In a split vote, Trail city council has passed a motion of non-confidence in Mayor Lisa Pasin, a move she calls “retaliatory, vexatious and vindictive.”
The motion was introduced Monday by councillor Robert Cacchioni, who laid out a number of grievances.
“It’s not something I really want to do, but it’s something I think is necessary in terms of what occurred,” he said.
Cacchioni pointed to a meeting last month where Pasin took issue with Cacchioni providing information to councillor Colleen Jones to prepare her to succeed him as the city’s regional district representative.
Pasin argued that any mentoring should not have taken place until after council voted on a replacement.
“I believe she sought to embarrass both myself and councillor Jones,” Cacchioni said.
At the same meeting in March, councillor Sandy Santori questioned his colleagues about an unauthorized recording of a closed meeting. Cacchioni said Pasin did nothing to stop what he perceived to be an “assault” and that her “lack of control of meetings has … severely damaged the relationship between council members.”
Cacchioni also said he feels he was treated unfairly in being removed from committee and acting mayor positions following a confrontation with former city manager David Perehudoff at a Jan. 28, 2021 council meeting. In response, Perehudoff filed a code of conduct complaint against Cacchioni and subsequently left the city after reaching a settlement.
Cacchioni said his removal from various positions came well before he was found to have breached the code toward Perehudoff, but after he and other councillors filed similar complaints against Pasin and Santori, neither stepped down or was removed from their committee appointments.
Monday’s non-confidence motion passed with the support of councillors Eleanor Gattafoni Robinson, Carol Dobie, and Colleen Jones, although Jones indicated she would have preferred to abstain.
The motion was also adopted despite a warning from corporate administrator Michelle McIsaac, who said it was impossible for staff to provide advice on the consequences of the motion, given that it came without any advance notice.
She said it would be “inappropriate” to pass the motion without some background work being done for council to ensure procedural fairness. However, Cacchioni said his motion simply expressed an opinion.
“We’re not asking for you to resign or any other actions,” Cacchioni told Pasin. “We’re not sanctioning anybody. I’m simply saying I have no confidence in you.”
The other three councillors who voted in favour did not speak to the motion specifically, although Jones said she thought it was a “bad move” for council to pass it without knowing the ramifications.
Although he voted against it, Santori said he didn’t think delaying a vote would achieve anything and didn’t want to devote any staff resources into looking into it: “Just pass the motion. You hate Lisa. You hate me. For the record. There it is. Let’s go. I’m hungry.”
Pasin did not comment on the motion at the meeting and is declining interviews on the subject, but provided a prepared statement in which she called the non-confidence motion a “calculated ambush” on her office and an “assault” on her “personal and professional standing.”
“Their actions are the latest example of playground politics at its worst,” she wrote. “It is an
embarrassment for the City of Trail to have four of our elected officials acting in this manner.
“Their actions create a toxic work environment for city staff, damage the reputation of the City of Trail and have far reaching impacts on us all.”
Pasin said the councillors who passed the motion “haven’t been able to move on” after Cacchioni was found to have violated council’s code of conduct.
“They continue to engage in retaliatory behaviour that further degrades the reputation of our
amazing city,” she said.
“Through this high level of harassment at the hands of certain council members, I remain
committed to the well-being of our staff and our community, investing my time and attention to issues that matter to our taxpayers.”
A third-party investigator found Pasin and Santori breached council’s code of conduct in their words and actions toward Cacchioni at closed meetings last June.
