Last week, the City of Trail announced that an investigator found Mayor Lisa Pasin and councillor Sandy Santori breached council’s code of conduct in their comments and actions toward councillor Robert Cacchioni in closed meetings. Pasin and Santori have since apologized, but they were also critical of the councillors who filed the complaint and the $49,500 cost of the investigation. It was the second code of conduct investigation during this term of council. Cacchioni was previously found to have breached the code in his comments toward former CAO David Perehudoff, who resigned. This is an interview with Pasin on the subject. An interview with Cacchioni can be found here.
Are there any consequences for breaching the code of conduct?
Any consequences or punishment would come at the recommendation of the investigator, per the terms of reference. At the end of this report, her conclusion was “This council is very fractured. I’m concerned this report will result in more disrespectful and disruptive behavior. I hope that the parties involved will move forward from this investigation and rebuild relationships so they are able to work together productively.”
There is absolutely no way to remove councillors from office unless they engage in illegal activity and even then it’s difficult. With that, it is my opinion that these retaliatory claims were advanced to attack the mayor’s office and cause myself and councillor [Sandy] Santori personal harm and reputational harm.
Going into this you have to be very careful to not weaponize a code of conduct for your own political gain. If there’s no consequences on the other end then all it does is cost taxpayers money and potentially serve to embarrass the people who you are lodging the complaints against, which I think was the intention in this case.
So the answer is this should be the end of it?
This should be the end of it. I don’t expect anything further. The press release that was put out was the last action that would be taken in this case.
You described council as having a “toxic atmosphere.” Has it gotten any better or worse since these complaints were launched last year?
I would think it’s worse. It was never good from the beginning. Council was always fractured from the beginning. There was a deep divide of four against three. It is beyond my comprehension why that would happen so early on at the municipal level where there’s just absolutely no need. It’s been a really, really challenging three and a half years.
I think things actually got worse with the code of conduct complaint [against] councillor [Robert] Cacchioni. That seemed to create an even deeper divide where a segment of council was more concerned about protecting him than actually doing what was right and realizing there was a serious infraction against our employee, our CAO. That has made the divide deeper. Subsequently, these retaliatory complaints came forward against councillor Santori and I which hasn’t helped matters at all.
That said, we are eight months away from the end of the term. There is still some time to do good for this community. I really hope that our council can rally and start behaving in a way that instills public confidence. Put the petty differences behind and move forward and start doing the work of the city either this council term is going to be remembered as doing absolutely nothing for the City of Trail aside from litigating internal petty conflicts. That is not how I want to be remembered. That is not my intention when I started as mayor.
I was voted in to represent the people of the city. That has always been my focus. I have not lodged a complaint against anyone. As the mayor you are in a difficult position to administer the complaints. Unfortunately I have also been on the end of being retaliated against.
Given all of that, have you decided whether to seek re-election?
I’m thinking about it. I think about it every day. It’s tough. It’s a tough go here right now. I hope this is a word of caution to everyone in our community that complacency doesn’t work. I was the only one on this council that was elected. Three people ran for mayor. There were only six people who ran for council. I don’t mean to take away from them, because six people did put their names forward. But they never had to stand against a test of being elected. If your community is complacent and you don’t have people running for the positions, it is not true community representation of who they want in those seats.
I think there are a lot of decisions to be made by everyone who sits on council right now. It has been an extremely difficult three and a half years. I hope we can rally for staff. I hope we can rally and show people who want to get into elected office that things can be better and behavior should be better. Ultimately, let’s all work together for the citizens of Trail. This level of dysfunction makes Trail fall behind and that’s not what we need. We need to remain laser focused on our strategic plan and move forward.