Police end investigation of council
Online edition – Summerland Review
Published: January 13, 2010 5:00 PM
Updated: January 13, 2010 5:18 PM
A police investigation into possible violations during the 2008 municipal election is now over as the request was filed several months past the deadline.
Cpl. Dan Moskaluk, an RCMP district representative, said the general statute of limitations is six months, unless a different time frame is set out specifically. He said the investigation is now over.
The complaint was filed in December by a group of 14 Summerlanders concerned about irregularities in the municipal election.
“No one made a complaint until it was too late,” said Mayor Janice Perrino. “Nothing more will be done. The case is closed.”
Perrino, who was one of the subjects of the investigation, was contacted by the RCMP late last week.
She said the deadline for filing a complaint about election irregularities was within six months of the election.
The municipal election took place on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008.
In the fall of 2009, questions were raised about a series of anonymous advertisements, some urging voters to choose a council friendly to growth and others endorsing specific candidates.
The result of the election was a decisive win for those endorsed.
Close to 4,000 ballots were cast. Perrino, with 2,183 votes, defeated mayoral candidate Peter Waterman who had 1,651 ballots.
Among the council candidates, the six endorsed in third-party ads were all elected with more than 200 votes separating the sixth place councillor and the seventh of the 13 candidates.
Those questioning the ads had said they were anonymous donations to the candidates which the council candidates should not have received.
Later, Mark Ziebarth, a Summerland businessman, claimed responsibility for some of the third-party ads.
He said the ads were not political donations and did not violate the legislation governing elections.
Perrino is glad the investigation has now ended.
“It was incredibly painful for our community to be smeared right across this province,” Perrino said.
She added that the investigation took up valuable police time and was a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Because the review was requested more than a year after the election, she questions the motives of those who brought it forward.
“It had nothing to do with an election and everything to do with a smear campaign,” she said. “This was because of an issue.”
She said that if the concerns were over the election itself, the complaint would have been filed shortly after the election instead of more than a year later.
But Frank Martens, one of the people behind the request for the police investigation, said the information about the irregularities did not surface until the fall.
Once the stories began to circulate, he said the complainants waited to give the members of council a chance to refute the allegations.
“I thought there would be some sort of charges laid,” Martens said. “I can’t understand why the RCMP would say there’s nothing they can do.”
A provincial task force has been formed to examine the legislation governing municipal elections in B.C.
Perrino has contacted MLA Bill Barisoff and the task force about the incidents in Summerland.
“We know the rules have to be tightened and we are aware there are major problems,” she said.
She would like the rules changed to protect the public, to protect the candidates and to protect elections officials in order to prevent smear campaigns following an election.
Martens also believes the task force is needed.
“That’s the only good thing, in my opinion, that has come out of this,” he said
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