Councillor Jennifer Watts has issued the following statement:
I am making this statement as a Halifax Regional Councillor and as a resident of this municipality. I deeply and sincerely apologize for my role in the unfolding of the events that took place with the enforcement of the eviction of Occupy NS on Nov. 11 in Victoria Park.
I supported and still agree with the decision to enforce the municipal park bylaw. But I did not speak clearly about how this process could have been enforced in a manner that was respectful of the significance of Remembrance Day and considered alternative resolution strategies in dealing with the residents protesting in Victoria Park.
It is possible to stand behind the position that this was an operational issue for which I have no responsibility but I will not do that. I believe that my inaction was a serious error in judgment on my part for which I sincerely apologize.
I would like to thank all residents who have contacted me about this issue. I have appreciated your honesty and frankness and I will work to provide answers to the questions you have asked about this event.
While any regret from councillors for the eviction is welcome, I still think Watts misses the larger point: agreeing to any eviction of the Occupiers, without first consulting and bargaining in good faith with the Occupiers, necessarily resulted in the heavy-handed approach taken by city officials.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.
Running scared.
As are Hum, Mosher, Uteck and Sloane. Blumenthal is quiet and may undecided about 2012.
Too many people chasing too few seats in the 2012 election, with 3 seats on the peninsula and 5 candidates.
The reaction to Victoria Park de-tenting would be a lot different if 22 seats were up for grabs instead of the 16.
Toss in the Kelly haters and party politics and your have a fleeing from responsibility and glee at the pain visited upon Kelly.
I didn’t vote for him in 2008 and won’t in 2012 but I can see the scared councillors running away like rats deserting a sinking ship.
And, of course, it wasn’t an operational issue.
If it was an operational issue, there would have been no council meeting. Not secret council meeting. There would have been no “order” or “moral support”,or whatever it was they voted on. And there would have been no secret meeting last night.
Yes, the details are operational trivialities. But you let loose the dice, there are only so many ways that can play out. If you couldn’t predict the polices actions then you have no business ordering the police to do anything. It is called command responsibility.
Joeblow: Blumenthal has stated publicly on more than one occasion that he is not running for re-election.
Jeff Warnica – there is no evidence that council ordered police to do anything.
We only have the ramblings of the Mayor and Council. we do not know what happened in the ‘in camera’ meeting on November 8. We have not had a reliable description of who and what. It was an operational issue for reasons which will soon be available. I could write a whole lot more but I’ll wait and see what transpires over the next few days.
sniffy – thanks for that. I can remember Gloria telling council she wasn’t running again and didn’t care about boundary review. She changed her mind some months afterwards. My pont still stands, this is a case of councillors facing a loss of $70,000 a year in less than 12 months and they don’t want any upset voters. On this issue it is impossible to placate the opposing camps.
Mayor Kelly and all the regional councillors knew last Tuesday that HRM had no intention of letting Occupy NS return to the Grand Parade. No one told the demonstrators. Council stayed silent as the demonstrators in good faith tidied up their belongings for their temporary move to Victoria Park to allow for an orderly commemoration of Remembrance Day. Everyone on Council watched the trap being set — they may not have known exactly when the police would pounce — and said nothing.
The protestors did not take all reasonable and legal steps to prevent their eviction. Their arrogance is not a substitute for lawfullness.
Love it how after the fact the MLA’s and Councilors can second guess the goings on. I’m silently supporting their loss in their respective re-elections…
Great Value: Whether the protesters were breaking the law or not doesn’t excuse council’s behaviour. Our governing body has a hired standard to meet than that of a private group of rag-tag protesters. So let’s look at council’s approach.
1. Council broke their own procedures (or at least the spirit of them) to meet in secret, vote in secret and not release their agenda.
2. There was no agreement with the protesters, but surely you can see how the protesters believed there was one since Kelly offered them the Commons and they agreed to move for Remembrance Day. Council and Kelly were less than honest and forthright.
3. The police were sent in with very little notice, ratching up tensions. We were lucky no one was seriously hurt (protesters or cops!). An hours notice in a driving rain storm isn’t appropriate notice.
