Trial to Hear from City Staff

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C.-  The trial of Councillor Brian Skakun  continues today.

Councillor Skakun has been charged with breaching  the Freedom of Information Protection of Privacy Act  in relation to the  disclosure of  the confidential “Heller Report”.

Testimony  yesterday heard how  Skakun met with   Dan Rogers in  September of  2008  around the time that  Rogers had started his race for  the Mayor’s chair.   Mayor Rogers testified he met with  Skakun in the White Spot for  lunch or brunch, and that  Skakun appeared “stressed out.”   He also testified,  he told Skakun “Not to tell me anything that would be inappropriate for me  know.”

Rogers had  been made aware of the report  when it was posted on the CBC website in August of 2008.  He said he read some of  it at that time, but  didn’t get to read the entire report until  a member of his election team made it known to him that she had downloaded the report from the web and had a hard copy.   He says  when he read it , he thought, “This is not good” because it contained a great deal of personal, private  information.

Councillor Skakun’s lawyer presented a document to  Mayor Rogers,  a document that  had been prepared and presented to Council members during a closed session in November of 2009.  The Judge  questioned the relevance of a document  that  was developed  more than a year after the release of  the  confidential Heller report and  Crown  asked if the Mayor had  any idea how  this confidential document made its way to the courtroom.  Mayor Rogers  said it could have been part of a package of  documents requested by the Councillor Skakun’s lawyer, but  he would need to look at that  full package to know for sure.

The  Heller report was a 31 page independent report  of allegations of harassment  levelled against two  City employees.  The report exonerated  the accused, saying the complaints were unfounded.  The report also said one of the  accused was in a perceived  conflict of interest because of her  relationship with the head of the local RCMP detachment.  That report  made it’s way into the hands of a CBC reporter and was printed in its entirety on  the CBC’s website. 

The Crown has reduced it's list of  witnesses  after one and a half  days of scheduled  trial time were spent  on an application to   have the City  deliver more documents.  The application was  dismissed.

The Crown had planned on calling 19 witnesses, but that has been nearly cut in half.

The trial  will  run through the end of this week, and resume  December 7th. 

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