Why Kamloops council won’t pay the mayor’s legal bills

The mayor of Kamloops hoped in vain council would cover his legal fees for abandoned or dismissed code of conduct investigations.

None of them were covered by the city and it has left his lawyer with $31,725 in unpaid bills. Although councillors could reimburse mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, they have so far found no justification to cover the bills.

“Not everything needs legal representation in the sense that if you are doing your job and are not acting outside the code of conduct, then you should have a comfort level that the process there is going to be deliberated and you are going to be found to not have breached the code of conduct… in that case, what did you need a lawyer for?” April’s deputy mayor Margot Middleton told iNFOnews.ca.

Lawyer Dan Coles represented Hamer-Jackson in multiple code of conduct investigations, each filed by another city councillor, for the past year. His firm Owen Bird has taken the mayor to court over outstanding invoices and that work took up the majority of the more than $50,000 Hamer-Jackson hasn’t yet paid for.

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Hamer-Jackson can ask council to reimburse the fees, which he has done, and council will decide behind closed doors whether or not to do so.

Middleton couldn’t speak to any one particular request because of closed council meeting confidentiality rules, but she did say each request is determined on a case-by-case basis. Once people directly involved in the complaint leave the room, council will discuss whether the complaint was reasonable or frivolous.

Whether the complaint was dismissed won’t necessarily mean legal fees should be covered as some investigations could be warranted even if no fault was found.

When asked what factors go into the decision, she pointed to deliberations over whether the subject of the complaint “needed” a lawyer involved in the first place.

Hamer-Jackson criticized council’s refusal to cover any of his bills, after having faced multiple investigations, as “political abuse,” especially when several of them were abandoned part way through.

Middleton, however, said council follows due process and do not presuppose the answer before debating each matter individually.

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“All deliberation to do with indemnification is done within closed,” she said. “But, I will say council is still committed to following due process, rules of law (and) rules of governance.”

Asked about the suggestion he wouldn’t need a lawyer in all cases, Hamer-Jackson disagreed.

“They spent $300,000 on lawyers to come after me and I’m not supposed to get a lawyer?” he said, referring to the taxpayer dollars spent on code of conduct investigations so far.

Investigations found to be frivolous or without merit could lead to a reimbursement, Middleton said. Only three of the almost two dozen filed against Hamer-Jackson ended by finding fault. Some were dismissed and several were abandoned, but even those have not resulted in a refund.

Middleton did say she might consider revisiting those that were withdrawn, but she added Hamer-Jackson has a penchant to run things past lawyers routinely as a “de facto advisor” and she’s reluctant for taxpayers to foot that bill.

“If your first phone call every time something’s presented to you is to your lawyer, you should be prepared to pay for that advice,” she said.

One thing that’s also not clear is whether any other councillor brought in their own lawyer when faced with a code of conduct investigation. Only a few have been on the receiving end of such a complaint, but because the decision over whether to reimburse legal fees is confidential, Middleton wouldn’t comment.

Owen Bird’s petition to have a judge preside over the unpaid bills is scheduled for court in August, but Hamer-Jackson said he will continue to pay what he can, adding that he never intended to abandon the payments.