And some of you think this r...ket scientist would make a good mayor. He can't recall anything......does that sound familiar?

Hey Pizza, he's a part time poleetishun, watcha expect?
Well, Judge Ball is on the ball, written submissions is an excellent idea. He probably figures enough time has been wasted in court time and this will cut out a full day of court time. Lawyers don't always like it but hey, Ken Ball knows his stuff.
Grandstanding's over, time to get down to the nitty gritty, apply the law and render a decision and I doubt it will take long to verbalize that.

This should not even be in court. Brian is not the Guilty party, I hope he wins , if not we could be getting sued by the Guilty partys.

Let us not forget who Mr. Skakun is.This "people`s" councillor first got elected on the promise of giving half of his city salary to charity.I seem to remember him not quite doing that in the timely manner that he had proposed."Whatever"...Let`s hope he did.
Now, here we are spending thousands of dollars of taxpayers money putting on a trial that never needed to happen because he knew he was guilty!Something is seriously wrong with this picture.To top it off, he set up a bank account for donations to help with his defense!
C`mon Brian,do what you do best,which is to stick up for the regular Joe,but stop trying to be the municipal vigilante because you`re embarrasing yourself, and Prince George.

"This should not even be in court. Brian is not the Guilty party, I hope he wins , if not we could be getting sued by the Guilty partys."

You kinda lost me there. He admitted under oath that he gave the document to the CBC. I'm not the judge so it's not my decision as to guilty or not but I'd be suing. Just my opinion.

He's a crook plain and simple. Admitted.

Yes, I'll agree alot of politicans can be considered the same but they're not dumb enough to blatantly break the law and expect they should get away with it because they think it's wrong.
Kick him off Council. What an embarassment!

Brian is not the guilty party. I know he had nothing to gain only loose. He stood up for his constituents that is something any politician is paid to do, Something most don't. Where can we the people go when there is something terribly wrong? Do we need to go to the streets? Do we need to protest like back in the middle east. No!! Not when we allow our elected people to stand up for us. Not when we give them the ability to do so. When we take away thier ability to do that we take away our voice. This is a relatively free county and Brian Skakum is trying to keep it that way.

What benefit/s would Brian have reaped from his actions?
He didn't need votes for the next municipal election because he topped the polls in the last election.
Brian is not looking for a career switch so he won't be running for mayor.
Why would someone put his whole life on the line like this? For what purpose?
From what I have seen of Brian Skakun, he is a reasonable, approachable, reliable and hard working individual. I am glad he is on Council and also confident that he is representing the best interests of our community.
If he chooses to run again this fall, he will definitely get my vote.

Diane Nakamura

Good grief! When will this saga end ? He may not have to get booted out of City Hall because it will be November and election time before this circus is over! But he needs to go long before that !

To Brian's 'opponents'... I have yet to hear one of you admit that it wasn't Brian who pursued this nasty cover-up through the courts. That was the action of a Nazi mayor, his SS council friends and corrupt city staff. The biggest missed fact is that Brian is NOT, I repeat, NOT even legally able to be charged under the FOI, as crown found out yesterday when they saw the official statement from FOI officials declaring Skakun NOT to be an officer or director, and as such, should not, and could not, have been charged under the act. Crown was going to carry on cross examination right into the next day, until the FOI document was produced in court, then crown immediately terminated all cross examination.

So, before you get in the saddle slinging your ropes and looking for lynching trees, why don't you try something novel, like getting your facts straight and knowing what the heck you're even talking about.

To Brian's 'opponents'... I have yet to hear one of you admit that it wasn't Brian who pursued this nasty cover-up through the courts. That was the action of a Nazi mayor, his SS council friends and corrupt city staff. The biggest missed fact is that Brian is NOT, I repeat, NOT even legally able to be charged under the FOI, as crown found out yesterday when they saw the official statement from FOI officials declaring Skakun NOT to be an officer or director, and as such, should not, and could not, have been charged under the act. Crown was going to carry on cross examination right into the next day, until the FOI document was produced in court, then crown immediately terminated all cross examination.

So, before you get in the saddle slinging your ropes and looking for lynching trees, why don't you try something novel, like getting your facts straight and knowing what the heck you're even talking about.

eyesfull, I think you've had too much of the kool aid.

This all started when the last council didn't do what he wanted with the RCMP.

This council with FIVE new members thought that releasing a confidential document from a closed session of council was wrong and the person involved should be charged.

Skakun has only released petty gossip - there has been no massive cover up by administration. NOTHING he has done so far has done anything but cost us money!

"He stood up for his constituents..."

The only constituents he stood up for was the two women feeding him information.

