Hole lot of clout: Who's behind the e-mails?

It's a guilty pleasure of all journalists, I think, to catch a glimpse behind the scenes at the havoc we hath wrought. I am no exception. So when, at the end of an arduous (and expensive) access to information process I finally got that envelope of internal memos of e-mails pertaining to last fall's Highway 174 sinkhole, I zeroed in on the correspondence dealing with this story.

There's a trail of e-mails between various players in the mayor's office, reacting to the inspection video that I think it's fair to say they would rather NOT have seen on their television screens and computer monitors that Friday. Also included in the chain is one mystery recipient.

At a few minutes to eight, two hours after the story aired, the mayor's senior policy advisor George Young sent a copy of the web version to his boss Jim Watson, Watson's chief of staff Serge Arpin, the mayor's media guy Ryan Kennery and one other person. That last person's name has been excised from the documents under Section 14(1) of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which states the city "may refuse to disclose a record of an individuals's personal information, other than to the individual to whom it relates."

That mystery recipient replied to Young the next afternoon, apparently worried about elected officials being left out of the loop: "And is city (sic) sending something to councillors to explain why this was released while ind study is going on? And when will study be ready. When is 90 days up?" This in reference to the independent report by engineering firm B.M. Ross into the root causes of the incident, commissioned earlier that month.

Four minutes later Young forwarded this concern to city clerk and chief solicitor Rick O'Connor and city manager Kent Kirkpatrick: "We had best send something to all councillors explaining how the report went out during the investigation. I have told Mayor (sic) that east Councillors were personally notified yesterday."

By this time CBC had also contacted those councillors, and interviewed at least one -- Bob Monette -- about the video. Other councillors found out via our newscast and website, along with everyone else. It would be interesting to know the identity of this missing link in the chain of command, and why his or her name was removed before these documents were released. Since none of the other 300+ pages I received excised the names of city employees, it would appear to be someone calling the shots from outside the bureaucracy.