FORT FRANCES – In a lengthy document submitted to the Superior Court of Justice on June 7, former councillor David Kircher made good on his promise to the town of Fort Frances and the municipality’s integrity commissioner David G. Boghosian in court.
The document outlines Kircher’s attempt to set the record straight by calling Boghosian’s investigation flawed and unreasonable.
On Feb. 13, council passed a resolution to investigate Kircher after it was revealed that he was improperly misusing his municipality email to conduct council business outside of regular council meetings.
Moreover, he was also accused of circumventing the chief administrative officer's chain of command by directing staff to obtain information on various municipal business dealings such as Agency One First Nations and Forestry Mill logging licence and demolition.
In the judicial review application, Kircher believes Boghosian’s report relied heavily on incomplete and incorrect summaries of emails provided as evidence against him.
Kircher accuses Town Clerk Gabrielle Lecuyer of not providing documents and emails from other councillors to Boghosian that would raise many of the same issues that were put forward against Kircher.
While under investigation, Kircher had the chance to explain his side of the story but blamed Boghosian for failing to account for key evidence that was “based on perfunctory summaries of complex email threads, the Integrity Commissioner drew conclusions that were untenable in the factual circumstances and/or misinterpreted them,” the application stated.
In this case, the key pieces of evidence are the documents and emails Lecuyer allegedly failed to provide to Boghosian.
Additionally, Kircher alleges that Boghosian failed to take into account Kircher’s evidence of historical failure to protect the town’s economic assets.
In other words, the sale and demolition of the Fort Frances mill.
Boghosian's report found Kircher's evidence “not credible” because the mill was closed in 2014 and in the process of demolition long before Kircher was elected to council.
The judicial review application stated that it was this failure that led Kircher “to work tirelessly, including in ways that sometimes made him unpopular with his colleagues, to protect the Town’s interests on behalf of its citizens.”
Kircher called out Boghosian for being closed-minded after Boghosian found his evidence to be no more than a “witch hunt” condemning those involved with the closure of the mill.
Dougall Media reached out to Mayor Andrew Hallikas for comment on the Kircher judicial review application.
He said: “Since the matter is currently before the courts, we are unable to comment at this time. However, we will be pleased to share our written argument once it has been filed.”
