Rainbow school board looks to exclude trustees who are 'likely' to leak private meetings

The Rainbow School Board is looking at keeping trustees out of closed door meetings if it is deemed likely they will leak information.

A motion being tabled Tuesday at the strategic planning committee for the Sudbury area English public board wouldgivethe board chair the power to have trustees removedfrom private meetings when"due to past actions, a breach of confidentiality by a trustee appears likely to occur."

The board chair would table the motion and it would need two thirds of the trustees to vote in favour before the offending trustee was removed.

Board chair Dorreen Dewar says she doesn't want to discuss the motion or its origin, before its been dealt with by trustees.

If the motion passes, it would still need to be voted on at a regular board meeting before becoming official policy.

Manitoulin Island trustee Larry Killens believes it is targeting him.

"I just can't believe. I can't believe what I read," says Killens.

"I was a police officer for 30 years and boy do I wish we could have penalized or punished or put aside for what people might do."

'I've never seen anything quite like this'

Killens says he was kept out of in camera meetings, especially those involving union negotiations, starting in 2015, but recently had that decision overturned by the provincial Ombudsman.

"I see us as a board in crisis," he say.

AndrewSancton,aprofessor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario who specializes in municipalities and closed door meetings, was surprised to read the motion.

"I've never seen anything quite like this," says Sancton.

"People do get concerned about the possibility things being leaked from in camera meetings and sometimes they have very good reason to be concerned about that."

But Sancton says anyone who leaks private information should be reprimanded, something that'sdifficult to do before an actual leak takes place.