Chilliwack – Politics is never boring and the afternoon session at Chilliwack Council was no different.
Councilor Sam Waddington was in the hot seat, responding to concerns brought by fellow Councilor Chuck Stam and Mayor Sharon Gaetz, over Waddington’s spending during the 2017-2018 year including the 2017 FCM Federation Of Canadian Municipalities conference in Ottawa.
Waddington sat on two panels and his expenditures at a hotel included meals for guests, a bar tab that was brought into question and during the Grey Cup Weekend, Waddington could not find a hotel, so he managed to land an AirBnB.
That room was called a “luxury condo” by Mayor Gaetz, something that Councilor Waddington refuted, although he did, in a roundabout way, admit that the optics were not great.
Mach of this furor started when Gaetz asked for an FOI on the expenses and Stam was concerned about the spending of tax dollars. Stam feels that this exercise should be noted to form future policy on spending.
In August Stam went as far as to publicly ask five question for Waddington to explain the reasons for the spending. Those are addressed in the audio clip below.
The original FVN story on Councilor Stam’s questions can be found here.
Waddington was a little testy, feeling that this had become an election issue. “I did not violate any expense policies”. In short, he claimed it was merely the cost of doing networking and business in the current day and age.
The other councilors at the public session, Attrill, Lum, Kloot and Popove were not involved in the strained conversation, all streaming live on the city website.
You can review that video archive here. Look for 3PM Tuesday September 4, 2018.
