According to court documents obtained by CP24, the council met on May 31 to appoint a replacement for Charmaine Williams, then representative for wards 7 and 8, should she be elected MPP for Brampton Center later in the week.
At the time, the board discussed the legality of conditionally appointing a board member before a vacancy was announced, the documents said.  This person would fill the seat until the next municipal election.
The motion passed although five of the 11 people, including Mayor Patrick Brown, voted against it.  Williams participated in the vote and seconded the nomination.
In a press release issued Tuesday, those who voted against the motion say the other six councilors “made backroom deals” in choosing Elaine Moore to replace Williams.  Moore, this group of councilors says, has “zero connections to Wards 7 and 8 and is best known for her opposition to LRT as a former councilor and support of a religious discrimination policy as a former school commissioner.”
“From day one, six councilors behind closed doors to maintain a subversive stranglehold on the Council, at the expense of residents, orchestrated this illegal move,” they wrote, adding that members of the public were not given the opportunity to apply for the position. or provide information.
“Fearing the effects of the illegal move on future Council decisions and believing it was his responsibility as a Councilor to protect the Council and the taxpayers, the Councilor [Harkirat] Singh has undertaken to initiate legal proceedings to stop the appointment so the city can protect itself from future legal challenges, potentially saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” the statement said.
Singh had previously attempted motions to seek legal advice on making the appointment, but they were voted down.
In the court’s decision, Judge Michael T. Doi notes that the board had not yet declared the position vacant when it appointed a replacement counsel and that Williams had not yet resigned from the position.
Once a position is vacant, the municipality must appoint a person to fill it within 60 days or pass an ordinance requiring a by-election to be held, unless an election is already scheduled within 90 days of the vacancy being declared.
“From the clear and specific language in ss 262(1) and 263(5)(1) of the Municipal Act to fill vacancies and applying the modern approach to statutory interpretation, I am satisfied that the municipal council may make an appointment person to fill a vacancy after declaring the vacancy at its next meeting after the vacancy occurs,” Doi wrote.
The design of this statutory mechanism wisely ensures that the sitting member of the council whose retirement creates the vacancy will not participate in the process of determining who is to be appointed to fill a vacancy on the Council under ss 263(1) and 263( 5)(1)(i) of the Municipal Law, respectively.  Given the collective interplay of all these provisions, the design of the mechanism is clearly intended to preserve the integrity of the process of replacing members in the Council by excluding incumbents from the process so as to avoid any possibility of wrongdoing or the appearance of wrongdoing.’
“I hasten to add that neither party is alleging bad faith by anyone in this matter and I am making no findings of willful conduct.”
Brown, along with Singh and the four other councilors who voted against the council’s proposal to fill the vacancy, will hold a news conference at noon Tuesday to discuss the court’s decision.