Three Rocky View County (RVC) councillors feel vindicated by a Court of Queen's Bench ruling that calls for their sanctions to be lifted immediately.

Justice James Eamon has set aside the sanctions against councillors Crystal Kissel, Kevin Hanson, and Samanntha Wright in his 34-page decision issued July 15.

The ruling was based upon two major points. Justice Eamon believes there was a violation of procedural fairness rights due to council’s failure to consider the possibility of bias from the county’s investigator. Secondly, he considred the majority of the sanctions to be both unreasonable and disproportionate.

In the ruling, the entire removal and compensation sanctions were vacated and were called harsh by Justice Eamon.

"No reasonable body would have imposed such harsh sanctions for disclosing a lawfully obtain a legal opinion to another lawyer," states the judgment.

The judgement declined to deal with the argument that the CAO exceeded his jurisdiction on communications restrictions.

"It is up to council to decide in the first instance whether the CAO is acting appropriately in respect of communication restrictions," states the judgment.

The application to review the CAO's communication restrictions was struck out in the judgement and remains in place.

Justice Eamon found council failed to adequately address the reasonable apprehension of bias allegation.

"If I had not set aside on the apprehension of bias issue, I would have set aside the sanctions, other than the representation and travel sanction and the related apology sanction against Councillor Kissel for participating in the letter to the editor."

Justice James Eamon determined there was a valid and rational basis for the complaints against councillors Hanson, Kissel, and Wright, and that council had not acted in bad faith in applying sanctions.

"These errors may suggest council over-reacted or misconstrued the purpose of the sanctions, but there is no cogent evidence of bad faith purposes asserted by the applicants."

The ruling determined the limitations imposed upon the councillors may have been burdensome but did not prevent them from fulfilling their roles to constituents. He also ruled adjustment of pay to compensate for this reduced workload was rational.

Councillor Hanson, spokesman for the three councillors, says the core of their case was about procedural fairness and rights, and he believes it shined through at the end. 

"We felt it was a very complicated matter and both our lawyers and the justice did an excellent job of working through it," says Hanson. "Some points the county was correct on, and some points us three were correct on. At the end of the day, the balance was in our favour, which we think fully vindicates us."

"We look forward to having our status fully reinstated and being able to properly represent our constituents. We hope that everyone on Rocky View Council can put this behind them and move forward with a more productive and positive work environment."

He says the ruling suggests mediation is one way to help put the matter to rest, and that the three councillors are open to having those discussions.

"Nine heads working well together is better for all ratepayers, instead of just either three heads or six heads. We're looking forward to a more positive work environment moving forward."

There is now a 30-day window for appeal by the county. The six councillors will be meeting with their lawyers to discuss the decision this week, says Rocky View County Reeve Greg Boehlke.

"The sanctions were found to reasonable and rationale and the three were found to be guilty of breaches of the code of conduct, so everything the council did was justified," says Reeve Boehlke.

"I think council was substantiated with what we did, and that was basically endorsed by the judge, so you're splitting hairs on the rest of the stuff."

"There is certainly the potential for appeal. To be quite honest, I don't believe the majority of council wants to appeal. I think we'd like to put this thing behind us and move on."

On June 11, 2019, RVC council voted to sanction the three councillors under its code of conduct bylaw for providing privileged county legal information to unauthorized parties, and for disrespectful and discourteous communications.

The sanctioned councillors took their argument to the public and held a series of public houses to defend their actions. An initial hearing was held on Jan. 22 followed by supplemental written submissions on Feb. 3 and 12, and a supplemental oral hearing on June 9. 

The legal action was costly and supporters of the councillors established an online fundraiser. It has raised $21,070 to date.

The question of costs will be settled at a future date.

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