Recognizing the central position of accountability and transparency at Metropolis Corridor, Ontario’s Municipal Act grants municipalities powers to make sure good governance. Councils have the accountability to make sure the operations of the municipality, run by senior administration, are performed overtly and topic to public scrutiny.
In line with the Metropolis’s web site, St. Catharines is dedicated to organizational transparency whereas “routinely providing information to the public that engages citizens and encourages public access to information that matters the most.”
Whereas this and different statements on the Metropolis’s web site point out a information of the accountability to prioritize accountability and transparency, some practices of officers recommend the alternative.
Their SugarSync folder is considered one of them.
St. Catharines council and senior employees depend on the SugarSync system for storing and sharing paperwork. SugarSync, a cloud-based service, is designed to securely share recordsdata throughout a number of gadgets, making it an excellent software for Metropolis employees to supply councillors with entry to confidential paperwork from dwelling.
Recordsdata within the SugarSync system, nevertheless, are managed by senior employees and are usually not simply accessible to the general public. Whereas some paperwork are rightfully confidential and should stay non-public, a assessment by The Pointer revealed nearly all of paperwork the Metropolis locations within the system are public in nature and ought to be simply obtainable for anybody to entry.
But it surely’s arduous to think about most residents are conscious of SugarSync’s existence or find out how to entry its contents—info meant to serve the general public curiosity. Transparency and accountability via entry to info that ought to be within the fingers of the general public whose cash retains Metropolis Corridor afloat, is the one approach they are often assured elected officers and employees are utilizing tax {dollars} in the very best approach.
Whereas a big portion of the recordsdata saved in SugarSync are usually not straight accessible to the general public—paperwork associated to current growth purposes can be found—they’ll see the title of every doc. To know what they may pertain to, residents must comply with council conferences or learn the minutes to establish the gadgets linked to paperwork within the SugarSync folder, which solely have their title offered. To entry the precise paperwork, people should submit a proper request, including a big procedural hurdle to acquire info supposed for the general public.
Responding to questions from The Pointer, Appearing Clerk Donna Delvecchio defined that: “SugarSync is a secure file storage tool that the City has used since 2015 in providing Mayor and Councillors with correspondence received after the publishing deadline for agendas, confidential correspondence from staff and presentations that are associated with an item on the agenda (if applicable).”
It’s unclear why such a secretive, opaque system was getting used
This implies nearly any piece of data associated to a difficulty being handled by council, together with controversial issues or different urgent issues with vital public curiosity might be shielded from residents.
It’s unclear why such a secretive, opaque system was getting used for paperwork which are speculated to be fully obtainable and immediately accessible to the general public.
Since The Pointer started asking the Metropolis about SugarSync, spokespeople have stated modifications are at present being made to the system to make sure correct transparency.
Delvecchio defined that any member of the general public curious about receiving entry to an merchandise ought to contact the Clerk’s workplace to request it.
The procedures for the general public to acquire info from SugarSync could appear easy to employees and council, however any requirement for extra effort to entry public paperwork creates a big barrier to transparency.
Compounding these issues is the seemingly arbitrary nature of what will get positioned in SugarSync, which raises questions on who makes these selections.
Up to now, St. Catharines has used SugarSync to withhold paperwork from public view that have been supposed by their authors to be accessible not simply to Metropolis employees and elected officers, however to all residents. The Metropolis’s choice to exclude such info from agendas or minutes, as an alternative inserting it in a system unfamiliar to most members of the general public with solely a title to establish every doc, raises issues about whether or not the system is being managed with transparency and the general public belief as guiding ideas.
A letter despatched to the Metropolis on April 22, 2024 authored by St. Catharines resident and activist Vicki-Lynn Smith (full disclosure: she is the reporter’s sister) was addressed as official correspondence for the Mayor and Council. In her letter, Smith expressed help for native Palestinian households, urging recognition of their struggles amid ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
For months the native Palestinian group had been requesting recognition of their struggling, akin to the respect and acknowledgement beforehand prolonged to native Ukrainian and Jewish communities for his or her respective losses and hardships. Nonetheless, the Palestinian Canadians’ requests have been repeatedly denied. On the centre of this controversy have been St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe and Regional Councillor Laura Ip, each of whom not solely actively opposed granting political recognition to the struggling of native Palestinian households, however led council efforts to stop residents and teams from even addressing their issues throughout public council conferences, utilizing a spread of procedural strikes to close them out.
