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  #101  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2011, 6:15 PM
markbarbera markbarbera is offline
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Bill Kelly is a radio talk show host, not a journalist. Talk show hosts are supposed to be opinionated and biased, journalists in the role of reporter are supposed to remain objective and unbiased when reporting.

I really miss Nicole MacIntyre's coverage of city hall. She's a class act and a great example of a responsible journalist.
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  #102  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2011, 10:53 PM
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Citizen launches integrity complaint against Bratina

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...gainst-bratina

An Ancaster resident has launched a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner over the controversial $30,000 raise Mayor Bob Bratina awarded his chief of staff.

In an email circulated to city councillors, Brian Hatch said he filed an affidavit for the integrity commissioner Monday morning.

The email alleges Bratina contravened several subsections of council’s code of conduct, including Section 13, which prohibits councillors from maliciously or recklessly injuring the professional or ethical reputations of city employees.

That accusation was leveled over Bratina’s claim that Chapman’s raise –to $120,000 from $90,000 a year – was initiated by the city’s human resources staff.

It was later revealed that the mayor’s office requested the pay hike.

In the complaint, Hatch also criticizes Bratina for an alleged lack of transparency.

Integrity commissioner Earl Basse said the city clerk’s office had notified him that a complaint was filed, but he has yet to see its contents.

“I understand I have received one,” he said. “I just haven’t got it in my hands right now.”

Once Basse has the complaint, he said he would interview the person who launched it and then advise the mayor about the allegations.

“I advise them that there has been a complaint and then I conduct the investigation, gather information from both sides and end up making a decision,” he said.

If the integrity commissioner finds that Bratina has violated the code of conduct, he said the mayor could either be reprimanded or lose his pay for up to three months.

Basse added that he had not been informed of any additional complaints.

When reached by phone and asked if he would comment, Bratina replied “of course not” and hung up.
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  #103  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2011, 11:23 PM
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When reached by phone and asked if he would comment, Bratina replied “of course not” and hung up.
Stay classy, Bob.
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  #104  
Old Posted Jan 12, 2012, 12:57 PM
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Eisenberger blasts Bratina

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...blasts-bratina

Former mayor Fred Eisenberger has raised the chance he'll run in 2014 after an interview in which he criticized Mayor Bob Bratina and said, “I sense there's not a lot of council support for working with Bob.”
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  #105  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2012, 11:40 PM
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Mayor facing possible censure

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...ssible-censure

Mayor Bob Bratina once again faces possible council censure over the contentious $30,000 raise given to his chief of staff.

Councillors were outraged in December after the mayor bumped up Peggy Chapman’s salary 33 per cent to $120,000 from $90,000, then attributed the decision to human resources staff.

Bratina later apologized and took responsibility for the decision, staving off a planned in-camera debate about whether he contravened the city’s code of conduct.

But Bratina reignited the debate this week by arguing in an email to The Hamilton Spectator, subsequently published in an Andrew Dreschel column, that he “left the matter of compensation … to the outcome of a review by Human Resources.”

That prompted Councillor Sam Merulla to call for the formal censure of the mayor, a motion he’ll put forward at next Wednesday’s council meeting with Councillor Chad Collins as a seconder.

“We’re at our wits’ end when it comes to the drama coming out of the Mayor’s Office,” said Merulla after the issue was discussed at length at Wednesday’s general issues committee meeting. “He needs to man up and accept responsibility for this mess.”

Merulla said his main beef is the public flip-flopping on who is to blame for Chapman’s big-ticket raise and “continual attacks on staff.” But he noted the mayor’s publicized email raises other “troubling issues.”

In the email, the mayor also blamed the $8,000 vacation payout that lifted his chief of staff onto the 2011 sunshine list, a development recently highlighted in The Spectator, on the newspaper’s “unrelenting” and “misleading” coverage of Chapman’s raise.

The mayor also said he’s asked for an investigation — complete with “signed affidavits” — into how The Spectator found out Chapman’s 2011 salary is on the sunshine list. All public salaries of $100,000 or more must be posted online later this month under provincial law.

Several councillors questioned Bratina’s apparent about-face on exactly who was responsible for bumping up Chapman’s salary.

“It really bothers me when you make an apology that doesn’t seem to be sincere,” said Councillor Terry Whitehead.

Councillor Brad Clark said the mixed message “becomes a real problem for the credibility of this (council) body.”

The mayor declined a request for comment after the meeting. But during the debate, Bratina argued the latest Spectator column took his words out of context.

He said he apologized to HR staff for his “faulty use of the language” in explaining how his chief of staff got a raise, but simultaneously denied sole responsibility for Chapman’s salary bump.

