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Mississauga News - Aug. 6, 2010 - By John Stewart - jstewart@mississauga.net
Inquiry resumes next week
On the list.
Mississauga's former city manager, the woman formerly responsible for recording the minutes at council, City solicitor
and City planning commissioner are all slated to take the stand when the Mississauga judicial inquiry reconvenes next week.
They are, clockwise from top left, David O'Brien, Shalini Alleluia, Mary Ellen Bench and Ed Sajecki.
File photos
The second phase of the inquiry is probing the actions of Mayor Hazel McCallion regarding her son's role in a $14.4-million failed bid by World Class Developments (WCD) to buy a 3.5-hectare parcel of land owned by Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS). WCD hoped to build a hotel/convention centre in the City Centre.
The first witness on Monday morning will be Barry Lyon, who was a development consultant for WCD. He'll be followed by Scott Walker, an associate with Barry Lyon Consulting Ltd.
The third witness scheduled to testify Monday is Shalini Alleluia, a recently retired employee of the City of Mississauga clerk's department. She was responsible for recording the minutes of City council meetings.
A discrepancy in the minutes of one meeting — where McCallion was recorded as declaring a conflict, when the video recording of the meeting showed she did not — helped to prompt the inquiry in the first place.
On Tuesday, City solicitor Mary Ellen Bench and commissioner of planning and building Ed Sajecki will take the stand.
They're scheduled to be followed by Leo Couprie, the principal of WCD who met numerous times with McCallion and her son, including several meetings at the mayor's home.
In his testimony last week, Peter McCallion said he could not remember many of the details about those sessions.
"I can’t remember what the meetings were about; they were in 2003,” McCallion told Clifford Lax, the City’s outside counsel.
On Wednesday, four more witnesses are scheduled. They include Grant Charles, an employee of Hawthorne Realty Advisors and a former asset manager at Oxford Properties, a subsidiary of OMERS.
Next to testify will be Craig Coleman, president of 156 Square One Ltd., which co-owned the lands with OMERS that are at the heart of the inquiry being headed by Justice Douglas Cunningham.
Former OMERS president and chief executive officer Paul Haggis, who stepped down in 2007, will be next to testify.
The final witness scheduled next week is former City manager Dave O'Brien, who also testified in the first phase of the inquiry regarding the controversial deal in which OMERS obtained veto power over some key decisions by the Enersource board. That power was retained despite the fact OMERS held only a 10 per cent interest in Enersource.
The inquiry has already heard that O'Brien approached Peter McCallion and offered to negotiate a legal settlement between OMERS and WCD after the latter’s attempt to buy the City Centre land from OMERS collapsed. O'Brien is also a trustee for the McCallion family trust.
Comments by others - 9 - to this web-page at time of posting;
The Mississauga Muse
Aug 11, 2010 7:45 AM
Dave O'Brien up today as witness! This time I'm READY! (colour commentary)
Yes, folks we got a great one lined up for you today! Now it's possible that David O'Brien will use the Dave O'Brien "I don't remember, I don't recall" defense since it work so brilliantly in his last appearance before the Inquiry. Indeed, Peter McCallion took the "I don't remember, I don't recall" defense to new hei-depths during his appearances. I suspect this time Mr. O'Brien will use the Hybrid Defense. His tried-and-true "I don't remember, I don't recall"s with the George Costanza, "Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it" tenet. A tenet, I might add, that the City of MYTHissauga has used superbly between June 2006 to --when was the last Council meeting?..
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 11, 2010 7:35 AM
@ Uatu, ah! You see the irony of "one signing officer" too!
You wrote, "McCallion says, 'Why would anybody on a major contract be the one signing officer...' She should have asked Peter." The neat thing about that May 11, 2009 Audit Committee meeting was her saying, "On January the 27, an email from the Director of Revenue and Materiel Management to Commissioner of Corporate Services, City Manager with copy to Commissioner, City Director of Finance. And as you know Councillors have complained that all these people knew about the bankruptcy but we didn’t know about it. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of people involved —the Commissioner of Corporate Services, the City Manager, City Solicitor and Director of Finance. You all knew about it but nobody saw fit to tell the Council." Recall how I've repeatedly said that elected officials are clueless about what Staff are doing. (And not doing) Which reminds me. Dave O'Brien next witness...
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Uatu
Aug 10, 2010 6:24 PM
Asking the wrong people
McCallion says, "Why would anybody on a major contract be the one signing officer..." She should have asked Peter.
