Mayor Gregor Robertson denied in court documents that he ordered city hall’s Freedom of Information office to censor a version of the city’s lease with HootSuite Media that was disclosed to a member of the Cedar Party.
Robertson filed a statement of defence in B.C. Supreme Court March 10 in reply to a petition by Cedar leader Glen Chernen and nine others who are seeking his ouster from office over failure to disclose an alleged conflict of interest. The Feb. 14 petition claimed HootSuite was rewarded with an untendered lease of a city-owned building in 2012 after helping Robertson and his Vision Vancouver party win re-election in 2011. City council approved the lease of 5 East Eighth Ave. behind closed doors on June 27, 2012 and withheld the financial terms until Jan. 21 of this year.
“All Freedom of Information requests related to the subject matter of this proceeding were conducted by city staff in accordance with their usual practice and the statutory regime,” said the statement of defence.
The Cedar petition alleged that Robertson has a personal friendship with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes and Holmes hosted a Twitter town hall at the company’s previous office two days before voting day in 2011. The defence statement said a friendship between a council member and a person who may benefit from a municipal decision isn’t enough to disqualify a politician from office and HootSuite’s office was merely used as a visual backdrop for the Nov. 17, 2011 event.
“Campaign events are frequently held at local businesses to create a desirable backdrop to highlight certain announcements, positions or accomplishments,” said Robertson’s court documents.
Robertson’s statement claimed the five-year lease and option to buy negotiated by city staff with HootSuite broker CBRE was at or above fair market value. Previous efforts to sell the building attracted only five low-ball offers that were all rejected.
Last month, city hall’s FOI office disclosed that HootSuite paid $692,145.80 for rent, parking and property taxes in 2013, slightly less than the $698,922 paid by city hall to HootSuite under the tenant improvement allowance clause. City hall also spent $42,438.92 of taxpayers’ money to use HootSuite software in 2013, including $1,667.34 for the mayor and his staff. City hall had refused to disclose the payments until the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. intervened. FOI records show the communications office did not seek prices of competing products.
“The corporate communications department is separate from the staff responsible for communications in the Mayor’s Office,” said the defence statement. “There is nothing in the petitioners’ affidavits to suggest Mayor Robertson had anything to do with the software purchase.” Robertson’s reply also said the Cedar petition does not suggest he is a shareholder, creditor or director of HootSuite.
“Mayors are expected to conduct events in conjunction with local businesses in the furtherance of civic business. And candidates for municipal office are expected to campaign at the premises of local businesses,” said the filing. “Persons in the position of Mayor Robertson ought not to face spurious allegation that in doing any of the above they have become subject to an illegitimate personal interest, nor should local businesses thereby be chilled from exercising their democratic rights to participate in the political process."
Ultimately, said the defence statement, the Cedar petition is “an abuse of this court’s process for rank political ends” in a civic election year and Cedar makes “scandalous and unfounded allegations and innuendoes.”
Chernen said March 11 that he had yet to receive a copy of Robertson’s reply. He previously said he is motivated by a desire to “clean up” city hall, rather than scoring political points.
On March 7, Chernen filed a second conflict of interest petition against Robertson and the other seven Vision Vancouver members of council for not disclosing their relationship with Oakridge Centre redevelopment consultant Gary Pooni and Vancouver Is Awesome, the Vision Vancouver-friendly website of which Pooni is a director.
Neither Robertson nor his caucus mates have responded to those allegations in court.
