Kingston’s integrity commissioner is recommending city councillor Peter Stroud be docked a month’s pay following an altercation with a Kingston Transit bus driver in June.

“We find that the councillor exhibited a callous disregard for the safety and well-being of others who were impacted by his actions during the event, including by disrupting and detaining the bus and its passengers on their route,” the commissioner wrote in the report, to be presented to city council next week.

In June 2019, Kingston Police charged Stroud with causing a disturbance and mischief to property under $5,000 after an altercation with a Kingston Transit bus driver. The Crown withdrew the charges Crown last September when Stroud completed a diversion program.

The integrity commissioner, Principles Integrity, recommends council dock Stroud one month’s pay (councillors are paid roughly $40,000 a year) and that their report be posted on the city’s website — which it already is.

“(I) would like again to say I’m very sorry for what I did,” Stroud said in a statement to the Whig-Standard.

He said he strongly objects to making the report public, especially the aspect of the report that identifies his son’s age and gender.

“This was completely unnecessary and I thank previous reportings that did not do this,” Stroud said. “I do not hold my council colleagues responsible as the city made that information public before council had a chance to vote on the second recommendation. This violated my innocent child’s right to privacy and needs to be addressed.”

Mayor Bryan Paterson said the very detailed, serious report speaks for itself and that this is the first time in his tenure that a financial penalty has been recommended. On Tuesday night, city council can vote down the recommendation or they can move to put something else in its place.

“I think that our community expects that high standard of behaviour. The report suggests that there was behaviour that does not meet that standard,” Paterson said. “So now council is going to have to determine: How do we signal to the community that we take our code of conduct seriously and that we’re willing to hold each other accountable to that highest standard of behaviour?”

The report to council was prepared by Principles Integrity, which has been the City of Kingston’s integrity commissioner since September 2017 and is based in the Greater Toronto Area.

Its investigation was initiated after several complaints received between Oct. 17 and 31, 2019, that Stroud breached the city’s code of conduct for councillors. The complaints focused on the Kingston Transit altercation and various Twitter posts directed at Kingston Police about a cruiser parked in a bike lane that was alleged to portray a pattern of bullying and intimidation.

While Principles Integrity found that the Twitter posts were “inappropriate,” they did not breach the code of conduct. The incident with the bus driver did.

The report, available under council meetings at www.cityofkingston.com, chronicles the entire incident, captured on four security cameras, in detail.

“We find that the councillor exhibited a callous disregard for the safety and well-being of others – including his own son – who were impacted by his actions during the event,” the report states.

The report explains that on June 23, 2019, Stroud and his preteen son were trying to catch the 2:48 p.m. 701 express bus from its stop at Brock and Alfred streets. They arrived with five seconds to spare, but the bus was already pulling away.

As the bus continued its route while Stroud’s son jumped back on his bike and Stroud rode after the 701, eventually meeting up with it at the intersection of Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and Bath Road. The report states that Stroud and his son got off the bike and he placed it on its kickstand right in front of the bus, which was in a lane of traffic.

“The driver waved her arms, waving him off, but he ignored her, and gestured to her window, then to his iPhone,” the report states. “He proceeded to tap on the windshield, and, from the bus video, appears to be yelling at her, demanding she let his son on the bus, then with his fist, banged three times on the windshield, demanding she open the door. He then started taking pictures of her with his iPhone.”

According to the report, during this time, Stroud’s son was standing on the line between the right turn lane and the second lane of Bath Road. The driver of the bus called her supervisor thinking that the man, whom she did not know was a city councillor, in front of her wanted to put his bike on the bike rack, but because she was in a lane of traffic it wasn’t safe to do so.

The report states that eventually Stroud rode to the next bus stop. The driver’s supervisor, who was making his way to the scene, told her not to open the door for the man at the next stop. Stroud and his son then rode away.

According to the report, while he was standing in front of the bus, Stroud had called the acting city manager to complain that the bus had left Brock Street and Alfred Street early.

The bus driver completed an incident report the next morning. The report states that had Stroud not called the acting city manager, the incident likely would have been dropped and simply documented as an irate cyclist who blocked the bus for a few minutes

Instead, senior staff reviewed the bus’s security footage within hours of the incident, and the decision was made to report it to the Kingston Police.

“Reviewing the video, it is clear that the bus operator handled the entire event with professionalism and composure, exhibiting the utmost concern for the safety and well-being of everyone involved,” Principles Integrity wrote in its report.

The Whig-Standard submitted a Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request to receive a copy of the Kingston Transit bus’s surveillance footage. It was denied under section 32 of the MFIPPA, which states:

“An institution shall not disclose personal information in its custody or under its control except, b) if the person to whom the information relates has identified that information in particular and consented to its disclosure.”

“Personal information” refers to the subject’s image captured in the video.

The MFIPPA decision letter prepared by the City of Kingston and sent to the Whig-Standard states that “communication has been made with Peter Stroud and he explicitly stated that he does not consent to the disclosure of his or his son’s personal information.”

Stroud’s diversion program included donating $200 to the Salvation Army in lieu of community service and writing a letter of apology to the bus driver. The report states that, through no fault of Stroud’s, the driver never received the letter but instead filed with the diversion program.

“While a heartfelt, sincere, timely apology can bring meaningful resolution and closure to a difficult situation, in our view, the letter of apology provided by the councillor fails to grasp the seriousness of the incident or the egregiousness of his behaviour,” the report states. “In our view, the apology was neither timely nor heartfelt.”

The report said that while it should allow Stroud to be held to account for his actions, everyone involved in the incident, including the transit operator, would like to put the whole thing behind them.

Principles Integrity writes that, “We hope (the report) will also give the councillor reason to pause and to reflect on his impulses before he acts on them — whether in regard to protesting perceived wrongs or communicating about them through social media.”

scrosier@postmedia.com

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