Vancouver Coun. Suzanne Anton will take Gregor Robertson to task when city council next convenes over a growing perception city staff is bending to whims of the mayor’s financial backers.
Donor Joel Solomon urged non-partisan city staffer Sadhu Johnston to lure to Vancouver, Salt Spring Coffee – financed by his firm Renewal Partners, according to emails obtained by QMI.
When informed of the correspondence, Anton chastised Robertson for installing a new system at city hall “where there’s less distinction between the political and the staff.”
“I think it is completely inappropriate for the mayor’s largest backer to have what seems to be an intimate access to staff,” she said. “There is a very close relationship here between the funders and their man in City Hall, Mayor Robertson.”
She added, the May 2010 emails sent by Solomon potentially compromise fair access to a highly respected civil servant.
The deputy city manager and millionaire philanthropist maintain there was no conflict of interest when the pair swapped updates on meetings with Salt Spring Coffee president and CEO Mickey McLeod.
“Thanks to joel [sic], I have met with mickey [sic] several times to ID good sites in town,” Johnston wrote to Solomon and others in the heavily redacted email released under freedom of information laws. “Not there yet, but it’s looking good.”
Questioned about Solomon’s influence, Johnston replied he was doing his job when investigating an economic opportunity for the city.
“They never asked for any money, they never asked for any land or anything I wouldn’t give to anyone else who approached us. What was anyone influencing?” asked
Johnston, who added he regularly takes email pitches and investigates leads as warranted.
In an e-mail interview, Solomon told QMI he was hands-off during negotiations.
“When I learned that Salt Spring Coffee was looking to relocate their business to the Lower Mainland, I notified Mr. Johnston because of his role in economic development and job recruitment to Vancouver,” he said. “That was the extent of my involvement. Ultimately, Salt Spring chose to locate in Richmond.”
Solomon first met Robertson 15 years ago when his firm gave seed-money to the mayor’s Happy Planet Foods company. Renewal partners also backed his political campaigns.
Solomon didn’t answer whether Johnston was in a conflict of interest because of the e-mails.
The city’s code of conduct for staff dictates, “it is important to consider whether there are any grounds for a reasonable person to think that a conflict exists.”
Johnston admitted he did not seek advice from city manager Penny Ballem.
Solomon said he’s known Johnston since he was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s chief environment officer.
Regular council convenes again April 19.
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- Reporter
- Dharm Makwana currently serves as a web editor at The Province, British Columbia's best read daily newspaper. For more than four years he wrote on issues affecting the Lower Mainland for the province's third largest daily newspaper Vancouver 24 hours. Before arriving in Vancouver in January 2007, Dharm won the John Lott Scholarship for outstanding journalism at Centennial College. Since then Dharm has developed an interest in municipal and provincial politics, crime and policing and social issues including immigration, prostitution and trafficking. He is currently working on a series of stories involving Vancouver's sex workers.
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