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No politicking for delegations to council

Residents upset with Mayor Rick Green may want him to resign, but they cannot use a council meeting for that purpose.
10305langleyDhamiSukhi
Sukhi Dhami

Residents upset with Mayor Rick Green over the findings in the Lidstone Report may want him to resign, but they cannot use a council meeting for that purpose.

On Monday afternoon, council voted 5-2 to prevent Sukhi Dhami from appearing as a delegation at the evening meeting.

In his written delegation request, Dhami questioned the mayor’s “ethical and moral ability to fulfill the role of mayor.”

Two other residents, Kitty Tomik and Dave Eddleston, sought permission to speak about Dhami’s presentation. They were denied.

Indicating their concern that Dhami’s presentation was linked to the election rather than the Township’s governance, Mayor Green and Councillors Steve Ferguson, Mel Kositsky, Bob Long and Grant Ward rejected his request. Only Councillors Charlie Fox and Bev Dornan supported it.

Councillor Kim Richter was not present as she is in Ottawa for the funeral of her mother.

When he appeared as a delegation before council in July, Dhami accused Green of being “abrasive and disrespectful.”

Dhami, who claimed then that he had “strongly supported” Green’s bid for the mayor’s chair in the 2008 election, ran unsuccessfully for a seat as a councillor in the same election.

At that July meeting, he stood before Green and accused the mayor of “inviting” the police investigation into his conduct as a result of his “governance methods and actions as mayor.”

A special prosecutor assigned to examine an RCMP probe into Green’s conduct found that there would be little likelihood of a conviction if Green was charged.

Later in July, Dhami, who worked on Green’s 2008 campaign, organized a rally calling for Green’s resignation. The event fizzled when only a handful of supporters showed up.

Last week, council released a report by lawyer Don Lidstone in which he said that Green misled council and three legal counsel.