Niagara's former Integrity Commissioner is weighing in on the CAO controversy.
Another special session of Niagara Regional Council was held last night where it was revealed that Chair Alan Caslin extended D'Angelo's contract until 2022 without council's knowledge or approval.
Caslin told councillors "Rightly or wrongly, and I don't mean I wasn't acting with malice or being underhanded, it just made more sense to me, so whether I had the authority or not we can talk about that, if I didn't I apologize. I thought I was doing the right thing for the corporation, in extending it to the new council session so that they had the ability, they weren't handcuffed, they had the ability to continue with the existing CAO or pick a new one.
John Mascarin, who was Niagara's Integrity Commissioner for 7-8 months and is now a partner with Aird & Berlis law firm specializing in municipal law tells CKTB unless the Chair was given the authority to extend the contract or in general to deal with all aspects of the CAO there would be no authority for Caslin to take the action and the contract extension would be null and void.
Mascarin says anyone who contracts with a municipality must do their own due diligence to ensure the person they are dealing with has the authority to make the deal.
He says in this case, if he was Carmen D'Angelo signing the contract extension he would have asked to see some kind of document showing that council also supported the decision.
John Mascarin will join CKTB's Larry Fedoruk today at 5:15pm.