Two members of city council are having their pay suspended, with Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc being docked 30 days’ pay and Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier docked for 10 days.
This, following recommendations by city integrity commissioner David Boghosian, who found both members guilty of breaching the city’s Code of Conduct for their behavior at a public meeting held Sept. 7.
Greater Sudbury city council voted on Boghosian’s recommended sanctions during their Nov. 7 meeting, and were unanimous in approving a 30-day pay suspension for Leduc.
The vote was similar for Montpellier, with only Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini voting against docking him 10 days’ pay.
Leduc was not called on to vote on a motion regarding sanctions against him, and for reasons unclear declared a pecuniary interest when called on to vote on sanctions against Montpellier.
Montpellier did not attend the Nov. 7 city council meeting.
During his brief remarks, Leduc offered a public apology for how his words during the Sept. 7 public meeting in question were interpreted.
“I am sorry to our two staff members ... if they felt that I was viciously harming them,” Leduc said. “I was not, OK? I felt wholeheartedly that I was defending them, and unfortunately, it doesn’t come out well, and I can’t take that thing back. ... As much as I’d like to, unfortunately I can’t.”
Leduc also apologized to area residents, before calling out both Boghosian and city CAO Ed Archer, who filed the complaint with the integrity commissioner on behalf of city staff.
On Boghosian, Leduc noted an early email from him recommended a 10-day suspension, and not 30 days. Boghosian later clarified it was a mistake due to copying and pasting the wrong information, and that he’d always intended on issuing a 30-day suspension.
“He’s supposed to be a professional,” Leduc said.
On Archer, Leduc said, “Once upon a time, our CAO called out an elected member and called him a buffoon.”
Mayor Paul Lefebvre cut off Leduc’s comments for being irrelevant to the topic at hand.
(The “buffoon” remark in question relates to an incident in 2021, when Archer called Montpellier’s behaviour “buffoonish” in a typed message to another city staffer. He reportedly believed it was being sent privately, but it was visible to councillors and anyone else watching the meeting’s livestream.)
The public meeting held Sept. 7 featured Road Surface Recycling vice president technology and research Frank Crupi.
During much of its three-hour runtime, Crupi “repeatedly and viciously criticized the competence of city staff,” as Boghosian put it to city council on Nov. 7. Crupi primarily spoke against the city’s decision to pull his company from an asphalt recycling project on The Kingsway, which a third-party report by WSP clarified the city was justified in doing due to the contractor failing to meet various agreed-to specifications.
As Sudbury.com reported last month, many of Cupi’s claims were unproven and refuted by city staff and the city’s auditor general.
At the centre of Crupi’s crosshairs were two city staff members he described as being in some kind of relationship through which Crupi asserted the female member, whom he described as unqualified, got her job through nepotism.
Three members of city council attended the Sept. 7 meeting, including Leduc, Montpellier and Vagnini.
During the Sept. 7 meeting, Leduc turned around from where he was sitting in the front row, and told the audience through a microphone that the two employees in question were common-law partners. He also named the two staff members in question.
Leduc’s explanation, that he was trying to defend staff members from a worse allegation that they were having an affair, “lacks an air of reality,” Boghosian wrote in his report to city council.
“If that was his intention, there was still no need to specifically name the two employees, who had not been linked together as a couple prior to that point,” he added.
“If Coun. Leduc’s concern was for the reputations of the two staff members, one would have expected him to stand up and object much earlier in the meeting when the employees were being repeatedly and viciously defamed.”
The key statement from Montpellier during the Sept. 7 meeting which Boghosian flagged in his report was: “I’m not allowed to call them by their names and all that because I’ll end up in jail again, but he couldn’t have been alone, so this crew — that gang, is that the same people that built Maley on private property?”
Crupi responded, “I would guess so,” and Montpellier added, “OK, just to clarify,” with a smirk on his face.
Montpellier’s question was about city staff and related to a lawsuit claiming the city built Maley Drive on land it didn’t expropriate prior to construction.
“In my opinion, it was a rhetorical question, designed to indirectly express his negative views about named ... staff and to raise an issue from the past where he obviously believed city staff had acted incompetently,” Boghosian wrote.
“It is clear to me that he did so in order to ‘pile on’ the criticism already being leveled against City staff at the meeting with his own reminder of what he regarded as past incompetence. He directly impugned the competence and integrity of staff by his comment, albeit nominally framed as a ‘question.’”
During the Nov. 7 meeting, Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée explained why she was voting in favour of Boghosian’s recommended sanctions.
“There were untrue and hurtful words used toward some of our staff members, mostly from someone who is not a city councillor, thankfully,” she said. “This was allowed to continue and gain momentum for far too long. ... Sometimes, what was not said is also as important.”
Archer was right to file a complaint on behalf of city staff, she said, adding, “Every worker has a right to feel safe in their work environment and be free from harassment.”
With Montpellier unable to attend the Nov. 7 meeting due to health concerns, Leduc requested a deferral on voting against sanctioning the Ward 3 councillor. Leduc’s motion to defer was defeated when he was the only member of city council to support it.
Although Vagnini also attended the Sept. 7 public meeting, Boghosian indicated that his behaviour during the meeting did not contravene the city’s Code of Conduct.
Leduc’s behaviour was the most egregious of the two facing sanctions, according to Boghosian’s report, which argued it deserved to be “sternly rebuked,” explaining why he faced 30 days’ suspension and not the 10 Montpellier faced.
Boghosian also noted that it was only a few weeks ago that he censured Leduc for what he described as “objectionable and impertinent” comments in a radio interview regarding residents who lodged a complaint against him with the elections compliance audit committee.
Both Montpellier and Leduc pre-empted the Nov. 7 meeting by issuing pleas for their colleagues to vote against sanctioning them. In Montpellier’s now-deleted Facebook post, he called the investigation a “fiasco and deliberate attempt to suppress information.”
In a lengthy email to city council members and local media, Leduc argued there was no evidence that what he said has had any negative effect on staff or the operations, so city council should vote against Boghosian’s recommendations.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
