By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 26, 2014
Bratina gave documents to Clark
By Andrew Dreschel — Hold onto your ballots, folks. This story is going to get smudgy and smeary in the best tradition of municipal politics.
It turns out Councillor Brad Clark’s gotcha moment against mayoral rival Fred Eisenberger was really a gimme from Mayor Bob Bratina.
Instead of receiving some allegedly damning LRT memos through a freedom of information request as he led people to believe, Clark actually got them directly from the mayor.
According to Bratina, he found the memos dating back to Eisenberger’s time as mayor while cleaning out his desk drawers in preparation for leaving office and passed them on to Clark.
“He had FOI-ed them so I knew he was after documents in the mayor’s office, which I had. So I gave them to him,” Bratina said.
Clark is using the documents as campaign fodder, arguing they show Eisenberger misled council and the public by keeping LRT information secret.
Eisenberger says they’re actually innocent briefing notes, that it’s Clark who’s trying to pull a fast one through false accusations.
“This whole thing is misleading,” says Eisenberger.
Speaking of which, didn’t Clark’s news release clearly state that his FOI request “generated” the reports?
Yes it did. And earlier Ken Audziss, Clark’s campaign manager, told me they got the information “through the FOI process and then ultimately that’s how we received it.”
Does that mean they’re, er, lying? Not at all. This is election season, after all.
Audziss says they wouldn’t have got the info from Bratina if not for the FOI request. “The mayor’s office generated these documents and when they provided them to us it was specifically in reference to the request.”
And please don’t jump to any rash conclusions that this means Bratina is supporting Clark for mayor, even though they’re both against LRT. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)
Posted as a lawn sign at the Andrew Haines residence:
