{"id":4657,"date":"2013-11-20T17:49:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T22:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4657"},"modified":"2013-12-04T13:33:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T18:33:29","slug":"former-councillors-continue-testimony-in-buck-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/former-councillors-continue-testimony-in-buck-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Former councillors continue testimony in Buck lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Testimony continues this week in Councillor Evelyn Buck\u2019s lawsuit against former mayor Phyllis Morris, along with two sitting and three former councillors. <\/p>\n

Testimony began Wednesday with former councillor Alison Collins-Mrakas and continued through Friday before former deputy mayor Bob McRoberts took the stand on Monday, both called as witnesses by Councillor Buck. <\/p>\n

The two, who both served on the 2006 \u2013 2010 term of Council, painted similarly contentious views of their terms. <\/p>\n

Mr. McRoberts, a retired math teacher, characterized it as an \u201ceye opener\u201d compared to his time in the education system. It was his educational experience, he said, that if one disagreed with another at a particular meeting one would go back to working with that person once the meeting was over. <\/p>\n

\u201cI did not find that to be the case in my Council experience,\u201d he said, stating it seemed \u201cgrudges\u201d were being held. \u201cWe were a fairly new Council \u2013 five of the nine of us never held positions on Council before \u2013 and I would use the word \u2018dysfunctional\u2019 to describe us.\u201d
\nAlthough he said there were a number of issues that went smoothly, things could be equally \u201cstrained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casting his mind back, the lawyer for Councillor Buck, walked him through the early days of when this matter got stated, beginning with the installation of Aurora\u2019s Code of Conduct through the development of a complaint \u2013 formal and otherwise \u2013 against the Councillor. <\/p>\n

Mr. McRoberts stated his \u201csurprise\u201d his name had been added to a motion calling on Aurora to hire a lawyer to \u201cinvestigate\u201d Councillor Buck\u2019s blog postings when he had not been present at the meeting in question. <\/p>\n

He also said he opposed taking things further on an \u201cinformal\u201d complaint against the Councillor because a \u201c23 page opinion\u201d tendered by the lawyer struck him as \u201csomething not quite informal.\u201d A primary bone of contention was confidentiality in complaints, a principle enshrined in governing documents pertaining to matters of integrity and ethics, were breached when a statement of complaint was read in public at the Council table, published in two local newspapers, and posted on the Town\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfidentiality is a big factor to be upheld,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought inappropriate steps had been taken. We seemed to be accusing Councillor Buck of wrongdoing before the assessor of any wrongdoing was brought into play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar views were shared earlier in the trial by Ms. Collins-Mrakas. Early in the game, Mr. MacDonald introduced her credentials to the jury, which included her role as head of research ethics for York University. She described Councillor Buck as \u201cforceful\u201d and \u201copinionated\u201d who has \u201cstrength of conviction\u201d, and although they often disagree, they are still friends. <\/p>\n

On the last term of Council, she described her experience as \u201cmentally, emotionally and physically exhausting, as well as \u201ctoxic\u201d in its interactions.
\nAs to the issue at hand, she said she believed Codes of Conduct to be \u201cprimarily educative\u201d as guidelines rather than a set of rules with punitive consequences. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018it would not do what you think it would do,\u2019\u201d she said, recounting a conversation on the development of the code with Evelina MacEachern. \u201cI believe people misunderstand the purpose of what a code of conduct is. People seem to think it is a Thor\u2019s Hammer to smash down dissent and the penalties associated with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she did not endorse the complaint in question because the proper \u201cprocess\u201d was not followed, and also questioned the nature of the complaint itself. <\/p>\n

In his cross examination, David Boghosian, lawyer for the defence, tried to poke holes in Ms. Collins-Mrakas\u2019 testimony as well as her motives for being there. He said she was on the stand out of \u201chatred\u201d for Ms. Morris and Ms. MacEachern, but she countered she had been subpoenaed to \u201cstate the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his argument, Mr. Boghosian underscored close ties between Ms. Collins-Mrakas both with Councillor Buck and incumbent Mayor Geoffrey Dawe, including her work on the latter\u2019s election campaign. <\/p>\n

While she contended Codes of Conduct were primarily educative, he stated this was not the case in practice with student codes at York University where cases often went beyond mere guidelines. <\/p>\n

He then turned to Hervey v. Morris, in which Aurora resident George Hervey accused Ms. Morris of breaching the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, a claim she successfully defended. <\/p>\n

Mr. Boghosian highlighted what he stated were connections with Ms. Collins-Mrakas and the development of that particular case including an \u201cactive\u201d attempt \u201cto recruit a person to be an applicant\u201d in the matter. <\/p>\n

This was a claim Ms. Collins-Mrakas disputed, stating she said it was \u201cunfortunate\u201d it had to be a private citizen to bring up a lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Mr. Boghosian contended blog posts by Councillor Buck accused the then Town Solicitor of not \u201cfollowing the ethics and standards of his professional governing body\u201d, in criticizing municipal employees, a tone Ms. Collins-Mrakas agreed could be seen as \u201caccusatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

As The Auroran went to press Tuesday, Mr. McRoberts was due to continue his testimony, along with Town Clerk John Leach. Mr. Boghosian is expected to make his case for Ms. Morris and the co-defendants later this week. <\/p>\n

EVIDENCE AT ISSUE<\/strong> <\/p>\n

As The Auroran went to press, both sides awaited a decision from Justice Edwards on whether a report from Aurora\u2019s first Integrity Commissioner, David Nitkin, would be admissible as evidence. <\/p>\n

His report, which dismissed complaints against Councillor Buck as merely \u201cpolitical\u201d before his contract as Commissioner was terminated, was mentioned by Ms. Buck\u2019s lawyer in his opening statement. Although Ms. Morris\u2019 lawyer did not raise an objection to it at the time, he did so once witnesses were underway. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the most important document in this case because it is from the only person who was in a position to make that statement,\u201d argued Mr. MacDonald. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a situation [if it is not admitted] where we hear all about Mr. Mascarin\u2019s views but not at all from the Integrity Commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countered Mr. Boghosian: \u201cOf my six clients, I can tell you that he met with one of them \u2013 Al Wilson \u2013 for any period of time. He has got a very incomplete view of what this case was about and there were people putting speculative ideas into his head. It is not reliable because there is no indication Mr. Nitkin did a balanced investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Testimony continues this week in Councillor Evelyn Buck\u2019s lawsuit against former mayor Phyllis Morris, along with two sitting and three former councillors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1d7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 23:48:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}