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10 - The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday March 29, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com System in place for closed door complaints By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF In the future if anyone wants to question whether a closed municipal or board meeting held in Oakville was legitimate, they can contact Local Authority Services Ltd. (LAS). The independent company, which already provides investigative services for closed meetings in the Region of Halton, Burlington and Milton, was selected to hold a similar role in Oakville, last week, during a meeting of the Town's Administrative Services Committee. The appointment, which was approved by council on Tuesday, will mean that whenever a person feels the Town did not act lawfully by closing a meeting to the public, that person could call on LAS to begin an investigation. A filing fee of $125 would need to be paid by the complainant to initiate the investigation, however, this fee would be refunded if the complaint turned out to be valid. The need to hire LAS to carry out potential closed meeting investigations came as a result of provincial legislation passed on Jan. 1, requiring all municipalities to facilitate an investigator's introduction. The new legislation is aimed at making the inner workings of municipalities and boards more transparent to the pub- lic and while Town Council has no problem with this there are concerns about the investigations and, in particular, with how easily they can be triggered. Excluding expenses and the retainer fee, LAS would charge $1,250 per day to investigate a closed meeting complaint. The complainant would only have to pay $125 to bring forward. Committee members see the potential for tremendous abuse and called upon staff to examine the possibility of establishing some kind of cost-recovery measures into the complaint process where if a person initiated an investigation through, what turned out to be, a frivolous complaint, that person would have to pay the cost of the investigation. Staff noted that LAS will look into the feasibility of incorporating this costrecovery process. Despite the high cost of LAS providing investigative services into closed meetings, LAS is still seen as the preferable choice. While the Ontario Ombudsman's Office would investigate closed door meeting complaints for free, taking that route would mean council would lose the ability to determine the duties of the closed meeting investigator. Using the Ontario Ombudsman's Office as an investigator would also mean that council would not be able to establish procedures for closed meeting investigations and investigations might not be as timely. CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET · · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET · CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET · · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD HUNDREDS OF AREA RUGS CARPET & AREA RUG CLEARANCE Clearing HARDWOOD CLEARANCE Selected in stock colours starting @ only Persian, Indian, Chinese, Designer, Silks, Samples and Discontinued Rugs Carpet Clearance Hard-wearing Berber Starting @ only $1.69 sq. ft. Nylon Plushes starting @ $1.99* sq. ft. $3.99* sq. ft. Super Special 48oz Hard Twist only $2.99 sq. ft. includes installation and underpad Additional 50% Off already low sale prices on... Discontinued Area Rugs, Designer Rugs & Samples, & one-of-a-kind Persian Rugs In 6 colours. Installed for only Elegant 8.3mm Plank Style Laminate $3.99* sq. ft. *Sale applies to in stock colours only. Offer good at the following locations. Outlet Store ­ Trafalgar Village 125 CROSS AVENUE Huge Super Store ­ 228 King St. E. DOWNTOWN HAMILTON 905-849-4472 905-546-1921 · CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET · ORIENTAL RUGS · VINYL · HARDWOOD · CERAMICS · CARPET ·