Third Stratford council meeting canceled

The standoff between the City of Stratford and a trio of residents temporarily banned from municipal property took another turn Monday night when yet another council meeting was cut short.

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For the third time in the past month, councilors passed a motion to end their meeting early because one of the three banned residents tried to attend. While this meeting did get a little further into the agenda than the previous two, it was less than 30 minutes old when Barb Shaughnessy entered the council chambers. She was quickly spotted by Mayor Martin Ritsma, who interrupted the meeting to ask her to leave.

Following a brief back and forth, during which Shaughnessy claimed the ban had a serious impact on her health, Ritsma called for a recess. Following the break, Coun. Bonnie Henderson expressed frustration with Shaughnessy’s appearance at the meeting.

Turning in her seat to look at Shaughnessy, the councilor told the banned resident she was “being disrespectful to the whole city.”

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“I can’t hold my tongue but I can’t believe it. I had a lot of respect for you before. You are showing exactly how you feel about our city. Disgraceful,” Henderson said.

A motion to adjourn the meeting passed 9-2, with only Couns. Geza Wordorfa and Cody Sebben voting against it.

“I’ve heard from many people in our community and share in their concerns about the process and implementation of the banning of individuals from all city facilities,” Sebben said.

While Shaughnessy would not go so far as saying the two councilors were supporting her, she suggested their votes against the meeting’s early adjournment could reflect a belief the city’s respectful workplace policy — the mechanism used to ban her and fellow residents Mike Sullivan and Ken Wood — is being abused.

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“There is no need to, and there’s no actual reason in the procedural bylaw that governs how council works, that says somebody who’s banned can’t sit there. We’re not a threat. As you can tell from what Mr Sullivan did, and then myself subsequently, we were just sitting there,” she said during a Wednesday morning telephone interview.

Shaughnessy said she went to council chambers to request a video of the events that allegedly took place at the Feb. 26 council meeting that led to the ban. She claimed the city is denying that request, which she made through lawyer David Donnelly.

Ristma declined to comment on the ongoing ban.

While there have been ongoing questions about what actions or comments led to the ban, Ristma said he was unable to speak directly on that topic since the decision came from the chief administrator’s office.

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“That information was shared in private with those individuals. I haven’t put myself into that space that was private, confidential information that was shared between those three residents and I haven’t embedded myself in that. That’s confidential information,” the mayor said.

It was in the “mayor’s purview” to allow her to speak at the meeting, Shaughnessy said

“He chose to ignore me and close down the council. That is extremely detrimental. It’s his obligation to make sure council works properly, and he didn’t do that,” she said.

Shaughnessy, though, suggested the blame for the abbreviated meetings lies with all of council, not just the mayor.

However, Ritsma said permitting Shaughnessy to attend and speak at the meeting would have ignored the proper process.

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“Is that the right thing to do? So that’s challenging. I could have ignored it, and certainly it’s important for me to ensure that there is decorum in that council chamber,” the mayor said. “I also remember at one point her standing up and starting to just speak very loudly. I don’t know what she was saying, but that’s not how council chambers operate, where, if you have a concern, you stand up and just throw it out there. Maybe other locations, they do that, but that’s never been the scenario for me.”

Ritsma did acknowledge the canceled meetings have had an impact on city business, including contracts with city workers that need to be signed and a public meeting to discuss the potential development of the former Krug factory site. There’s a public meeting about that development scheduled for Thursday at 7 pm

Ritsma also hinted at the possibility of a future town hall meeting to discuss the respectful workplace policy but did not provide a date of when that might happen.

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