says a post saying ‘fire someone’ was reasonably interpreted as referring to the college’s CEO or to another senior executive and was not helpful to the city’s relationship with the college.
His report also says a claim of workplace toxicity at the college was based on allegations in old news media reports – and there was no basis to claim that the situation was “ongoing.”
He’s recommending social media training for council members.
You can find the commissioner’s entire report on the city’s website, in the Jan. 16 council agenda.
The cost of the investigation was just under $4,000.
In October, council suspended Inch’s pay for 90 days after the commissioner found she breached the code of conduct in the way she treated Deputy Mayor Maggie Horsfield, including through social media posts.
