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Local councillor criticized for saying too much about G20 summit
Adam Vaughan tells police board residents come first
Police board member and local councillor Adam Vaughan received a light reprimand from Board Chair Alok Mukherjee for saying too much to his constituents about plans to police the G20 summit this summer.
The summit, which is to take place in June in Toronto’s downtown core, will involve a massive police presence, and residents and businesses in the city core will be impacted by heightened security.
As a member of the Toronto Police Services Board, Vaughan, the councillor for Trinity-Spadina (Ward 20), has been involved in briefings about how the security will work.
And he’s also made it clear he intends to be an advocate for his community at the table.
In a letter to constituents announcing an April 29 town hall meeting, Vaughan wrote: “I have received a ‘classified’ briefing so far. There will be serious disruptions. The security perimeter will be much larger than the area affected by the recent NFL games, and the protests are expected to be larger than last spring’s Tamil demonstrations.”
In the Feb. 11 letter, Vaughan described what appeared to be some details.
“There will be several zones of security established to protect the meeting,” he wrote. “Summits such as this in Quebec City and Seattle have presented serious challenges to host cities. Anti-terrorism precautions, crowd control and the reality that these meetings usually draw large numbers of protestors, will mean that much of the ward will be severely impacted by security initiatives.”
He added: “As your councillor, I will continue to work to try and move the summit, and if it can’t be moved, mitigate its impact. I will also use my seat on the Police Services Board to make sure the interests of the ward and the city are respected as security issues move forward.”
The newsletter led to a complaint being made to the board, alleging Vaughan may have violated his code of conduct as a Toronto Police Services Board member.
“Every board member is bound by an oath of confidentiality and there is a member code of conduct (that) governs what a board member may or may not say,” Mukherjee said. “I think this was a minor breach in relation to some comments in his newsletter. My job was to make sure that board members remember their code of conduct and oath of confidentiality.”
Mukherjee also said Vaughan and other Police Services Board members have a duty to look at the broad interests of the city and policing it over and above their own local constituents.
The matter, which appears on Thursday, March 25’s Police Services Board agenda, appears to have been resolved without serious consequence.
Vaughan said he may have misused the word ‘classified,’ but maintained he had only said things in the newsletter that had already been in the public eye.
“What I’ve done in this situation is I’ve spoken up on behalf of the residents and the businesses in my ward, making sure that their positions are properly represented to the government,” Vaughan said. “I was told that there is a code of conduct that I should respect. I respectfully submit that I have respected that.”
Vaughan maintained his higher duty was to the constituents who elected him.
“There is no higher calling at city hall than to be an elected representative in a city ward,” he said. “The residents of my ward will get my full and undivided loyalty.”
Source: http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/cityhall/article/654638--local-councillor-criticized-for-saying-too-much-about-g20-summit