Councillor John Ferguson holds a letter threatening legal action if doesn't apologize for comments he made.
Apologize or face lawsuit, board tells councillor
Jeff Ducharme
Telegraph-Journal
Published Monday January 15th, 2007
Appeared on page C1
The latest salvo in the battle being waged between councillor John Ferguson and the city's pension board over how the fund is being managed has been fired squarely at Ferguson. The pension board has threatened to take legal action if the councillor doesn't publicly apologize by Jan. 22 - a week from today - for comments he has made in the media and council chambers.
Ferguson received the strongly worded letter from the law firm Clark Drummie Friday. On Sunday he was quick to fire back.
"Why should pension money be used to silence council members?" said Ferguson. "There should be an inquiry into board conduct in hiring a lawyer to silence opposition."
Undeterred maybe, but the usually outspoken councillor was guarded in his comments about the latest drama in the city's ongoing pension saga.
"In this day and age with issues of corporate governance and public governance"...exercising due diligence and asking questions is the appropriate thing to do. It's expected of directors and councillors to do this, that's all I've been doing."
After a one-page cover letter, the nine following pages quoted numerous comments Ferguson made, inside and outside council chambers, lambasting the pension fund and how it's run.
The latest estimate on Saint John's pension shortfall is $45 million, but in a strange turn of events the province granted the city an $8.4 million, five-year loan in December to help the city avoid tacking the payment onto this year's budget - something that would have ensured a tax rate hike for residents.
According to the letter Ferguson received, the legal action was launched on behalf of Board of Trustees and individual board members.
Mayor Norm McFarlane is chairman of the pension board. For the last two years he and Ferguson have had a running battle over the pension board and the fund it manages.
"They're not trying to silence a councillor," McFarlane said. "When he says something it has to have facts. Nobody's been gag-ordered."
In July, other councillors told Ferguson to put up or shut up and was allowed to give a 35-minute presentation on the issues he sees with the embattled pension fund. At the end of the presentation, Coun. Glen Tait sponsored a motion to disassociate common council from Ferguson's comments. The motion passed 8-3 with only Coun. Ivan Court and Coun. Bill Farren siding with Ferguson.
Tait is also a member of the pension board. As the former fire chief for the city, he draws a city pension. Ferguson maintains that Tait's even being on the board is a conflict of interest.
Farren says Ferguson has every right to ask the hard questions, and he deserves an answer. "I support every question that Coun. Ferguson has tried to ask and I support the third-party audit (of the pension plan)," Farren said Sunday after learning of the legal wrangling by the pension board.
The first murmurs of legal action came at a July 31 common council meeting when Kevin Estrabrooks, a trustee on the pension board, said during a brief presentation to council that the pension board was considering hiring a litigation lawyer to respond to some of the politician's "unsubstantiated" and "unwarranted" accusations.
McFarlane said he feels like his reputation has been sullied by shadowy accusations of wrongdoing.
"I'm on the pension board and the pension board has been (defamed). So if the pension board has, everyone has," McFarlane said.
While Farren believes that council can overcome the latest rift, he thinks some councillors are playing a game of divide and conquer, although he wouldn't point fingers at any councillor in particular.
"There's some councillors that would seem to like to have that wedge there between council," Farran said.
6 comments:
What makes you think bloggers are exempt from libel suits. No citizen... journalist, blogger, nor average Joe...is allowwed to defame someone. If you make a statement about someone or some group or company, you must have the evidence to back it up. Being a blogger doesn't give you a shield against the law.
Anybody know what the comments actually are?
John ask questions ands was trying to get more disclosure. Everytime the Mayor & Councillors had a vote and managed to shut John down..
The person who should face charges is the Mayor with his behind door deals. Really convenient for Totten to be out of town.
Pension questions should were never answered so John collected the facts and whatever he could find.. If something was not in there liking too bad.
They still can't fully disclose all the facts. Suing is the only way to try to get John to keep quiet; great team of coverups.
Since when is asking for answers a crime! ONLY IN SAINT JOHN NB !
In my opinion the pension board is acting like they does have something to hide. To hire a law firm to shut Ferguson up, shows how this council and the pension board members wants to shut the people up.
City council members are there to ask questions, thats why they are elected not to sit back and agree with everything put in front of them. Tait receives a large pension from the board. In my opinion he should not be on the board as he does receive a pension and I would think wouldn’t vote against anything to hurt his own income.
We will never know where the money went unless there is an independent review of the board’s books. What is the problem with someone checking over the books to reassure the tax payers that funds are being allocated properly?
In business books are audited every year by independent companies to ensure the moneys and the members on whatever board stay on the up and up.Currupt things do happen.
It does seem that something is being hidden if the board members and city council are unwilling to have independent review. If there was nothing to hide the books would have been reviewed without questions asked.When was the last independent review done with the pension board and city board that takes care of our tax dollars?
If the Mayor and council members can spend tax money to travel, they could cancel ONE trip perhaps to Florida and the funds would be there to assure there are no dirty dealings.
One must remember that the Mayor is the chair of this board. After his deal with the tax break to change the law for a large company to not pay there fair tax. I sure do not trust this man or the majority of this council.
HEY FOLKS, JUST REMEMBER AS YOU PAY OUT YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS FOR YOUR TAXES, YOU PAYING FOR NORM AND HIS CRONIES FOR ANOTHER YEAR OF TRIPS TO CHINA, AND FLORIDA AND LAWYERS TO TELL YOU THEY ARE SUING YOU FOR COMMENTS YOU ARE FREE TO MAKE...HAHAHHA...ONLY IN SAINT JOHN
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