4. The taxpayers of HRM are out $100,000+ and counting in police costs over this. Had they done it on Sunday, the bill would be a lot less since they had to pay the police extra for working the holiday (extra cops were on shift). Given the approach of winter and the fracturing of the Occupy movement, had they waited another 2-3 weeks, this cost could have been a lot less.
5. Council is still hiding behind the veil of in camera secrecy. At this point, the only charge before the court is obstruction of justice (not exactly a huge charge) and that’s because the Parks Bylaw, which was used to enforce, only talks about fines. There is no substantial case here (yet). Council should have discussed this openly yesterday and left whatever confidential legal advice they received in camera. The political and governance element to the story should be discussed and not buried to protect politicians. Kudos to the 8 councillors who recognized that.
At the end of the day, I don’t object to the result. The protest seemed to be losing focus and degenerating into some sort of camp. I’m very upset though at how council, the mayor and police department conducted this though. It’s a complete fiasco from start to finish.
Jeff Warnica – Command responsibility ends at the desk of the Police Chief. And he complies with the provisions of the Police Act
The council cannot give an order to him. They convey their concerns to the Police Commission and they talk with him.
As it should be.
spaustin – re your point 5 : why should politicians be discussing charges laid by police ?
Should a group of politicians decide who gets charged, when and what charges should be laid ?
Also on point 5 – we do not have all the information that was available to the Police Chief before he decided to act.
point 3 – the police were not ‘sent in’. Any evidence to support your assertion ?
In summary – we have sparse information as to what took place in the tented areas, no knowledge of the number or nature of complaints and no knowledge of any evidence in the possession of the police. Not enough information.
Not hard to tell it’s a election next year, shove it Watts
What is with the word ‘secret’?
There is nothing secret about these meetings. The events on and after Nov 11 sufficiently informed the public about what was decided.
And, if there is ever an issue about the details discussed. The camera establishes traceability.
Furthermore, who cares if the protestors were not informed of the meeting in advance? You don’t believe that the protestors would have been invited to an in camera meeting, do you?
I agree with you Joe, council shouldn’t debate individual charges. That’s not their role and that’s not what I’m suggesting. However, council can and should certainly debate whether or not to evict the protesters since that is a political discussion. Council also should question the methods used and their own procedures (the secrecy), which weren’t followed in this instance. These are political and governance matters that should be discussed because they have implications for the current issue which is of interest to citizens and they have wider implications for the good governance of our municipality. This isn’t just a legal issue and pretending it is only protects politicians.
Regarding the police being sent in. Council voted on Tuesday to enforce the bylaw. That’s voting to send in the police. Council didn’t determine the timing, but I would be very surprised if Kelly wasn’t kept aprised. The Occupy protest was a political protest and I would be shocked if, as a result, the Chief didn’t keep Kelly in the loop. What we don’t know is who determined the timing. In our system, the mayor doesn’t have a lot of actual power, but he has great defacto power that is delivered by being elected at large. The great part about symbolic power (if you’re the mayor) is it’s there when you want to do something, like lend money to concert promoters, but it’s suddenely gone when things go sideways and someone has to take responsibility (i.e. Antsey takes the fall). You can bet that Kelly knew what was coming on Remembrance Day when the police knew and he very likely had input.
Well Value/Joe, the choice is really yours to make. I feel that our municipality is better governed when council follows its own rules (published agendas, votes in public, in camera reserved for legal matters only) and deals with everyone in an open, honest and forthright matter. I’m fine with the protesters being shown the door, but I’m really upset with how it was done. If you’re content though to have the business of our city handled in secret and the resulting loss of accountability and the potential for corruption/mismanagment that goes along with being able to hide from scrutiny when controversy arises, that’s your choice. This is about more than just this issue. The sewage treatment plant failure, the commonwealth games bid, the convention centre and the concert scandal all were surrounded with a rigid layer of secrecy. Councils approach of treating us like children has to end.
spaustin – you make good points and I agree about openess and transparency. The concert issue will be taken care of next October when we have a strong candidate on the ballot.
