Mayor steps away from concert cash discussion
Posted May 29, 2012 06:21:43 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Mayor Peter Kelly says he will not be in the room today when regional councillors discuss the latest report on the concert cash scandal.
In a release issued late Monday, Kelly said he would not chair or participate in the agenda item “Metro Centre Limited Liability Private and Confidential Report” at today’s meeting.
“I am sensitive to a perceived conflict of interest should I participate in or chair this portion of the Council meeting,” said Kelly in the release. “While I believe I would not contravene the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, I do not want questions about my participation to detract Council members from their focus on the recommendations before them.”
Council will be receiving a report and recommendations on unauthorized loans made from the Metro Centre’s bank account to the concert promoter.
Harold MacKay was advanced $400,000 for the Black Eyed Peas and Alan Jackson concerts on the Halifax Common, most of which has not been repaid.
Coast reporter Tim Bousquet tells News 95.7 the mayor made the right call.
“His fingerprints are all over this concert-loan scandal,” Bousquet told The Rick Howe Show Monday. “He was in the loop right from the get-go…for him to preside over this thing is just entirely inappropriate.”
The meeting is currently scheduled to be held in-camera, however councillors could vote to hold the discussion in public – something Bousquet says would be wise, given that it was secrecy that allowed the concert cash scandal to happen.
Coun. Steve Stretch (Eastern Shore – Musquodoboit Valley) said council is waiting for legal direction on whether the issue should be debated behind closed doors.
“A lot of this stuff needs to be discussed in public, but when you get into situations where there may or may not be litigation, where there are legal components and things that need to be very delicately dealt with, council need to have the ability to discuss a few things in private,” he said.
