A La Ronge town councillor will have no further action taken against her after a complaint was made by a town employee.
Abby Besharah was the subject of a lengthy report created by an integrity commissioner after a discussion involving her and a town employee about her new business became heated.
The report explained that Besharah’s behaviour was inappropriate and violated the council’s code of conduct, but the report recommended council take no further action against Besharah as she had already apologized to the employee.
The report gives summaries of interviews with town employees and Besharah about the incident.
At a special council meeting Tuesday, council discussed whether to follow the commissioner’s recommendations or to penalize Besharah further.
Councillor Jordan McPhail told council he wanted to follow the recommendations of the commissioner.
“We contracted the services of an integrity commissioner to go in and provide victim statements, talk to the people that have all been involved and who the integrity person has deemed necessary to reach out to and talk to, and has provided a pretty comprehensive report to us,” he said.
He then put forward a motion of following the commissioner’s recommendations.
Councillor Joe Hordyski said he agreed with everything in the report, except one part.
“There’s only one part of the recommendation that I disagree with and that’s the last paragraph. ‘I would encourage the town to consider clarifying for all councillors how to navigate their dealings with town employees,’” Hordyski read from the report. “At no time, whether as a regular citizen of the town or a councillor, (do) you have the right to be abusive to staff. This is a respectful workplace and there’s no clarifying that. When you’re a councillor, you’re a councillor all the time. You don’t wear two hats.”
Council voted unanimously in favour of taking no further action against Besharah.
Besharah will be able to tell council how she felt about the investigation process at a later date.
(PHOTO: Besharah was elected to council in 2016. Photo courtesy of town of La Ronge website.)