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 10, 2010 6:04 PM
@ ComeOn, (Now this is all on video) Audit Committee meetings confirming that Hazel McCallion (and Council) have little control of Staff.
McCallion bemoaning staff's "complete disregard for policy". Bus repairs have no paper trails --all work is okayed verbally. Let's not forget $735,000 lost at InfoPlace. Audit Committee, May 11, 2009, McCallion says, "Why would anybody on a major contract be the one signing officer —to approve all payments, all credits and everything?" and on the InfoPlace bankruptcy states, "On January the 27, an email from the Director of Revenue and Materiel Management to Commissioner of Corporate Services, City Manager with copy to Commissioner, City Director of Finance. And as you know Councillors have complained that all these people knew about the bankruptcy but we didn’t know about it. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of people involved —the Commissioner of Corporate Services, the City Manager, City Solicitor and Director of Finance. You all knew about it but nobody saw fit to tell the Council.
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ComeOn
Aug 9, 2010 5:40 PM
Muse When the Terms of Reference Came Back To The Council
The Council removed the free pass for staff. Some one gave instructions to put that into the document and it was not the Council. The Council voted to remove that section. I know that the crazies like to pretend all is well but you would need to be seriously messed up not to get that there is a serious scandal at play here.
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 8, 2010 3:41 PM
@ ComeOn, say WHAT?!
You wrote, "The terms of reference for Council to vote on included an exemption for staff from the Inquiry." Can you tell me what Council meeting? I'll pull the video and post it. By the way, there's nothing you can tell me about City Staff that can surprise me. It's like that fraudulent Integrity Commissioner report. Doesn't apply to staff. Well. Nothing does.
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ComeOn
Aug 8, 2010 2:49 PM
Hazel Scandal has some interesting questions left unanswered
The terms of reference for Council to vote on included an exemption for staff from the Inquiry. In other words, so staff could be summoned to the Inquiry. Council caught the wording and had it deleted. Who put it there? What obvious advantage did they hope to gain from keeping staff away from questioning? The vote and the deletion of the wording were all live on TV at the time.
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Stephen Wahl
Aug 7, 2010 11:26 AM
Google “Plutonic Power”
And for your added amusement I add the Oxford Dictionary of English definitions of “Plutonic” Is this cute or what? Plutonic > adjective 1 Geology relating to or denoting igneous rock formed by solidification at considerable depth beneath the earth’s surface. 2 (Plutonic) RELATING TO THE UNDERWORLD or the god Pluto
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 7, 2010 8:00 AM
@ Spudder, for insight into Dave O'Brien's testimony
Video. Shows me going up at Council during that Enersource Inform-the-Public meeting and asking Hazel McCallion "Where is David O'Brien?" She responds that he didn't ask to come "nor was he invited". She didn't mention that he'd never tell before any cameras, let alone that he was trustee of her family trust. I keep saying. It's what MYTHissauga *doesn't* tell you that you've got to know! Here's the video. And there were way more "I don't remember. I don't recall"s coming out of O'Brien. http://tinyurl.com/26kq9sn
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 7, 2010 7:53 AM
@ Spudder. You wrote, if David O'Brien is "The same O'Brien that the Mayor tried to portray as in her testimony as not being close to?"
That part is incorrect, Spudder, sorry. June 2nd testimony. [QUOTE] Lax: And I take it that you and he are very close, or you were close. He was a close advisor of yours? McCallion: Well, yes. A City manager is -- (notice how she doesn't reveal he's her trustee) Lax: And -- and would you agree with me that a response of well over a year under those circumstances on something as important as this -- McCallion: Yeah, I think -- yeah. Lax: -- was not timely? [ENDQUOTE] And then about why McCallion waited a year to get a response about the veto clause. [QUOTE] Lax: So can I assume that before he responded in writing on the 22nd of January, that you and he would have had some other discussions because you had indicated to council that you were going to follow up with him... [ENDQUOTE] Explain that.
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The Spudder
Aug 7, 2010 12:18 AM
I wonder
Is O'Brien the ex-city manager and a trustee of the McCallion family trust? The same O'Brien who sits on the Mayor's Gala Committee? The same O'Brien that the Mayor tried to portray as in her testimony as not being close to? I wonder if his memory has improved since the last time he testified. Come on O'Brien, tell us where all the money is, you should know as a trustee.
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The Mississauga Muse
Aug 6, 2010 2:13 PM
GREAT coverage, Missy News!
And for others who might want to play catch-up, check out top right resource, "Judicial Inquiry Coverage" at: http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/856638--judicial-inquiry-coverage
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