By Connor Luczka
The three Stratford citizens suspended from city property will soon be allowed back in council chambers as the suspensions lift on July 2, but that hasn’t stopped a few of them from protesting the suspensions and showing up to meetings regardless.
Just recently, their arrivals in council chambers have upturned two public meetings on top of the council meeting that was cancelled May 28.
At the June 24 council meeting, Barb Shaughnessy came to the meeting late with husband Tim Forster as a motion to approve a sewer tender hit the floor.
Shaughnessy and company were noticed by Mayor Martin Ritsma as they entered, who looked frustrated, but did not immediately end the meeting.
After the motion to approve the recommended tender passed, Ritsma acknowledged Shaughnessy’s coming and asked her to leave.
Shaughnessy started to speak before Ritsma spoke over her, saying he won’t entertain a conversation and then asked council to take a recess. The room promptly emptied other than Coun. Cody Sebben, who stayed in chambers throughout the recess.
After some councillors and staff came back in, Coun. Bonnie Henderson angrily said to Shaughnessy, “Come on Barb, show some respect for staff. Disgraceful.”
“You’re being very disrespectful to the whole city,” Henderson said a few moments later. “I’m sorry, I can’t hold my tongue but I can’t believe it. I had a lot of respect for you before. You’re showing exactly how you feel about our city. Disgraceful.”
After asking Shaughnessy again to leave, Ritsma entertained a motion to adjourn, which a number of councillors raised their hands to move.
Sebben objected to the adjournment, asking for a recorded vote, and Henderson again expressed her displeasure with Shaughnessy’s arrival.
Coun. Geza Wordofa and Sebben opposed adjournment in a recorded vote, but the motion passed 9-2.
Just a week earlier, Robert Roth, a retired journalist and former editor of the now-defunct Stratford Gazette, was scheduled to speak at the June 18 finance and labour relations subcommittee meeting about the suspensions, or more specifically the respectful workplace policy which has been the tool the city has used to enact the suspensions.
After getting through just his introduction, chair Mark Hunter stopped Roth’s presentation after spotting Mike Sullivan, another suspended citizen, entering the gallery with a baseball hat on.
After asking Sullivan to leave, Hunter adjourned the meeting saying they are unable to continue a meeting with staff present since that would open the city up to liability.
Roth subsequently wrote an open letter to city council, strongly objecting to the course of action the city has taken.
“It is profoundly disingenuous, undemocratic and dangerous to a free society to shield city hall decisions from public scrutiny and accountability simply by slapping the label of ‘administrative matter’ on profound actions such as banning people from the council chambers.
“Pulling an ‘administrative’ rabbit out of the political hat does not make the hat disappear. These decisions are political,” Roth wrote.
Roth also asserted the notion that the suspended individuals are unsafe, Sullivan in particular, does not make sense.
“So, on July 2, he is still ‘unsafe,’ but on July 3 he suddenly becomes ‘safe’ and can attend council meetings again,” Roth wrote.
Ritsma told the Stratford Times after the June 24 meeting ended that once the term of suspension has come to completion, the term will have completed, when asked whether or not there will be further action taken after the suspensions lift on July 2.
Ritsma further said not one person on the streets of Stratford has stopped him or told him what the city is doing is wrong.
Sebben expressed frustration with the whole debacle.
“I'm hearing from lots of people; they share the same concerns I do and they think things have gotten out of hand,” Sebben said.
Henderson, meanwhile, also expressed frustration from the other side, saying in the meeting she has also heard from a lot of people, all thanking the city for addressing the bullying that has been occurring.
Shaughnessy, in the statement she tried to read during the council meeting, wrote that the suspension has had an impact on her health. She is asking for footage from the Feb. 26 council meeting be released to their lawyer, David Donnelly of Donnelly Law, as the footage would exonerate her.
The suspensions occurred after the February council meeting in which Shaughnessy, Sullivan and Ken Wood were suspended for their actions which the city claims contradicted the respectful workplace policy.
The policy prohibits any disrespectful or inappropriate behaviour on city property, giving the examples of harassment, rudeness, or causing distress to city employees, among other reasons.
Sullivan and Shaughnessy delegated on a few agenda items, notably a closed-meeting-investigation report and a zoning change for the Bradshaw Lofts, and do not believe their delegations nor their actions in city hall constituted a suspension being necessary.
Sullivan and Shaughnessy, through Get Concerned Stratford, a citizens’ group, retained Donnelly Law to push back against their suspensions.
Wood, although also suspended, did not join with Sullivan and Shaughnessy’s legal action citing financial reasons, though did previously express support towards them in their endeavour.