“I did not decide to give my employee a raise,” he told councillors. “An annual review occurred and on the advice of HR, an amount was settled upon. I approved it.”

The mayor argued council should be more concerned about how a city employee’s salary information got in the newspaper. (The original Spectator story about the sunshine list did not actually contain Chapman’s salary information. Instead, those details were provided to The Spec by the mayor the next day.)

“Someone felt malicious intent to create an event that would bring discredit to my office and my employees,” Bratina said. “The source of this can hardly be explained in any way other than a breach of the code of conduct that applies to our staff.”

City manager Chris Murray confirmed the mayor asked for an investigation into whether staff with access to the city’s sunshine list passed on confidential information. But Murray added he is still consulting with HR and legal experts to determine whether an investigation is necessary or appropriate.

He said Wednesday it isn’t clear whether city policy forbids releasing salary information that is destined to be made public anyway.

Councillors also went in camera to discuss Chapman’s vacation pay. Council will have the chance to vote on the censure motion next Wednesday.
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  #106  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 4:15 AM
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Lame and pathetic...it's no wonder so few people bother to vote.
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  #107  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 12:55 PM
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Forget military consultants, where's this guy's PR advisor?
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  #108  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 12:57 PM
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I've said that right from the getgo. Bratina needs a Communication consultant or a PR. Can't rely on Peggy for communication/media relations, and if he did than she failed miserably.
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  #109  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 4:25 PM
markbarbera markbarbera is offline
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He definitely could benefit from a communications expert, given that the Spec is so intently focussed on casting Bratina in the worst light possible at every available opportunity, and they haven't had a chance to do so since Christmas. Finally they couldn't wait any longer and stooped to recycling old news, with Dreschel stooping to his usual lows to stir up the political pot, and with Emma Reilly consistently confusing the role of reporter with that of columnist.

Honestly, it is sensational tabloid journalism at its worst. Previous mayors' chiefs of staff have made the sunshine list without nary a blink from the reporters at Fort Frid, and a rather large cohort of senior staff at city hall will be there as well this time around. Honing in on Chapman was a smarmy attempt to get more leg out of an otherwise dead story. Unfortunately they got their wish and the mayor responded. Despite the temptation to right the wrong of yellow journalism, he shouldn't have responded because with these guys it doesn't matter how one responds, context is no longer a concern when it comes to splashing a sensational story in a paper at the Spec these days. You'd swear it was J. Jonah Jameson running that rag.
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  #110  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 4:58 PM
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You'd swear it was J. Jonah Jameson running that rag.
That is awesome!
"Bob Bratina: Threat or Menace?"
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  #111  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 7:47 PM
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I liked "Fort Frid".

But really I totally agree. And council tries to bring up censure again. move on folks. He should use his office budget and hire a communication consultant, not that I think he would need it, only as a defense against Fort Frid.
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  #112  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 9:46 PM
CaptainKirk CaptainKirk is offline
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Originally Posted by markbarbera View Post
...they couldn't wait any longer and stooped to recycling old news,...
The latest email exchange was just a few days ago and the mayor is back to throwing staff under the bus again!

This current problem does not lie with the Spec.
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  #113  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2012, 11:53 PM
markbarbera markbarbera is offline
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Nowhere in the exchange were staff thrown "under the bus".

What did happen is an email was sent to Paul Berton, editor in chief of the Hamilton Spectator in which Bratina complained about the obvious bias a couple of reporters have against him, along with an attempt to set the record straight on a few of the many inaccuracies his reporters have been making. The Spec, in the spirit of yellow journalism, responded by taking excerpts of this email out of context in another round of tabloid sensationalism designed to attempt to further discredit the mayor.

Bratina was unwise to send this email, although I can appreciate how he would feel compelled to challenge the latest volley of bottom-dweller journalistic techniques employed by Berton's somewhat less than intrepid reporting staff.

Bratina should have known that there is no point in challenging Fort Frid. The pro-Eisenberger shop has a blatently obvious bias against him and he could not possibly have expected this email to change that bias. In fact, it just gave them fodder to try to convey more bad ink at his expense. In the world of single-source print media, Fort Frid has developed such a culture of entitlement they feel it their duty to destroy the mayor to avenge the loss of their Man, and to pave the way for His triumphant return.

