By Gerry Barker
February 5, 2020
Opinion
Part Two
Here are 41 facts that the three-year city financed lawsuit against a private citizen proves nothing but a wanton waste of public money. It also reveals important pieces of evidence of a conspiracy by senior officials no longer employed and a compliant city council approving the financing the legal costs of one employee who was fired. He was the one who launched a defamation lawsuit against blogger Gerry Barker in November 20116.
These facts support how the abuse of political power exercised by the City of Guelph administration that has blown the doors off the public’s right to know its business. Accountability, transparency and open government are ignored most of the time.
It’s a secret society, self-absorbed and devoid of fair comment and freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights.
But judge for yourself. Read the facts and discover how people we elected have wasted your tax dollars on a mindless denial of our rights in an inverted action of revenge.
The Royal City no longer translates into Camelot
FACT 1 – For the record, my wife and I are residents of the City of Guelph.
FACT 2 – In 2016, I wrote 10 blog posts as outlined Deputy Chief Administrative Officer (DCAO) Mark Amorosi’s statement of claim that he sued me for defamation. The posts were critical of his role in secretly concealing a total of $98,202 salary increases shared by three senior executives, including Mr. Amorosi.
FACT 3 – These increases were awarded December 10, 2015 in a closed-session of city council.
FACT 4 – It has never been revealed whether these increases were paid retroactively for 2015 or were received throughout the year before the approval.
FACT 5 -I was served in August 2016 with a demand to apologize to Mark Amorosi for publishing posts on guelphspeaks.ca, critical of the city administration for concealing senior staff salary increases for 2015 to 2019.
FACT 6 – The Toronto lawyer representing Mr. Amorosi, Mark MacKinnon, wrote the demand for an apology. The terms included that he would write it. He demanded that it had to be posted at the top of the guelphspeaks blog for 30 days. This demand was rejected.
FACT 6 – Mr. MacKinnon also stated to my counsel that if I refused, he would recommend legal action.
FACT 8 – On November 15, 2016, Mr. Amorosi announced on the front page of the Mercury Tribune newspaper that he was suing Barker for $500,000 based on defamation as a result of the alleged critical posts on his blog. Amorosi stated in the article that the City of Guelph was paying his legal expenses.
FACT 9 – In January 2017, Mr. Barker requested a copy of the minutes of the Dec. 10 closed-session meeting of council, and it was denied in April with no explanation.
FACT 10 – On February 9, 2017, Mr. Amorosi was fired as published in the Mercury Tribune newspaper. He did not physically leave city employment until February 20.
FACT 11- The day before his dismissal, city Solicitor Donna Jaques resigned to take a job with the Northland Railroad.
FACT 12 – Three major media outlets described Amorosi’s departure as being “fired.” The Mercury Tribune that also described the departure as being fired joined them.
FACT 13 – In a sworn statement Mr. Amorosi testified that “he agreed to leave” when confronted with an inadvertent release from the Information Technology department. It forwarded some 50,000 confidential emails to a third party representing a fired employee, Chief Building Inspector, Bruce Poole. Mr. Poole sued the city for $1 million for wrongful dismissal. Mr. Amorosi was in charge of that IT department and it formed the basis of his dismissal.
FACT 14 – the Poole lawsuit was settled following the return of the missing files. Terms were never disclosed.
FACT 15 – In September 2015, Ms. Pappert requested that she receive payment of her unused sick day and vacation benefits from the Human Resources department. That department was under Mr. Amorosi’s responsibilities and three months before the salary increases to the senior managers was approved Dec. 10 in closed-session.
FACT 16 – On March 31, 2016, the 2015 provincial Sunshine List was published. The public learned of the three senior managers shared salary increases of $98,202. The province publishes the List composed of all public employees in the province earning more than $100,000 a year, not including taxable benefits.
FACT 17 – For unknown reasons, the city publishes its own “Sunshine List” each December but does not include the salaries of the senior managers.
FACT 18 – Of the three recipients, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Ann Pappert, who received an increase of $37,000 taking her 2015 salary to $257,000, a 16.8 per cent increase? Much of that increase was a retroactive performance bonus of $27,000.
FACT 19 – This information about Ms.Pappert’s 2015 compensation was revealed in August 2016.
FACT 20- Ms. Pappert’s compensation as Chief Executive Officer of Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc. for four years has never been revealed.
FACT 21 – DCAO’s Mark Amorosi and Derrick Thomson shared the balance. Amorosi’s 2015 salary increased 14 per cent to $209, 000.
FACT 22 – Derrick Thomson received an increase of 19 per cent taking his 2015 salary to more than $207,000.
FACT 23 – The three senior managers cost the city in 2015, $673,000 plus some $22,000 in taxable benefits. That figure does not include the $181,000 paid to DCAO Al Horsman who worked for eight months and took a job as CAO of Sault Ste. Marie.
FACT 24 – CAO Ann Pappert resigned in April 2016. DCAO Thomson resigned in January 2016 but was rehired in May to replace Ms. Pappert who left her job May 26, 2016.
FACT 25- Colleen Clack replaced Thomson as chief of Public Services. At the time her salary was $142,000. She was later promoted to DCAO.
