Chu dealt with ethics office informally for licence plate photos: city

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The City of Calgary says an informal resolution process was used to deal with the case of Coun. Sean Chu takes pictures of the mayor’s license plate and gives them to a member of the public.

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The informal resolution would have kept Chu’s misconduct out of the public eye forever had the mayor not gone public with her concerns.

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Chu admitted to taking the photos earlier this week after Mayor Jyoti Gondek revealed to councilors and the public what happened.

“I just want to let you know that I accept the punishment, which was that I am not allowed to park in executive parking, but (I have to park) in the public parking lot,” Chu told the council on Tuesday. “Secondly, I also spoke with the ethics commissioner and we had a course to deal with this particular issue.”

Generally, when a complaint is filed with the integrity commissioner and a violation of the board’s code of conduct is determined, the board will receive a public report from the commissioner.

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Once the council receives the public report, they vote on appropriate sanctions recommended by the integrity commissioner.

The public saw that formal process play out earlier this year, when three reports about two city councilors were brought to council in July. It has a report on Count. Dan McLean regarding face mask use, and reports on Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra for inappropriate Twitter statements, and for not disclosing his financial interest in a property.

However, in the case of Chu, that formal process was not followed. Instead, the city used section 79 of the code of conduct ordinance, which provides the options of an informal resolution, as long as the subject and the complainant are open to that process.

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The informal decision does not lead to any public disclosure of code of conduct violations.

In a statement, the city said it was city administration that filed the complaint of a “conduct-related violation” and that the “informal resolution” had been decided and reached.

“This addressed the administration’s security concerns,” the statement said. “Councilman Chu has decided to speak publicly about the informal resolution of his own accord and can be contacted for further comment.”

Postmedia went to Count. Chu repeatedly since Tuesday, but he did not respond.

Gondek said she did not go to the Integrity and Ethics Office with her concerns, and said Saturday that decision means she is free to speak about what Chu did.

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“So the fact that I didn’t file a complaint and I made it public — what this person did — I don’t have restrictions on me (because) I filed a confidential complaint,” Gondek said.

The mayor said the 16-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by Chu when he was a police officer in 1997 is also awaiting justice.

That case is now in the hands of two provincial deputy ministers, who are reviewing the Calgary Police Commission’s review of the investigation. The review carried out earlier this year found that mistakes were made in the way the investigation was handled.

brthomas@postmedia.com
Twitter: @brodie_thomas