Extends response deadline of 30 days to 120 days
BY SAMUEL PICCOLO The VOICE
On March 23 the Voice submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the Town of Pelham for various documents, including the agreement between the Town and Meridian Credit Union pertaining to its purchase of the new community centre’s name; the agreement between the Town and its fundraiser, Interkom Smart Marketing; and contracts and invoices between the Town and an engineering firm and a planning firm.
On April 25 Town Clerk Nancy Bozzato responded by acknowledging that information must typically be provided within 30 days. However, Bozzato cited a section in the legislation that allows for time extensions under “certain circumstances.”
“The time limit for answering your request has been extended for an additional 90 days to July 24, 2018,” wrote Bozzato. “The reason for the time extension is due to the volume of requests and the time span over which records relate.”
A former Town staffer, whose name the Voice has agreed to withhold, disputed Bozzato’s assertion, saying that documents are generally stored on computers and are easily accessible.
“They would only have to go to the folder and press ‘print,’” said the former staffer. “It should take about five minutes.”
Though Bozzato is ostensibly responsible for FOI requests, the former staffer asserted that in practice it is CAO Darren Ottaway who controls the flow of information.
“They are just pushing everything off to the [municipal] election.”
A financial expert consulted by the Voice said, “After [the paper’s] disclosures about the tendering process and the general secretive behaviour of the Town administration, I would not even attempt to guess at the intent or material effect.”
The expert said that if the naming agreement with Meridian shows that the Town will receive its $1 million dollars over a lengthy period of time, the Town may have to take this amount out as long-term debt.
“Generally, any underfunding from donations or deferrals will increase long-term debt. The numbers that I have seen for donations have them spread over several years,” said the expert.
Meridian’s $1 million dollar pledge in exchange for naming rights was announced in March at the community centre construction site. The Voice was neither informed of the announcement nor invited to it.
Shortly thereafter the newspaper requested general comment on the naming arrangement from Meridian. Toronto-based vice president of corporate communications, Scott Windsor, replied, saying that the bank’s comment was included in the Town’s press release.
“Meridian will not be disclosing the terms and conditions of our contractual agreement with the Town of Pelham,” concluded Windsor, an addition that piqued the curiosity of Voice publisher Dave Burket.
“It was an odd thing to add. We never asked about the terms and conditions of the agreement,” said Burket. “Had word come down to keep the terms secret for some reason? Is seems silly, but here we are.”
Further, Burket noted, the credit union had not shown such reticence in the past.
“When the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines was announced, it was made public that the $5.2 million there would be paid over twenty-five years."
In Barrie, where Meridian donated $100,000 to a health centre, it was disclosed that the money would be paid over four years.
“We should not have to file an FOI to get this information,” said Burket. “And after the FOI was filed, the information should have been provided within thirty days.”
Previously, the Town has fulfilled parts of FOI requests while saying that more time was needed to produce other documents, indicating that the Town is able to provide documents that it says are easily available, while taking more time to disclose those that it says are not.
