Friday, June 7, 2019 ~ COLWOOD [updated 3 pm & 8 pm]
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
In a five-hour special meeting of council on Thursday evening June 6, Colwood Council brought significant pressure upon Councillor Cynthia Day for her words and actions as occurred during a December 2018 dispute over city staff removing trees and a rock wall from municipal property in front of her home.
Councillor Day said she felt she was protecting her rights as a citizen for peaceful protest and as for any citizen her right to public process. She said she was not serving in her duties as Councillor when defending trees and infrastructure out front of her residential property (the trees and wall were on municipal property but permission had been granted by the City several councils ago). The City had authorized removal of the trees and rock wall for safety reasons after a tree had previously fallen onto a neighbour’s property, generating a public complaint that the city decided to act upon.
However, following a series of motions in which Mayor Rob Martin and Council found Councillor Cynthia Day in breach of the city’s code of ethics over behaviour directed at city staff during the incident (and finding herself arrested by RCMP in the process), Council then used that as their basis for passing motions to censure Councillor Day for “inappropriate actions” they say resulted in “the impact of those actions on staff and our community”.
Mayor and Council then proceeded to work through a series of possible sanctions against Day. She will need to issue a written apology to city staff and is removed from at any time serving as Acting Mayor for a period of one year commencing June 6, 2019. They stopped short of barring her participation on committees or disallowing travel expenses — these two options were among the sanctions options that were listed in the agenda as a series of punishments.
Councillor Michael Baxter articulated the power of civil disobedience and that in the course of history it has usually been seen in a positive light. He felt the censure was enough, without adding sanctions to the weight of pushback from council on this one councillor.
Day is the only woman on a council that among them includes business men, engineers, police and former air force). The superficial optics of that were not particularly good, with the heavy-handed approach of ‘men in suits’ supported with austere legal counsel seated to the left hand of the mayor, delivering an unrelenting series of assessments and judgments against the only woman among them. In what felt like and operated as a quasi-judicial process, one wonders if things would have felt different or produced different results if the accused had been male.
Mayor Martin said it would take time for trust to be rebuilt following this extended incident of Day’s actions. Indeed, for a member of council to be arrested and to have hurled what remained an unsubstantiated motive at staff did reflect well on the rest of council early in their first term.
Other than Martin (who served two terms as a Colwood councillor before the October 2018 election), and Councillor Day and Councillor Gordie Logan (both who have served several terms on council), the rest of council is brand new to elected politics. In December they were still finding their footing and tempo; this incident didn’t help them establish their public image with the greatest of ease.
Councillors Logan, Dean Jantzen and Doug Kobayashi articulated the higher calling of being an elected councillor, saying elected officials are held to a higher expectation of example to the community.
It should be noted that it was by way of TV and radio media that most of Day’s comments were heard by the public on and around December 3 and 5, 2018. Clips of live-action news coverage by CHEK News and CTV News as well as an interview on CFAX Radio were presented as evidence. Day’s call to using media as a way to garner public empathy or support was effectively held against her.
Councillor Day had a representative beside her at the council table (Bill McElroy), as well as her husband Tim providing technical support regarding the Days’ residential property on Charnley Place. Day repeated her point during discussion of almost every point and motion that she had acted as a private citizen — not in her role as Councillor — when protecting the trees and rock wall on her property that were in fact authorized by the city over two decades ago.
Day was calm and articulate throughout, defending her position with dignity during what was really quite an extensive bombardment of disapproval from her peers.
It was gracious that Councillor Day herself voted in favour of the motion that requests her apology to staff. But for those who know her, not really a surprise. Day has proven over many years to be fully respectful of and responsive to her community.
The entire affair which included many in-camera council meetings, production of extensive documentation by staff, attention from the media, and friction at council meetings, serves to highlight an important dynamic in modern political reality: what are the boundaries between the role of elected official and their personal or private life and rights of citizenry.
There is already a challenge to finding people willing to serve in politics. This whole incident brings into focus the sacrifices and limitations ending up with impact on individuals who choose to serve their community. To what extent do our societal roles impact our personal liberties?
About 40 members of the public attended the meeting, including former Colwood Mayor Dave Saunders, an active RCMP officer, residents and neighbours. Four staff actively participated in the meeting including the Corporate Officer and the acting Chief Administrative Officer. Colwood Communications Manager Sandra Russell — whose comment on the situation was covered by broadcast media in December 2018 — attended in the audience.
The meeting in air conditioned council chambers ran from 7 pm to just after midnight, with one 10-minute recess. Proceedings of the meeting were digitally recorded.