A Nanaimo school district trustee is expressing anger after the board levelled disciplinary measures against him.
It was announced Wednesday that a censure letter had been issued to Jamie Brennan. The trustee said the situation involves a number of incidents and the situation has been ongoing since October.
Brennan said the board investigated him for negative statements he allegedly made about Cedar-area trustees during a fall 2016 meeting with Cinnabar Valley parents on transportation. Brennan disputes the claims, as does Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay, who was also at the meeting and confirmed writing a letter on Brennan’s behalf.
Brennan was accused of leaking information about a district letter related to the event centre to his wife Diane, a city councillor, after Diane questioned city officials about it. Jamie Brennan denied this also.
Another grievance was a comment he made that a 2015 decision to re-open Cedar Community Secondary School was pre-ordained, something Brennan calls fair comment.
Brennan said he is angry and in 16 years as a trustee, has never been in this position before. He said he’s barred from attending closed board meetings until Dec. 31 and meetings where there is any discussion involving the City of Nanaimo, Cedar school zone and Rutherford and Frank J. Ney schools.
“It added up,” said Brennan. “There was a whole bunch of stuff. One thing after another, it was a long list of complaints against me and they hired an investigator, which cost thousands of dollars … and it’s been a very stressful period of time. Nine months it took for the investigation to conclude.”
Brennan said he disagreed with the investigator’s report and responded to it because he felt the findings were biased and wrong.
According to district policy on board governance, if the board determines a trustee has violated the code of conduct, it may censure, or where there is an incident where confidential information has been leaked, it can prevent the trustee from attending board or committee meetings and receiving any information related to the meetings not available to the public.
Steve Rae, school board chairman, said he couldn’t comment on the matter.
“I don’t have anything to say. I wish I could talk to you about it. All this stuff happened in an in camera setting and it’s confidential,” said Rae. “If Jamie decides to speak about it, that’s his prerogative I guess, but I’m certainly not going to say anything about it.”
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com