TCDSB chair ousted from board not seeking re-election.
Angela Kennedy, TCDSB trustee for Ward 11, will not run for re-election this fall after being found guilty of conflict of interest last week.
Courtesy TCDSB
The recently ousted chair of Toronto's Catholic school board announced this week she has no plans to run again after being found guilty of conflict of interest last Thursday.
Angela Kennedy, a three-term trustee for Ward 11 (East York/Toronto) and full-time nurse and diabetes educator at Toronto East General, told Toronto Community News this week that she was disappointed with Ontario Superior Court Justice Lois Roberts' ruling, but has not yet decided whether or not she'll appeal it.
"I'm fine, but I'm disappointed, you know? It takes a lot to get to the position I was in and I enjoyed it, so it's pretty disappointing," she said. "I have to see whether I'm going to appeal or not. I have 30 days, so I will talk to my legal counsel and will have to make a decision quite quickly."
Still, Kennedy said she has no regrets about her decision not to run again come the Oct. 25 municipal elections - a decision she said she came to even before Roberts ruled against her.
"The last two years we've been under (provincial) supervision, it's been difficult and frustrating and not really what I bargained for in the first place," she explained. The province took over control of the beleaguered board in 2008 after its trustees were caught in a spending scandal and failed to balance their budget.
"I'm hoping this decision now is going to allow the board to move forward and that trustees will start focusing on the students and on the governance," Kennedy added. "I hope they get out from supervision and that maybe one good thing can come of this: that they'll be united now and able to move forward in the interests of Catholic education."
The conflict of interest charges against Kennedy stemmed from allegations that she and Ward 10 Trustee Barbara Poplawski (also named as a respondent in the case) breached the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act by participating in layoff discussions which may have impacted the employment of their children during the May 14, 2008 budget meeting.
Those same discussions also led to the demise of Oliver Carroll, who was removed from the board last year for conflict of interest after voting on the same layoffs. Carroll had two children working for the board at the time.
After hearing the Kennedy matter over the course of three days this past May, Roberts ruled that, despite the fact that she found no suggestion that Kennedy acted in bad faith, her good intentions were 'irrelevant' to the court's determination.
The fact remained, she stated, that Kennedy's son Kevin was a part-time occasional education assistant and her other son Brian had just successfully interviewed as an occasional teacher for the board. Therefore, the proposed staffing reductions being discussed at the May 14 meeting could have diminished their prospects of obtaining supply work - hence the conflict of interest.
"Given the extent of the layoffs...and the Kennedy children's lack of seniority, it is more probable than not that their access to opportunities in their respective occasional pools would have been seriously reduced. As a result, their pecuniary interests were not remote or insignificant," she wrote in the 14-page ruling.
Calling the situation an 'unfortunate' one, Roberts commended Kennedy for her 'many years of faithful service to the board' as both trustee and chair, even as she removed her from the position.
"I have recognized Trustee Kennedy's long and distinguished service on the board and that the present situation appears to have been the first and only time that it is alleged that she breached the Act," she wrote.
Roberts also ruled that Trustee Poplawski will go to trial during the week of Sept. 13 for allegations she made a "thumbs down" gesture during the layoff votes, despite having a daughter employed by the TCDSB as a full-time education assistant.
With the new school year less than two weeks away - and an election just two months away - the board is now in discussions about how best to replace Kennedy, board spokesperson Emmy Szekeres Milne said.
It is uncertain at this point, she added, whether or not a new chair would be named, given the limited powers of the position under a supervision situation.