My "Second Letter" to Haldimand County Council

Well, here is my second letter to "Haldimand County Council" dated March 12th 2007.

March 12, 2007

Haldimand County
45 Munsee St.
Cayuga

Janis Lankester via email
To all Members of Haldimand County via email
CAO Bill Pearce

Re: Letter of February 7th 2007
Janis please distribute this letter to Members of Council, and CAO Bill Pearce.

I am very disturbed that Council as a whole and the CAO Bill Pearce have ignored my letter that was reviewed in closed session on Monday Feb. 12th. It seems that no one in that room knew what I was talking about, the fact of the matter is that at least three individuals in that room knew exactly what I was talking about!

What does it take for anyone on this Council to take a taxpayer as myself seriously? Elected officials do have many Codes that they need to follow, e.g.; Elections Act, Municipal Act 2001, Criminal Code etc. Just because they are not covered under the Codes of Haldimand County, does not mean that Haldimand County does not have responsibilities as well.

I will let you know that my intention for writing the first letter was to make the rest of Council aware of the actions that were taken by these four council members, two of which are currently sitting on Council. I was hoping that with five other Council Members and a CAO that you might have come up with a resolution. It could have been as simple as even letting me think that you were doing something, anything. It is an insult that you have chosen to ignore this.

I have no intentions of suing Haldimand County, as if I was to do that I would be no better of a person than the four Council Members that slandered me, as they abused the taxpayer time and money. I am looking into actions against the four Council Members, but I won’t go into that, as this will be a Civil Case and will be of no business to Haldimand County.

I am still looking for some kind of resolution from the County, I strongly believe that I deserve at least that much. I know that Haldimand County does not have an Integrity Commissioner, but there is one in place by the Province of Ontario for County’s that have not implemented this yet. I have given this County plenty of time and opportunity to look into this matter; maybe it is now time for me to look to the taxpayers of Haldimand County for a resolution.

Donna Pitcher

My letter was discussed in Closed session on March 12th, my response from the County, this time a letter sent in the mail, "Council has given no further direction in this matter". I did get an e-mail from the Clerk asking, "What Resolution are you looking for"? I did not respond to this question as I thought that seven elected officials could discuss this intelligently.

One problem I have with their response is that when the Mayor of Haldimand County was "accused" of harassing her secretary, Council decided that the public needed to know, even though the County's Harassment Policy clearly states that these issues should be kept "strictly confidential". Council also decided that they needed to spend approx. $15,000.00 of taxpayer money to investigate this accusation. My issue is the "truth", not an accusation. I am not saying that what they did in the Mayor's case was wrong, but what Council is doing is "choosing" what issues are of the "Public's Interest", and they do have that right.

So in my case why did Council "choose" to ignore my issues? I am thinking that maybe if my issue was against the Mayor, they would have taken me seriously. Obviously Certain Council members did not want the public to know what they were doing on taxpayers money. I wrote a letter to Municipal Affairs, and have still had no response. I am not counting my chickens on this one either!

I did find out that because we don't have our own Integrity Commissioner, that is not an option either. I wrote to the Ombudsmen, response, they don't get involved with Municipal Affairs, well another option gone. I spoke with the OPP, Libel/Slander is in the Criminal Code, but it has to be against a group, religion etc... so that is not an option. I can go to the Superior Court of Justice, regarding a Conflict of Interest, but I would need to carry the burden of the court costs, that is not an option either.

So my question would be, "How can our Elected Officials be made "Accountable"? If you have the answer to this question, I would love to hear from you.