Despite protests from board members, Centre Wellington Township council has dissolved the board of the Elora Business Improvement Area (BIA).
On Monday council appointed an interim board made up of township staff, despite arguments from BIA board members that doing so was a misuse of taxpayer funds. They also felt the move does not support the transparency the board had been working to establish.
Four BIA board members spoke at Monday’s council meeting, all sharing a similar message asking council to allow the current board to continue its work.
The issue stems from the fact the board having more members than is permitted by its governing bylaw.
“The reason that this bylaw is before you now is not because we failed to fulfill our role, but because we did,” said delegate Erika Montero, owner of Blackbird Elora and now the former BIA chair.
Council had been asked to consider a recommendation to remove the current board members and replace them with an interim board of management until an annual general meeting could be called to elect a new board.
The reason? "The township has appointed, in error, more Elora BIA board of management members than the actual existing board positions allowable under the establishing bylaw,” the township staff report said.
That bylaw states the BIA board shall be appointed by council and shall consist of only four members, one of who is a member of council.
The most recent board had six members, plus councillor Kim Jefferson.
It has now been replaced with an interim board consisting of township CAO Dan Wilson, township treasurer Adam McNabb, municipal clerk Kerri O’Kane, and Mayor Shawn Watters.
According to Montero, the board’s oversized composition was just one of several issues with the board when she took over the role, following the resignation of Maclean Hann in December.
“I joined the BIA in December, because I had some serious concerns about its lack of transparency,” Montero said.
Asked for more detail about her concerns, Montero shared with EloraFergusToday an email she had sent to the township clerk in December, in which she raised issues related to the board’s financial transparency and accountability, procedural irregularities in board appointments and meeting conduct, and potential conflicts of interest.
Montero was the person who brought it to the township’s attention that there were too many appointees on the board, and she now believes it was her efforts to bring the board into legal compliance that caused her to lose her position.
“I opened meetings to the public for the first time in decades. I shared information. I invited residents to participate,” Montero said in an email to EloraFergusToday. “That, I now see, is what upset the status quo.”
At the meeting, Montero pointed out that what was referred to as an “error” by township staff has been happening for years, with the past 15 years worth of boards exceeding the number of members dictated by the 1992 bylaw that established the BIA.
“This is not a one-time oversight,” she said.
Dissolving the board “is an alarming attempt to reverse long-standing precedent and replace a local board of unpaid volunteers with highly paid township staff,” Montero said.
She went on to point out that the board being dissolved “has not only functioned, but corrected years of municipal non-compliance.”
She spoke of some of the changes the board had made, including holding public meetings and recording those meetings, implementing financial oversight and dual signing authority for BIA accounts, and creating a procedural bylaw.
“It was this board, not staff, that identified these long-standing issues and took action in good faith to fix them,” said Montero.
Once Upon A Guise owner Cathy Daultrey, also a member of the now-dissolved board, spoke next, noting that concerns raised to the township were met with the suggestion to hold a general meeting and elect a new board.
Rejecting that idea, she said the board instead passed a resolution to ask council to update the 1992 bylaw to allow for a larger board of five to seven members.
“It appears that resolution was never brought forward to you,” Daultrey told council.
She echoed Montero in saying the over-sized board was approved and operating in line with past practice, and was attempting to address gaps left by the previous board.
“Don’t disband a board that’s simply doing its job and doing it well,” Daultrey pleaded.
Metcalfe Street shop owner Cathi Bastien, said dissolving the board would be disruptive, unnecessary and counter productive. The real issue, she said, is the 1992 bylaw.
That bylaw “no longer reflects the needs or realities of the current BIA or the businesses it represents,” Bastien said.
“The over appointment of members wasn’t an act of defiance or negligence. It was a long-standing administrative practice,” she said.
“I’m not here to argue against compliance, I am here to advocate for common sense,” she said.
Cafe Creperie owner Kathy Sullivan also spoke in favour of changing the 1992 bylaw rather than dissolving the board.
“We do not believe that dissolving the board and installing an interim one is necessary, cost effective and in the best interest of the community,” Sullivan said.
“Give us an opportunity to resolve this in a way that respects both the letter and the spirit of the law.”
CAO Wilson, who presented the report and recommendation to council, did not address the suggestion that the 1992 bylaw should be changed rather than the current board dissolved.
Rather, he said staff arrived at its recommendation “through discussion with legal counsel.”
The interim board will be “very short-term,” with an AGM possible within the next couple of weeks, Wilson said.
“There is nothing precluding the current board members putting their names forward and seeking reelection,” he said.
He went on to say that similar issues exist with the Fergus BIA, and those will be addressed once issues in Elora have been corrected.
“Our intent is to go through the process with the Elora BIA first and learn some best practices for this approach,” he said, responding to a question from Coun. Bronwynne Wilton.
Wilton requested a recorded vote on the recommendation. The results were all councillors but Jennifer Adams and Wilton voting in favour, with Barbara Lustgarten-Evoy noting that she did so “with some trepidation.”
Wilton made a point of saying that she was abstaining.
“I do not have enough information to make this decision, so therefore I abstain,” said Wilton.
Montero said she does not plan to seek a position on the board at the yet-to-be-scheduled AGM, believing that she won’t be re-elected.
“We are the ones trying to make things right, and the majority don’t want that,” she said.
She said in an email what happened at the June 16 council meeting should concern everyone, not just BIA members.
“This is about more than bylaws. It’s about democratic values. It’s about who gets a voice, and whether public spaces and public funds are being used for the public good or for private agendas,” wrote Montero.
