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No authority to discipline Eadie for F-bombs: Nordman

By: Jen Skerritt

Posted: 11/30/2011 11:53 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies) | Last Modified: 11/30/2011 12:41 PM | Updates

Councillor Ross Eadie won't apologize to councillors on the property committee for language he used in an email. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

City council Speaker Grant Nordman said he does not have the authority to discipline Coun. Ross Eadie for profanity-laced comments he made in an email to city politicians.

Eadie was angered by a decision council's property committee made on Tuesday and reacted by sending an email peppered with F-bombs to members of council's property committee, which includes Couns. Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan), Mike Pagtakhan (Point Douglas) and Russ Wyatt (Transcona). He also sent the email to Coun. Paula Havixbeck (Charleswood-Tuxedo), who no longer sits on council's property committee.

The angry outburst stunned councillors, and Coun. Nordman (St. Charles) called on Eadie to apologize to his colleagues.

Eadie told the Free Press he apologized to Havixbeck, but he refuses to apologize to Browaty, Wyatt or Pagtakhan.

"F-sharp is used all the time. I didn't use it in the chambers. There's nothing the matter with what I said," Eadie said late Tuesday. "And those three don't deserve any respect at all.

"I'm just sick. This is why people don't vote."

Nordman said because Eadie's comments were made in an email, and not in the council chamber, he does not have the authority to censure him in any way. The speaker is in charge of policing decorum on the floor of council, and Nordman said he hopes that Eadie will offer an apology to his colleagues.

"I think maybe after he simmers down a bit and has some time for reflection he'll maybe try to rebuild the bridges that he's burned," Nordman said. "He's got three more years of working with the people in this building."

Mayor Sam Katz said he did not receive the email, but has never seen that type of language in emails between councillors. Katz said it will be up to council's governance committee and governance chairman Nordman to take whatever action he deems appropriate.

"The response is unique to say the least. If he'd come to me and said, 'Here's what I'm planning to do, will it help me down the road?' I would've said, 'No I don't think it's going to help, you're going to lose credibility'," Katz said following this morning's executive policy committee meeting.

On Tuesday morning, council's property committee voted to allow a developer to build a two-storey, side-by-side fourplex at 108 Scotia St., which is in Eadie's Mynarski ward. Eadie lives on Scotia Street, about seven blocks away from the proposed development. He said the fourplex does not fit with the character of the neighbourhood.

The move overturned a previous decision by the Lord Selkirk-West Kildonan community committee that nixed the project. About 100 community residents signed a petition against the development, and many people -- including former mayoral candidate Judy Wasylycia-Leis -- voiced their opposition to the project.

Late Tuesday, Eadie said he plans to bring forward a motion at the next city council meeting to ask council to support area residents.

Wyatt -- whom Eadie slammed in his email -- said he hopes council upholds the property committee's decision. He said Eadie must have been having a bad day, and he will still be able to work with the Mynarski councillor in the future.

"I think he was excited and angry and I'll leave it at that. To get into it would dignify something that shouldn't be dignified," Wyatt said.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

History

Updated on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 12:41 PM CST: adds quotes from Nordman

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