A city administrator pointed her finger squarely at city councillor Brian Skakun during court testimony Thursday as the source of a leak that led to the posting of a confidential report on the website of a media outlet slightly more than two years ago.
Corporate services director Kathleen Soltis testified Skakun's actions at the time combined with the fact the copy posted on the CBC website for one day in August 2008 had signs it came from a closed-doors meeting of city council led her to believe he leaked the document.
The report, authored by labour lawyer Kitty Heller, was drafted in response to complaints lodged in late 2007 by two civilian employees about the work environment at the Prince George RCMP detachment.
Because it dealt with a personnel issue, it was considered a confidential document by city hall, and was disclosed to city council at an in-camera meeting only after Skakun made the request, Soltis testified, although she acknowledged all city council members approved the motion.
Soltis said the 31-page report and an accompanying 14-page report written by herself and city manager Derrick Bates was presented to council during a subsequent closed-doors meeting in May 2008.
Apparently upset with the report's findings and a lack of concern from other council members, Skakun had "left the meeting abruptly and he didn't seem to pleased with the discussion that was going on," Soltis testified.
Other council members, in contrast, remained at the meeting and continued to ask questions before receiving the report, Sotis told the court.
Roughly three months later, Soltis saw the report on the website. Her first reaction was shock and when it came to the source of the leak, Soltis said her first thought was it was one of the complainants.
"But then I remembered that care had been taken to limit their access to the report and they had not been given a copy of it," she said. "Then, what next caught my attention was that it said 'attached report' on it which was attached to the report that (city manager Derek Bates) and I had written and taken forward to a restricted closed session of council."
She also cast doubt on a staff member as the source, indicating the report was fairly routine given that about a dozen such complaints from any of the city's 750 employees are dealt with each year. In contrast, she said, Skakun seemed particularly interested in the issue.
"He seemed to take the complainant's issues to heart, he seemed to be concerned about their perceptions of mistreatment and his perception that the city wasn't dealing appropriately with those individuals.
"And he has spoken in the media, I believe on TV, so he took great interest - no other administrative members had taken any interest like that and no other councillors have. So not only do I believe it's a member of council but I believe it was councillor Skakun because of his actions to that (issue)."
Heller was hired by the city to investigate complaints from two civilian employees working at the detachment - Linda Thompson and Sheri McLean-Smith - alleging harassment by the detachment's commanding officer Supt. Dahl Chambers and a top civilian official at the detachment, Ann Bailey.
Heller found that management at the detachment had not violated the city's code of conduct, "which the city had no problem with," Soltis said.
But Heller "went further," Soltis told the court, and found Chambers and Bailey in a conflict of interest due to a romantic and eventually a common-law marriage and also took administrative services director Rob Whitwham to task for allowing the situation to get to that point.
Soltis said administration didn't agree with that finding, calling the conflict "perceived" and asserting Whitwham acted appropriately under the circumstance.
Thompson and McLean-Smith were given opportunities to read and take notes from the Heller report during two visits to city hall, but could not take or copy the document because it was confidential.