With such a swarthy gang of yellow journalists inhabiting Fort Frid (the finest the least amount of money can buy), Bratina needs a communications specialist to navigate the minefield they lay down. A media relations person can't quell their bias, but they can try to manage keep some of it in check.
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  #114  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2012, 1:09 AM
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Originally Posted by markbarbera View Post
Nowhere in the exchange were staff thrown "under the bus".
Not in the exchange, no. But he does in his email where he again says:

Quote:
Here's a falsehood published by Lee Prokaska…"wouldn't have come up had Mayor Bob Bratina not decided late last year to give Peggy Chapman, his chief of staff, a 33 per cent raise, ". This is blatantly not true. I made no such decision, but left the matter of compensation, as I have said over and over, to the outcome of a review by Human Resources.
http://media.mmgdailies.topscms.com/...4d782b5794.pdf

He's saying human resources gave her the raise. We've been down this road before.

But here's mayor Bratina's statement from December:
Quote:
...I made comments regarding the salary adjustment given my Chief of Staff that left the impression that the initiative originated in the Human Resources Department. This was not the case
Quote:
The issue of salary review for this office is, of course, my responsibility as mayor. While I did seek comparative historical information from Human Resources and while I acted on the basis of that information, it was not my intention to suggest that the final approval was anyone’s other than my own.
http://blog.joeycoleman.ca/2011/12/s...r-bob-bratina/
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  #115  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2012, 11:42 AM
markbarbera markbarbera is offline
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Read the email again carefully. Nowhere does he say the decision to award a raise was made by HR. He does say the amount to be compensated was decided on based on the results of an HR review of salaries for that position, i.e. he did not arbitrarily give a 33% raise to Chapman on a whim. It was an amount arrived at after he asked HR to review the compensation for that position and report to him on the typical compensation range for that position.

As I have said before, Bratina could benefit from a communications expert on staff. His email was worded in a way that would allow his political detractors far too much leeway for creative interpretations like this.
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  #116  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2012, 8:58 PM
bigguy1231 bigguy1231 is offline
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Originally Posted by markbarbera View Post
Read the email again carefully. Nowhere does he say the decision to award a raise was made by HR. He does say the amount to be compensated was decided on based on the results of an HR review of salaries for that position, i.e. he did not arbitrarily give a 33% raise to Chapman on a whim. It was an amount arrived at after he asked HR to review the compensation for that position and report to him on the typical compensation range for that position.

As I have said before, Bratina could benefit from a communications expert on staff. His email was worded in a way that would allow his political detractors far too much leeway for creative interpretations like this.
Even the best PR people would have a hard time putting a positive spin on anything the Village Idiot has to say. He just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. Most of this was put in the past and he is the one who has brought it up again. I think most councilors were happy to leave sleeping dogs lie, but this moron had to bring it up again. It's almost like he enjoys the abuse.
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  #117  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2012, 10:33 PM
CaptainKirk CaptainKirk is offline
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Read the email again carefully. Nowhere does he say the decision to award a raise was made by HR.
That's how I read this:


Quote:
Here's a falsehood published by Lee Prokaska…"wouldn't have come up had Mayor Bob Bratina not decided late last year to give Peggy Chapman, his chief of staff, a 33 per cent raise, ". This is blatantly not true. I made no such decision, but left the matter of compensation, as I have said over and over, to the outcome of a review by Human Resources.
With all due respect, I'm wondering what you think he is saying here. If he didn't make the decision to give her a raise, then who did?

http://media.mmgdailies.topscms.com/...4d782b5794.pdf


Quote:
As I have said before, Bratina could benefit from a communications expert on staff. His email was worded in a way that would allow his political detractors far too much leeway for creative interpretations like this.
Agreed 100%
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  #118  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2012, 10:45 PM
markbarbera markbarbera is offline
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The excerpt you refer to is talking about the extent of the raise. Bratina is saying that he did not arbitrarily decide on the amount of the raise as was reported by Lee Prokaska, but he let that amount be determined based on the results of the salary review he had requested from HR.
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  #119  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2012, 12:53 AM
CaptainKirk CaptainKirk is offline
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Originally Posted by markbarbera View Post
The excerpt you refer to is talking about the extent of the raise. Bratina is saying that he did not arbitrarily decide on the amount of the raise as was reported by Lee Prokaska, but he let that amount be determined based on the results of the salary review he had requested from HR.

Oh, I agree with that.

That's old news and somewhat disengneous.

Bottom line is, he approved the 33% increase.

He and Chapman were already familar the going pay rates and had decided to take less when she took the job. All HR did was tell him what the previous Chief of staff earned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiCxOzQLPiE&t=17m4s
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  #120  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2012, 8:35 AM
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Forget it. Barbera will defend Bratina to the death.

The only thing I've ever liked about Bratina is that Balkan trio he belongs to. Actually, like might be too strong a word...
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