West Nipissing Mayor Joanne Savage expects the Ombudsman’s office to carry out an investigation about a March 19th meeting council held expeditiously.
Savage says she doesn’t expect the investigation will “drag on”.
Savage spoke to MyWestNipissingNow.com to clarify statements from an earlier story.
The Mayor says she wants to emphasize she was not offering an opinion on the status of the investigation or with its outcome when answering an inquiry from MyWestNipissingNow.com earlier in the week.
Savage says once the investigation is complete, the municipality will get a letter from the Ombudsman’s office explaining if the March 19th meeting was legal or not.
The Mayor adds the Ombudsman’s letter may also contain recommendations for the municipality regarding future meetings regardless of what the findings may be.
The Ombudsman is looking into the legality of the meeting after getting complaints alleging it did not comply with the open meeting rules of the Municipal Act.
The Ombudsman plans to contact the municipality in the near future to get more information about the meeting.
In her initial response to MyWestNipissingNow.com Savage said proper notice was given regarding the March 19th meeting which was a closed session of council.
Savage said the closed meeting was originally intended to take place March 12th and notice of that went out March 8th.
However, because of time constraints, the in-camera session could not take place on the night of the 12th and council deferred it to March 19th.
Before the 19th, the municipality sent notice on March 15th through the agenda about the upcoming closed meeting subject matter.
Savage told MyWestNipissingNow.com that the closed session had nothing to do with the budget.
She adds no discussions or decisions were made regarding the affairs of the corporation during the closed session.