Conflict of interest case against Kamloops city councillor dismissed

A Kamloops city councillor has been cleared by a judge after a failed effort to have him disqualified from office.

Claims that Coun. Mike O’Reilly stood to financially gain from a new City project were dismissed in BC Supreme Court Tuesday, May 27.

Ten people filed in court last fall, arguing his own development land was too near to a new ice rink and it could gain from the project.

O’Reilly said his involvement in the multi-million dollar arena would have no effect on his own business, Comet Industries, and its industrial park a few kilometres away. He denied being in a conflict when speaking to iNFOnews.ca last summer and again when the matter landed in court.

Justice Kenneth Ball dismissed the claims, finding the disqualification petition came long after the legal limitation period of 45 days.

Based on the City’s evidence, he said one of the petitioners, Patrick Snell, knew of the arena’s location on July 30. That was three months before it was filed in court.

Even if it hadn’t passed the limitation period, Ball said the evidence from all ten petitioners, purported to support claims of a conflict of interest, were filled with conjecture, inadequate and inadmissible.

“They are all replete with statements of information and belief without stating the source of the information. These affidavits are not proper evidence before the court,” the Justice said in his decision.

Along with losing their effort to have O’Reilly disqualified, the ten petitioners, who include former city councillor Denis Walsh, were left to pay the City’s and O’Reilly’s legal costs.