Brighton council under integrity investigation, again
BELLEVILLE – Brighton’s new council still has yet to be sworn in, however, it already finds itself in troubled waters.
Local businessperson Thomas Conolly has requested an investigation with the town’s integrity commissioner claiming the mayor-elect, Brian Ostrander, shared confidential information with the new members that was discussed in a closed session with the current council.
According to Conolly, the information shared is about a legal property matter, which required it to be dealt with in closed session under the Municipal Act. Ostrander is currently a member of the council.
“On October 23rd, the day after the election, Mr. Ostrander sent out an email to councilors-elect, so these people are no different than you or I at this point. They are councillors-elect,” he said. “And (he) explained to them about a financial claim that I have against the municipality.”
Ostrander doesn’t deny the allegations, acknowledging that he did provide the information from the council’s closed minutes session to councillor elects before they were to be sworn in.
“I sent that email in confidence to the other six members of the newly elected council, it was my intention that that email remains confidential,” he said.
Ostrander is upset with the new council for leaking the information to Conolly.
“My biggest disappointment is that someone of those six people decided it would be okay to breach the trust of the municipality and the people of the municipality by releasing this document to a member of the public,” he said.
While the current investigation is ongoing, this follows investigations by the Ontario Ombudsman in 2015 and 2017.
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