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The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by council for the Township of Lanark Highlands that relied on the exception for solicitor-client privilege to discuss financial software on a municipal-wide basis. During the closed session, council received written legal advice on several topics. There was no legal advice received on the financial software. The municipality suggested that the discussion about the software was merely incidental to its consideration of legal advice received on another topic. The Ombudsman found that council’s discussion about the financial software was neither brief or incidental to its discussion about the legal advice. Therefore, that portion of council’s discussion did not fit within the solicitor-client privilege exception.
The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by council for the Township of Lanark Highlands which relied on the exception for solicitor-client privilege to discuss the municipality’s staff-council communication structure. During the closed session, council discussed written legal advice from the municipality’s solicitor that touched upon several matters. The Ombudsman found that council’s discussion generally focused on the legal opinion, however several times council’s discussion went beyond the written legal advice and into other matters. The Ombudsman found that the portion of council’s discussion beyond the written legal advice did not fit within the solicitor-client privilege exception.
The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by council for the Township of Lanark Highlands to discuss a number of items. The Ombudsman found that the minutes for the in camera discussion were sparse, with only the topics of the discussion listed. The Ombudsman recommended that the municipality improve its record keeping practices by ensuring that the minutes include reference to the location of the meeting, the start and end time of the meeting, attendance, a detailed description of the substantive and procedural matters discussed, motions, and all votes taken.
The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by council for the Township of Lanark Highlands to discuss involvement of a council member in the financial administration of the township. The meeting was closed using the personal matters exception. The Ombudsman found that generally, discussions of a council member’s actions in the course of their duties are considered to be of a professional nature. However, the in camera discussion about the council member touched upon information that was speculative and also involved scrutiny of the councillor’s conduct that went beyond their official capacity as a member of council. The Ombudsman found that the discussion fit within the personal matters exception.