A Sarnia ratepayer says she has filed a formal complaint with the city's integrity commissioner about the behaviour of certain city councillors at a recent public meeting.
Margaret Bird says she was upset over the conduct of Andy Bruziewicz, Cindy Scholten and Bev MacDougall, during and after her presentation to council at Monday's budget input session.
Comments from MacDougall, after the meeting had adjourned, were captured on videotape.
She can be heard saying, "Who the hell does she think she is?, I think I'm going home for a drink after that, Christ almighty. I'm not putting your motion anywhere."
Bird says she filed a council code of conduct complaint Tuesday.
"Once I saw the video when I got home that night and realized that there was all kinds of disrespectful behaviour during my presentation and all the derogatory comments after my presentation, I went to city hall yesterday afternoon and filed a notarized complaint to the integrity commissioner against those three particular councillors ," says Bird. "It shows a total lack of respect and I think that their resignations should be called for immediately."
The integrity commissioner can either launch a formal investigation or dismiss the complaint outright if he determines it's frivolous.
MacDougall says she was unaware her private conversation with two council colleagues after the meeting was being recorded, and that her words were spoken out of frustration. She says Mayor Mike Bradley did not meet his obligations as chair of the meeting by allowing the speaker to make misleading comments off topic, which ended with a request for council to pass a resolution to lift all sanctions against him. MacDougall says the mayor did not leave the chair when the delegation moved into workplace issues that he previously had excused himself from due to conflict of interest.