FACT 26 – When the 2016 Sunshine List was published in March 2017, former employee Ms. Pappert was paid $263,000 for five months work in 2016.
FACT 27 – The new CAO announced details of his three-year contract, which included a salary of $230,000 plus $11,000 taxable benefit for using his personal car for city business.
FACT 28 – In March 2019, Derrick Thomson “parted ways with the city” for reasons unknown today. When the 2018 Sunshine list was published, Mr. Thomson’s salary was $335,000. In just two and a half years on the job, Mr. Thomson earned $100,000 more than his stated 2016 three-year salary of $230,000.
FACT 29 – Mayor Cam Guthrie explained that Mr. Thomson was given a $67,000 performance bonus for his work on giving away Guelph Hydro to Alectra Utilities. Guelph Hydro stated in its 2016 financial report that the city-owned power distribution utility had a total value of $228 million.
FACT 30- when city council approved the Hydro merger, there was $18.5 million of cash sitting on Hydro’s books to be returned to the city’s general revenues. There has been no reporting or accounting of what happened to the money, owned by the citizens.
FACT 31 – Mr. Amorosi testified under oath that city council did not approve staff salaries but it was the responsibility of the CAO. If it’s true, under the CAO Bylaw, it was CAO Thomson who approved his 2018 salary and performance bonus. If it is not true, them did Mr. Amorosi commit perjury?
FACT 32 – I requested a statement from the city in 2018 of the amount of public money that had been spent on Mr. Amorosi’s lawsuit and it was denied because the case was before the courts.
FACT 33 – From a reliable source, I learned there was another closed-session meeting of council in May 2018 to discuss the status of the Amorosi lawsuit and the legal costs to May 2018. It was reported the city paid Amorosi’s legal costs of $30,000. Without reservation, knowing what my legal costs are to date, it will be much more than that figure and counting. This is another example of the city denying and obfuscating the details that aren’t serving the public interest.
FACT 34 – The city has never explained why it is continuing this attack on one of its citizens. One who dared to criticize an issue that according to the city’s own code of conduct, that excludes open government policies, allowing accountability and transparency of the public’s business?
FACT 35 – It has cost Amorosi nothing in three years to perpetuate the city’s complicity in continuing to finance his lawsuit that is without merit.
FACT 36 – To date it has cost me $86,000 to defend myself. It’s not over yet.
FACT 37– The city administration has never cooperated or acknowledged details of that December 10, 2015 closed-session meeting of council. It approved the three senior staff increases. In that same month, in another closed-session, council approved a bylaw indemnifying any employee or elected officials by paying their legal costs if facing a legal proceeding against them.
FACT 38 – I did not sue Mr. Amorosi, he sued me, or I didn’t fire him or, in his submission made to the judge in 2019 that he was unable to get a job because of what I had written about him in 2016.
FACT 39 – Two independent individuals searched Mr. Amorosi’s name on the Internet. There was only one of my posts on the site but references to his dismissal from the city dominated the site.
FACT 40 – Since August 2016, the same lawyer has represented Mr. Amitosis.
FACT 41 – CAO Ann Pappert who left the city in May 2016 recommended the indemnification bylaw in December 2015.
SUMNARY
These are facts. They represent a major attack by a city council on a private citizen for unfounded reasons.
The cost to the citizens of Guelph including me, the defendant, is being covered-up by the administration.
I have never been found guilty of defaming Mark Amoroso.
After more than three years of costly litigation the end is nowhere in sight. So far, the lawyers are ahead, 180 to 0 for the city and its citizens who are paying the legal costs.
It can only end when the citizens demand it. This legal procedure was started by the city administration that financed all the legal costs of the Amorosi lawsuit.
It’s up to the administration to end this
Our taxes, fees and services are way out of line with comparable communities. It has been like that for the past 13 years. That’s the main reason that our costs of living in Guelph keep increasing every year. Just remember the promise made by Cam Guthrie in 2014 that he would keep the property tax annual increase equal to the rate of inflation.
That promise went out the window with his first budget for 2015 when the final rate was 3.96 per cent. The Consumer Price Index for 2014 stated the inflation rate for Canada was 1.1 per cent.
So if you are satisfied with the way your city is being managed, with respect, you should start researching how this city has arbitrarily increased its operating cost and capital spending to build needed projects, such as a new central library, the South End Community Centre to name just two.
Two project that leap out and are under way or recently completed, the new Maintenance Campus for Guelph Transit and the Parkade on Wilson Street next door to City Hall. Both these projects on the surface seem important but strikingly inclusive of staff needs.
There has been too much waste of resources, mismanagement, not to mention the millions lost including Urbacon, GMHI, environmental services, downtown, dodgy deferred taxes and development breaks to developers, to name a few emptying the city till.
If you believe that the city and we can do better then let your councillors know and demand a clean up of the administration brand of policies. Press staff and council to lower operating costs. Get rid of the deals and stop the shallow spinning of action. When the city says, that within ten years it will have spent $1,7 billion on capital funded projects, lets have some specifics including estimated costs, dates to completion and the sources of revenue to pay the bills.
This administration is overdue for a diet. Waiting three years to change the cast of characters can’t come soon enough.
I now turn this data over to the court of public opinion.
Guelph Speaks 