An unapologetic Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach was formally reprimanded tonight by Mayor Shoemaker after council voted seven-to-three to admonish Kinach for using 'inappropriate' language criticizing city staff.
At one point tonight, the mayor cut off Kinach's microphone when he started asking about an alleged friendship between city clerk Rachel Tyczinski and Antoinette Blunt, the integrity commissioner who ruled he had broken the city's code of conduct and recommended he be reprimanded.
Surprisingly, Kinach voted in favour of reprimanding himself, joining all councillors except Ward 4's Marchy Bruni, Ward 1's Sonny Spina and Ward 5's Matthew Scott, who were unwilling to sit in judgment of one of their own.
Kinach told the meeting he originally tried to write an apology, but found he was unable to read it aloud to himself, never mind at a city council meeting.
Why did he raise his hand to support his own reprimand?
Kinach said it was he who went to the integrity commissioner for advice after his remarks at a council meeting on March 18 were challenged.
"One of my steps in this whole process was to do a request for advice because it was going to be cheaper and with the same result than doing an actual investigation," he told his fellow councillors.
Here's the full text of Mayor Shoemaker's reprimand:
We've said a lot already tonight about the conduct in question from a couple of weeks ago.
You say so yourself, that you'd be more polished and courteous in your words.
That's all we're asking you to do.
I think that, had you simply said that as part of an apology here tonight it would have saved us some kind of deliberation of this matter.
Nobody is keen on having to go through this process and essentially act as judges on on this breach of the code of conduct, but that's the position we've been put in.
And I encourage you to continue questioning staff. Absolutely.
I don't want to make it seem as though there is any restriction on your ability to do so.
But when you do so, come at it from the position that they must be treated with respect.
When Kinach started questioning the city clerk about a social media post, Shoemaker cautioned him that identities of individuals who complain to the integrity commissioner are treated confidentially.
"It would never become public and you're not going to extract it from questioning tonight," the mayor said.
Kinach persisted and Shoemaker directed that his microphone be shut off.
"No, no, your mic is off. I control the microphones in the room," the mayor told him.
"You're going to get yourself in much more serious trouble. This is something that you said, that was off the cuff – a little bit over the line.
"It probably didn't go that far, in terms of the seriousness. But what you are going down the path of is much more serious, and there will be absolutely no entertaining of it.
"And frankly, you need to learn your role better because this is not your role. We are here to discuss what the consequences will be for the breach the integrity commissioner found from your comments at the last meeting, and that is what we're deciding.
"If you have questions about that process, we will entertain them. But if you're going to get into a cross-examination to try and figure out how that all came about, it's not happening."
When Shoemaker switched on Kinach's microphone to allow him some final remarks, the councillor said only this: "I'd just like to bring to the attention of council, in the integrity commissioner's report, my name is spelled incorrect. Thank you."