Clarification: Hamilton City Council's decision on City Solicitor report about Ombuds

On Wednesday, I wrote about Hamilton City Council’s decision on the recommendations of the City Solicitor Peter Barkwell in report LS-12001 (Ontario Ombudsman):

As Council voted in-camera Monday on Mr. Barkwell’s findings, I’m unsure if Council adopted two other recommendations in the package – one to forward a copy of Mr. Barkwell’s opinion to Mr. Marin and the other that all other communications with Ombudsman about closed meeting investigations be directed to the City Solicitor.

During the Council meeting on Wednesday, Councillor Brad Clark referred to the report – which was secret at the time – and stated Council voted on Monday – in-camera – to receive the report and rejected the other recommendations.

As I did not have the report available, I did not understand properly the context of Councillor Clark’s statement.

I attempted to replay video of the meeting Thursday morning (during the overnight morning hours) and was unable to as the livestream was left in operation after the meeting.

This means Council choose to not send Mr. Barkwell’s report to provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin and rejected Mr. Barkwell’s request all communication between the City and Ombudsman about closed-session meeting complaints be conducted through the City Solicitor.

The provincial Ombudsman obtained a copy of Mr. Barkwell’s report from my website after the “declassification” of the document by City Council. I immediately uploaded the document as per my regular practice of providing source material.

Mr. Marin responded to the criticisms of his office by Mr. Barkwell in a letter to Hamilton City Council published on the Ombudsman website today.