November 09, 201509 November 2015
The Ombudsman reviewed a closed meeting held by council for the City of Elliot Lake to discuss the mayor’s conduct and the roles and responsibilities of the mayor. The meeting was closed under the personal matters exception. The Ombudsman found that a discussion of a committee or council member may qualify as personal where it involves the evaluation of a person’s conduct or performance. The Ombudsman found that although parts of council’s discussion qualified as personal information, council’s discussion about the mayor’s official conduct was not covered by the personal matters exception. However, the Ombudsman found that parsing the closed meeting discussion would not be realistic, given the connection between the parts of the discussion that did not fall within the exception and those that did.