A pitch to rescind sanctions against Coun. Esther Pauls for running afoul of the city’s previous ethics watchdog’s conflict-of-interest advice has failed.
The vote at council this week didn’t gain enough supporters to wipe the slate clean for the Mountain representative, whose son is a police inspector.
In February, Pauls said she was free again to vote on the police budget in light of a fresh conflict-of-interest analysis by the city’s new integrity commissioner, David Boghosian.
“My hands are tied. I can’t even talk. I can’t even ask questions. I can’t even say that I support the police,” she told The Spectator at the time.
Last year, Pauls was reprimanded and docked 15 days of pay after then-integrity commissioner, Principles Integrity, found she’d been in conflict of interest for voting on the police budget.
During the police budget session in question, Pauls didn’t recuse herself, despite having received written advice on three occasions to avoid spending plan talks altogether, the firm noted in a report.
It “should have been apparent” to her that a proposed budgetary increase for salaries, wages and benefits “would obviously” represent a pecuniary interest to her son.
New commissioner Boghosian, however, has found the Ward 7 representative can take part in police budget talks without running into ethical breaches.
The police budget “has no impact whatsoever on any aspect of the remuneration paid to any officer, ” he wrote in a seven-page analysis. “The amounts set out in the collective agreements are legally binding and enforceable against the (police service) in the event of a default in payment. Those amounts must be honoured regardless of the budget.”
But, ahead of budget-cutting motions, Pauls should either declare a conflict or get advice from him, Boghosian suggested. Moreover, the councillor has a conflict of interest when it comes to police collective agreements.
Pauls, who wasn’t at Wednesday’s council meeting, told The Spectator in February that she’d hoped her colleagues would formally recognize Boghosian’s opinion and restore her lost pay.
Coun. John-Paul Danko introduced that reconsideration motion Wednesday.
“New information has come forward. We have new findings from the city’s current integrity commissioner from February of 2024,” Danko said.
But, in response, Coun. Brad Clark argued the issue turned on the fact that Pauls had “ignored” the advice of Principles Integrity.
“The issue before us is not that the new (integrity commissioner) has a different opinion for this term. The issue before us is that the councillor did not comply with the previous integrity commissioner’s memorandum of advice.”
The 8-7 vote didn’t reach the two-thirds majority threshold to reconsider the sanctions.
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