EDITOR’S NOTE: Mayor McLaughlin shared this information about ongoing and expensive legal challenges and motions relating largely to the Maynard Park issue.
Last week, Carleton Place resident Steve Maynard intruded into a Council meeting and served Mississippi Mills Councillor Jill McCubbin with court documents. He claims Jill is ineligible to be a Councillor given her employment with the Library Board.
The Town obtained a legal opinion years ago that confirmed Jill could be both a Councillor and a library employee. Jill has always been open about her dual role. She made sure it was okay before she ran for Council.
Jill is one of the most honest, hard-working and civic-minded people in Almonte. She works tirelessly for her constituents. We cannot allow meanness and vindictive actions to discourage Jill and smart women like her from running.
This newest legal action is part of a pattern, one the Municipality has endured for over a year. Through various channels, Maynard, his minions, and PRATAC members have inundated the Municipality with claims, complaints, and appeals to various government agencies. So far, the Town has spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on additional staff salaries to manage the workload and legal fees. And the meter is still running.
The individual is fully aware of the costs associated with his actions. On the Friends of Don Maynard Park Facebook group (March 22/17), he wrote about an OMB challenge: “The municipality faces months of compliance and they will spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.” (For reasons that escape me, PRATAC supports Maynard and is helping raise funds for his next expensive litigation against the taxpayers.)
Anne Mason, a former Library executive member, had this to say about the legal action regarding Councillor McCubbin:
The Library is an independent corporation, separate from the Corporation of the Town of Mississippi Mills. Jill McCubbin is employed by the Board of Mississippi Mills Public Library, not the Town. This has been explained to Maynard and yet he still pursues this vindictive attack on a hard working, properly elected member of Council.
Maynard’s unwarranted, baseless attacks, apparently supported by PRATAC (which presumes to call itself an alternate voice for taxpayers), have no place in this town.
These attacks are resulting in MY hard earned tax dollars being used to defend the Municipality instead of improving infrastructure.