Below regular procedures, official correspondence comparable to Smith’s letter would have been positioned in its entirety on the general public agenda for the following council assembly. It will have been obtainable for not solely employees and council to learn, however any member of the general public by merely opening the agenda on the Metropolis web site. On this case, nevertheless, a choice was made to position the letter in SugarSync, in impact eradicating it from public view fully. The letter was in Metropolis employees’s fingers per week earlier than the general public assembly, however was not made obtainable for the general public to learn.
A call was made to position the letter in SugarSync, in impact eradicating it from public view fully
“They buried that letter,” Smith advised The Pointer. She feels Mayor Siscoe was actively working to make the problem “go away.” She stated eradicating her letter from public view served the aim of council members who beforehand supported shutting down any discourse across the Palestinian trigger, successfully silencing her advocacy.
Following questions from The Pointer in regards to the public notion of SugarSync as a barrier to transparency, St. Catharines CAO David Oakes acknowledged the system is now beneath assessment.
“Individuals can contact the Clerk’s Office to request a copy of the correspondence, and unless it is deemed confidential, they will receive it. Having said this, the Clerk’s team is currently planning to bring forward a new Council correspondence policy intended to establish a new way of presenting this information that can be easily accessed by Council, to continue our practice of transparency while also satisfying our file management and tracking protocols,” he stated.
A follow-up request despatched to Oakes in search of additional details about any upcoming modifications was not returned.
For Smith, the CAO’s remarks supplied little reassurance.
“What does it mean to say people can request the letter if they want to see it?” she questioned. “Who knows anything about this? How do you participate in a system you know nothing about?”
A assessment by The Pointer of doc titles saved within the SugarSync system revealed all kinds of supplies which were successfully faraway from instant public scrutiny. These embody:
“Memorandum from Acting City Clerk regarding Information for Decision on Fairview Park Community Vision (Report CRCS-105-2024)”
“Correspondence from Residents of 345 Geneva re. Issues in Fairview Park and John Page Park”
“Correspondence from Councillors interested in being appointed to the Municipal Development Corporation Board of Directors re. Item 9.1”
“Memorandum from Director of Community, Recreation and Culture Services regarding Indoor Tennis at Community Park – Operator Withdraws Submission”
“Memorandum from Senior Planner regarding St. Catharines response to Bill 185”
“Memorandum from City Clerk regarding Item 9.1, Information for Decision on Applications to Amend Zoning By-law 2013-283 and the Garden City Plan, Subject Lands: 240 Scott Street, 387 and 389 Geneva Street (Report PBS-077-2024)”
“Memorandum from the Director of Planning and Building Services regarding Ontario Street Corridor Secondary Plan Study Status Update”
“Correspondence from Vicki Lynn Smith regarding Request for Consideration and Support for the Palestinian St. Catharines Community”
These are only a sampling of the titles contained throughout the SugarSync system. The total listing is intensive, and accessing the precise contents of those paperwork requires submitting an official request. This apply raises issues about accessibility and transparency, as info that might be of great public curiosity isn’t available with out navigating procedural limitations.
The Pointer has formally requested entry to all paperwork saved within the SugarSync system over the previous 4 years. The Metropolis has agreed to satisfy this request, and updates will likely be offered as the data is reviewed.
What appears evident, nevertheless, is the necessity for systemic change. It’s more and more tough to justify using a system like SugarSync for something aside from legally confidential paperwork that should legitimately stay inaccessible to the general public. Implementing clear and sturdy processes for managing and sharing public paperwork may deal with lots of the issues raised by residents like Vicki-Lynn Smith.
Ed Smith is a Native Journalism Initiative Reporter primarily based at The Pointer.