Middleground, you're quite hung up on the whole Jim Jones trip aren't you? Trust me, it dates you. I'm not into kool-aid or lynch mobs, I'm anti-stupid, something that summs up the whole case. You're still not dealing with the fact there was no legal reason to charge him , he's not even legally liable under the FOI, as clearly, and officially, stated by FOI officials. For the record, I believe that agreeing in secret to deprive person(s) of their legal rights is called collusion, a criminal act in Canada. Was it coincidence that all other councillors and the mayor refused to second Brian's motion asking for the city to pay his legal bills? I think not. The wrong person is being labelled criminal...

"Skakun testified he first heard about the Kitty Heller report when portions of it showed up in his mailbox at his home along with a hand written note in late April or early May asking him to look into the allegations"

hmmmmmm .... so how does this partial document relate to anything that was subesequently received by him and other Councillors in a closed door session of Council?

Besides, no matter where he or the CBC or anyone else, for that matter, received the information from really does not matter with respect to the Act of Parliament he is charged under.

As far as releasing ANY document from an in camera session, that is a matter of ethics, not a matter of law, and needs to be dealt with by the Mayor and/or an ethics committee of Council, if they have one.

If it is a release of information containing information protected by the Privacy law in this province and in Canada, then the City is also liable.

According to the attached link, this and the other case from PG are the first two cases to go to trial, so there is not much precedent in this province.

We're on the radar screen once more.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0c1eeee6-dd1a-462a-82ae-3f006e33581f

http://www.bht.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=689%3Alocal-government-newsletter-september-2010&catid=48%3Apublications&Itemid=1

There is a case in Saskatchewan where the city was found guilty of disclosing information to Revenue Canada. However, it was an administrative hearing, which is the way these cases are typically handled.

I understand that we are unusual that we have cases actually going to court. This City loves going to court. I believe this culd have been handled wih much less money by the Commission.

Maybe someone can tell me why it was not done that way.

I agree with you gus, this could have cost much less money, but then 'revenge' wouldn't be achieved, and revenge is really what this was all about. A few power hungry pukes decided to waste massive amounts of taxpayer money to achieve their political goal of getting rid of Skakun. Their stupidity was not confirming he was even able to legally be prosecuted before launching the action, only to find out later that he was not. Now egg has blown everywhere, and faces all over city hall are now plastered in it. I hope Skakun sues the dirty, lying, corrupt rear ends off these putrid children born out of wedlock.

I agree with you gus, this could have cost much less money, but then 'revenge' wouldn't be achieved, and revenge is really what this was all about. A few power hungry pukes decided to waste massive amounts of taxpayer money to achieve their political goal of getting rid of Skakun. Their stupidity was not confirming he was even able to legally be prosecuted before launching the action, only to find out later that he was not. Now egg has blown everywhere, and faces all over city hall are now plastered in it. I hope Skakun sues the dirty, lying, corrupt rear ends off these putrid children born out of wedlock.

If Brian runs for Council again and if I was him I would not even think about it. The power hungry pukes and other pukes that write on this site are just plain mean.

My question is: why did he not "fess up" at the beginning and avoid this waste of our money? It upsets me that he didn't take the honorable path rather than the one we are faced with now. In Ben's words: stupid,stupid,stupid.

supertech I agree.

Skakun WASTED our money ($80,000) by asking for an audit of the Bingo Hall deal that found that there was NO COVER UP - that city staff did everything RIGHT.

Now Skakun WASTED more of our money by not just agreeing at the beginning of this that he released the report!

Instead he drags it out through the media and through the court. Gets NAIVE people to donate money to his court case (or should we say his publicity stunt).

So who's the one that's out for revenge? Sure looks like it's SKAKUN!

It is not Skakun that is responsible for this mess. Its God at City hall that had the RCMP lay the charges against him. So get your fact before you blow your horn.
Cheers

"I agree with you gus, this could have cost much less money, but then 'revenge' wouldn't be achieved, and revenge is really what this was all about. A few power hungry pukes decided to waste massive amounts of taxpayer money to achieve their political goal of getting rid of Skakun. Their stupidity was not confirming he was even able to legally be prosecuted before launching the action, only to find out later that he was not. Now egg has blown everywhere, and faces all over city hall are now plastered in it. I hope Skakun sues the dirty, lying, corrupt rear ends off these putrid children born out of wedlock."

I nominate this for the most bizarre post of the year award. I know it's early but just read that last sentence and you'll surely agree.

Interesting too is the fact that this website is allowing comments on this topic.

Retired 02 - god at City Hall?

I wouldn't consider Rogers a god in any context.

The charges were laid because two different city council's instructed the RCMP to investigate the leak. The RCMP did as they were asked.