Coldstream Town Hall meeting -- August 21, 2008.

COLDSTREAMERNEWS:
Over 150 taxpayers attended last night’s town hall meeting in support of Leo Lecavalier and the volunteer firemen. They gave up their time to support their fellow citizens, the volunteers who sacrifice so much to ensure our safety. As promised, Councillors Firman and Malerby were also present.

Acting President Gyula Kiss outlined the role of the volunteer firemen in our community and expressed the communities gratitude for their selfless work in providing a service of major proportion to the community. He pointed out the facts that while council might have the right to dismiss the chief, according to the Coldstream Fire Department’s Constitution, membership in the fire department is under the control of the membership and not Council.

Much debate ensued. Councillor Malerby indicated that according to their solicitor. Volunteers are considered employees and must be treated as such. Deciding their termination of employment is council’s prerogative and it must be done in-camera. This statement in my opinion is incorrect as “labour relations or other employee relations” are listed under the “may be closed to the public” section of the Charter.

A number of speakers spoke glowingly of the volunteer firemen, some could barely control their emotions while reflecting on council’s treatment of the volunteers and in particular the treatment of the chief. The community showed a real appreciation of their volunteer fire department. As usual the brave Councillor who elected to attend and speak up bore the brunt of the anger of the participants. (At that time the participants did not even know of the nasty letter Leo got from Coldstream’s solicitor).

The participants passed three resolutions to be presented to Council on September 8:

1. Reinstate the chief with apologies.

2. Explain the reasons for their firing the chief so that his reputation be cleared (at the moment no one knows the actual reason and people might speculate that he did something that could be considered illegal instead of what we assume is a case of infighting between the Administrator and the chief. Due to fact that the issue was in-camera, noone can clarify the facts).

3. The resolution be presented to Council by the President of the CRPA at the September 8th meeting of Council in Lavington.

Those three resolutions passed unanimously.

As a housekeeping action, the new president and vice president of the Association were elected. President is Steve Heeren, Vice President is Peter Peto. Congratulations Steve and Peter.

The meeting adjourned at about 9:00PM.