Councillor Peter Stroud took city staff to task on Tuesday night for not doing enough to head off the Adam Candon conflict of interest issue concerning a downtown condominium development.

"The blame needs to be shared all across the organization and not just among the councillors," said Stroud.

His comments came after one of those rare occurrences at a city council meeting: a politician publicly criticizing staff for some perceived error in judgment or policy.

Stroud had jumped into the debate about the hiring of an integrity commissioner and began directing his comments at the city’s top bureaucrat, CAO Gerard Hunt, about what information Hunt had received about Candon’s potential conflict and when he had received it.

Stroud was cut off by acting deputy mayor Ryan Boehme, who had taken the chair from Mayor Bryan Paterson.

Stroud said he would take the matter up with Hunt "in a private conversation" but went on to say that senior staff should have provided advice to Candon "in a timely way."

"This is a plea for help," said Stroud. "We need staff to be more proactive."

After the council meeting, Stroud told the Whig-Standard that the Candon situation snowballed because city staff had failed to heed warnings from several citizens about a potential conflict.

"They knew there was a potential conflict in advance," said Stroud. "There was no action. This whole thing was preventable."

On Sept. 20, council voted 7-6 to approve a zoning amendment that would allow the Capitol condominium to be built at 15 storeys.

The project had been promoted for months on one of Candon’s real estate websites and several citizens raised this as a potential conflict issue with the mayor, the city clerk and the provincial Ombudsman.

A week before the vote at council, Candon sought independent legal advice from a Kingston lawyer who said the councillor had no pecuniary conflict of interest under the Ontario Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

Candon voted for the project, it narrowly passed, but the complaints didn’t go away.

On Oct. 4, with Candon’s urging, council approved the hiring of integrity commissioner Janet Leiper who later ruled that Candon "inadvertently" breached the city’s code of conduct regarding conflicts.

In her report, Leiper recommended council reconsider the Capitol condominium vote as well as conduct a review of how potential conflicts are handled.

That’s what councillors were doing when Stroud made his remarks.

Paterson reintroduced the reconsideration motion as "the appropriate response to the findings of the integrity commissioner" but also restated his support for the Capitol project.

"I still stand by my earlier vote. This is the right project for the downtown," said Paterson.

He noted, too, that the fate of the project would rest with the Ontario Municipal Board.

Four Kingstonians have separately filed appeals with the provincial board stating their objections to the high-rise project.

The reconsideration vote, taken with Candon out of the chambers, passed 11-1 with Councillor Liz Schell dissenting.

That left council to vote on the original motion of Sept. 20, this time without Candon.

It was a tied vote, 6-6, meaning the motion, and approval for the project, failed.

However, as city solicitor Susan Nicholson explained, the appeals will continue before the Ontario Municipal Board.

With that vote completed, council moved on to the motion to hire an integrity commissioner to advise councillors on potential conflict issues as well as to review procedures where the code of conduct are concerned.

Currently, as in the Candon case, councillors must seek legal advice on their own and pay for it as well.

"The concern I have," said Paterson, "is that the integrity commissioner found Councillor Candon followed that process but still had a conflict of interest. If our current process is not adequate what changes do we need to put into play?"

All councillors who spoke agreed with the hiring.

"This is a mess we’re in right now," said Liz Schell. "This has put a chill on this council. We can’t suddenly not vote on things because we work in finance."

Candon, who rejoined council for the discussion and vote, recalled feeling like "a pinball" between the two divergent legal opinions over his actions.

Two years ago, council had considered hiring an integrity commissioner to act as an adviser but it was voted down.

Candon said that in hindsight he would have voted in favour.

Councillor Richard Allen said most councillors have to serve "two masters" — their employers at work and their constituents at city hall — and that sometimes the two roles come into conflict.

"There’s already so many barriers [to voting]," said Allen. "We don’t want to create more."

Councillor Kevin George was found in breach of the code of conduct earlier this year for failing to declare his surveying company’s business connections to a housing developer whose projects were being opposed by a group of citizens.

"In my case, I clearly broke the rule. I hold myself responsible," said George.

He also expressed concern that in future people "may be turned off" running for council and said the code of conduct should be "tightened up."

When an amendment was passed adding a second expert to help city staff review code of conduct policy, Councillor Rob Hutchison asked, "What’s the cost of all of this?"

Hutchison doubted whether a policy review would achieve what councillors were hoping for.

"You will probably still have to get a lawyer," he said. "You are responsible for your own conflicts."

CAO Hunt agreed there would be additional budget costs to pay for an integrity commissioner’s advice and to review code of conduct policies.

"There will be a cost but there could be greater cost if we don’t spend money now and get it right," said Hunt.

pschliesmann@postmedia.com