At a virtual special meeting of Espanola Town Council on Tuesday night, Councillors embraced a suggestion from Integrity Commissioner Robert Swayze to halt Councillor Maureen Van Alstine's pay for 90 days.
In both his written report and a verbal report at the virtual meeting, Swayze said he received three municipal Code of Conduct complaints about Councillor Val Alstine's behaviour from Mayor Jill Beer, CAO Cynthia Townsend and Councillor Sandra Hayden.
The complaints followed three Notices of Motion made by Van Alstine at Espanola Council last February 11.
The first was to reprimand the CAO for her failure to demand a written budget report from the Chief Building Official.
The complaint from the CAO referred to a second Notice of Motion by Van Alstine that Townsend said was meant to belittle and demean her.
A third Notice of Motion, said Swayze, appeared to ask that financial statements be produced in the manner of generally accepted accounting principles.
Councillor Ray Dufour said, "I believe the penalty to be too severe. I would have liked to have seen maybe a little more training involved or whatever the case may be. I believe there's animosity in the air. The morale is being dropped simply because of a misunderstanding."
He continued, "There were certain things that were being asked for in the meeting, basically just asking for a different format for the budget, and so on and so forth. I just believe the measurement taken here was a little bit large and am saying that 90 days is a lot of time."
In her statement, Van Alstine said the IC process, "Has been a learning experience for me."
She continued, "I will endeavour to improve my manner of asking questions. And thank you for the report."
Dufour was the lone dissenter as Espanola Council voted for Van Alstine's pay cut, 5 to 1. Van Alstine was not allowed to vote. Her 90-day pay cut will begin with the next pay period.