In an interview with Durham Post, Councillor Chris Leahy from the Town of Whitby has pushed back on a report recommending that he lose a month’s pay.
A Town of Whitby Integrity Commissioner report says Leahy breached the town’s Code of Conduct after two complaints alleging he was disrespectful to town staff, and subjected them to public ridicule.
The councillor believes the report, and its recommendation to suspend his pay for a month are unfair. “I just think that I’m being punished for tone, music selection and video selection — meaning a clip — I think is a little greedy.”
The First Complaint
The first complaint was about two Facebook videos Leahy posted advocating for a crossing guard at the Dryden and Brookwood Boulevard intersection, near St. Matthew the Evangelist Catholic School. He said the road has a history of motor accidents, including a vehicle that struck a boy less than 10 years old last October 10, sending him to hospital.
Leahy said he had previously proposed a motion to station a crossing guard at the intersection. Council defeated the motion, claiming it would be unsafe to assign a crossing guard to a street with a speed limit of 60kmh or more. After learning the intersection actually had a speed limit of 50kmh, Leahy said he videotaped his discovery and posted the video to Facebook encouraging community members to support the motion.
Leahy said he corrected council about the speed limit at the intersection, but instead of adding a crossing guard, they raised the speed limit to 60kmh. It was not until later, when a group of residents rallied, said Leahy, that council lowered the speed limit to 40kmh and designated a crossing guard, Leahy said.
“I don’t think I’m making people look bad with facts,” says the councillor, who added that all of the content in the Facebook videos was public information.
Bruce Springsteen and Law & Order
In one of the videos, Leahy said he played an excerpt from Dancing In the Dark by Bruce Springsteen to encourage residents to support the motion to add a crossing guard. The other video contained the iconic Law & Order opening theme song emphasizing an increased speed limit at the intersection. According to the commissioner’s report, these selections dramatized the information presented and “strongly suggest wrong-doing by staff”.
“If I had not done the follow-up videos, the original response from staff was ‘we cannot do it’,” countered Leahy.
He disagrees with claims he encouraged distrust towards town staff. In an email to his colleagues last November 3, he wrote that after hearing about the concerns from the community about the request for a crossing guard, he assured them that the council’s mislabelling of the speed limit on the street was an ‘honest mistake’. However, the Integrity Commissioner made no mention of this, claimed Leahy adding: “I provided this as evidence to show that I don’t believe I’m mistreating staff.”
Leahy contends that criticisms about the songs in his videos are overblown. “Quoting Bruce Springsteen, ‘you can’t light a fire without a spark’. I’m trying to incite people to come to a meeting to speak to their elected representatives.”
I Did Nothing Wrong
Leahy insists his main priority was turning the intersection into a safer place for students.
Another one of Leahy’s concerns had to do with the fact that the commissioner’s report never asked him to take the videos down. “If the video is so egregious and so terrible, why is the remedy not to take it down?”
Looking back at the situation, Leahy says he would not have done anything differently, seeing nothing wrong with the way he made his videos. “I fundamentally believe that everyone has the ability to express themselves in the way that they want.”
“A cynic would say that I am being punished because I am a threat to the mayor in the upcoming election, or because I am a fan of Law & Order theme music, Bruce Springsteen, and I want to keep our community safe for children, but I am an optimist, and I believe when residents see the video, they will judge me appropriately,” said Leahy while encouraging town residents to watch the Facebook videos on his website.
The Second Complaint
The other complaint in the Integrity Commissioner’s report says Leahy was disrespectful and hostile at the town’s BIA Christmas Market on November 15 last year when speaking to a staff member from the town’s public affairs department about not being included in a promotional video about the new hospital in Whitby.
Leahy recounts selling hamburgers and hot dogs with his local charity to raise money for the Special Olympics. He said when the staffer approached to buy something, Leahy spoke with her about how he missed the first message about being a part of the promotional video, and asked if they could make a new video with him included. He says he thought the interaction was positive. “It just didn’t happen the way that it’s described”.
Leahy Versus The Council
Leahy and Mayor Elizabeth Roy and her council have been at loggerheads for some time now, trading charges and counter-charges.
A recent statement from the Town of Whitby mentions residents receiving a series of robocalls allegedly spreading intentional misinformation, and asking whether they would vote for Mayor Elizabeth Roy or Councillor Leahy for mayor.
Leahy said he was not involved in conducting the survey.
With regard to potential resolutions to the ongoing frictions within the town council, Leahy said that kindness and understanding are important. “I think a lot of it just comes down to respect and communication”.