I am sure sure if council voted to send the police in to Victoria Park. If they did I presume the minutes will show the motion.
Don’t count on the minutes showing anything other than ‘ Council discussed their concerns regarding people camping in Victoria Park and Grand Parade’ . They don’t go into too much detail in the minutes.
Joeblow: While that would be true in general, there was a meeting. At the meeting they unanimously decided to do something. If this was just an “operational issue”, why was council involved at all? If the cops see someone speeding, they just give them a ticket, they don’t ask council for permission. They don’t “inform” council and ask for “support”, they just do it.
By-law enforcement and the cops could have acted independently. They did not. It was a political action.
Pay attention to what isn’t being said. Ok. It might not have been an “order”, but it was also not “thanks for the info; do what you have to do”. Even before the backpedaling and diving for cover, even the hardest of councilors on Friday would have said “The meeting was informational only”, and have said that consistently since then. A lot of different things have been said about the meeting, but it being purely one way information flow hasn’t been one of them.
Jennifer was a nutbar in high school and she is still a nutbar 35 years later.
Spaustin, I think you have twisted and perverted the meaning of “follow their own rules” and I will use the camera as an example.
The camera provides traceability to the meeting, and there is a procedure/policy that states the camera is to be used. But what if the camera breaks down? Traceability can be achieved by a voice recorder, or a bonded transcriptionist. A bitter person like yourself might see the use of anything other than a camera as “not following their own rules”. Most people would acknowledge the it is the traceaabilty that is the primary requirement, and the camera is merely 1 way to achieve it.
So let’s consider the acts of placing the topic on the agenda, and/or revealing the results of the meeting to the public. A bitter person like yourseld might say that they didn’t follow their own rules. Most people would agree that the results of that meeting was completely revealed to the public in a way that afforded the police and local resiedences maximum security.
The eviction was already a bit of a mess, you really think it would be good practise for city counsil to tip the police’s hand and risk having a more prepared/contemptuos group of protestors.
Imo, what you are asking is wrong, wreckless, and have a ring of ill intent to it.
Jeff Warnica – There is a missing word in the 2nd paragraph sentence of my 3.06 post . It should read ” I am NOT sure if council voted to send in the police…” .
They may have just discussed the feedback they had heard from constituents. What the CAO, the lawyer, the Mayor , the Police Chief said is not known.
Just watched Debbie Hum and she claims ‘they decided a motion was needed to issue the eviction notices’ her words.
I have no doubt that between that meeting on Tuesday and the Friday police action the councillors, the Mayor, staff and the police received phone calls about the occupiers settling in Victoria and as result decided to act on Friday.
I don’t know what the Chief said or did in the days after Tuesday. Ditto for the Mayor and the CAO.
I think we would all be better served by a full and complete description of what took place from the start of the Tuesday ‘in camera meeting’ and the police action, except for disclosure of the internal discussion and planning by the Police Department.
In a side note , the notice should have had the name of the lawyer or Police Chief. The Acting CAO has no authority in the matter. In another jurisdiction the notice is from a legal firm on behalf of the municipality.
Sorry Jen Jen your words are just a pathetic attempt to redeem yourself. You should have predicted that doing anything on this or any other day to evict vulnerable people who moved in good mature faith in part because of you is a disgrace and you and you posse should be forever attached to this disgrace.
For those of you confused….our chief of police rarely complies with the Police Act and his nefariosity is hidden by our Police Comm, and have no doubt Frankie Boy and Petey do not do anything unless they have discussed it before hand, their incestuous corruption runs long and deep I assure you
Great Value,
The phrase “in camera” is a Latin phrase meaning literally “in a chamber” and its use in this context means “in private”.
It has nothing to do with video or audio recordings.
It signifies a secret meeting.
This is Civics 101. Every citizen of a democracy should know the nuts and bolts of how elected officials, both local and national, do their jobs. I think this kind of thing should be taught in a mandatory high school course.