Deep River council is considering a new policy that would allow staff to place restrictions on the way they deal with complaints by local residents, if those complaints are deemed to be “frivolous, vexatious or unreasonable.”
The policy would also impose a fee of $250 to file a complaint with the town’s integrity commissioner.
The fee can be waived in cases of “financial hardship,” and may be fully refunded if the complaint is found to have merit.
The draft policy comes after two reports to council last year.
In May 2024, council received an invoice for $12,150 for the work of integrity commissioner Guy Giorno in responding to a conflict of interest complaint against three members of council.
In a 32-page report, Giorno sided with the council members and declined to pursue the complaint further.
As a followup, council received a report last October showing that over the previous 10 years, the town had dealt with 37 applications related to legislated complaint processes, costing the municipality an estimated $325,000.
That figure was broken down into $195,000 for legal costs and $130,000 for the 2,000 hours of staff time in dealing with the applications.
Of the 37 applications, meanwhile, just two were found to have any merit.
The report also noted that, of the 37 applications, approximately half of them came from “one source.”
In a report to council on this week’s agenda, staff say the aim of a “frivolous, vexatious, unreasonable requests” policy is to support the town’s commitment to “service excellence and good governance by addressing all requests and complaints equitably and efficiently.”
“Having mechanisms in place to mitigate frivolous, vexatious, or unreasonable requests that place an added unnecessary burden on taxpayers, an operational burden on staff that consume a disproportionate amount of time and resources… will provide effective, efficient and economical services to taxpayers, as well as a respectful, tolerant and harassment-free workplace”…
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