Elmira Coun. Scott Hahn is likely setting a precedent, but one he’s not eager to embrace. A complaint was lodged this week about the report he filed in relation to his election expenses, and now he may face a hearing before the region’s Municipal Elections Audit Committee (MEAC).
It appears to be a first for the township and Waterloo Region.
It’s certainly an unknown for Woolwich clerk Val Hummel, who’s had a long tenure at the administrative office. On Monday, she fielded a request to audit Hahn’s expenses from Dan Holt, one of six candidates who ran in Ward 1 during last fall’s municipal election.
“People were asking me questions about this. I’d looked at [Hahn’s filing] myself, and I kind of wondered ‘what’s going on?,’” said Holt of his decision to file a formal request for scrutiny. “I believe that the electorate has the right to know about these expenses.”
Hahn’s official record of expenses, available online at the township’s website, amounts to just $358.40, including the $100 nomination fee due when he filed his papers to run in the election. That’s well below what the other five candidates claimed as expenses related to their candidacies.
Holt himself claimed expenses of $1,911.02. The other victor in Ward 1, Patrick Merlihan, had expenses of $3,134. The other candidates, Allan Poffenroth ($3,362.15), Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach ($2,475.11) and Ruby Weber ($6,681.57), all spent considerably more than Hahn claimed. All were well below the limit of $11,333.35.
“When you look at everybody’s expenses, we all spent about $2,000 or more,” said Holt, adding Hahn’s statement didn’t include any accounting for the numerous lawn signs he deployed or the flyers he distributed.
For his part, Hahn is keeping mum until he’s heard from the audit committee.
“I don’t have anything to say until after I have heard from the Municipal Elections Audit Committee,” he said in an email message.
Under the Ontario Municipal Elections Act, Hummel has 10 days from receipt of the request to contact the audit committee, which she expected to do before week’s end. After that, it’s up to the committee to decide if the request has merit and to hire an auditor to carry out a review of Hahn’s expenses, she explained.
MEAC has 30 days to make a decision on the request, after which there’s a 15-day window in which anyone can appeal the decision to the Ontario Court of Justice. If an auditor is brought in, the process occurs independently of the township, which bears the cost. The auditor reports back to MEAC, and if there is a contravention of the elections act, the committee decides what action to take.
The range and type of penalties is still unclear, said Hummel, noting this is new territory.
All of the MEAC meetings are open to the public.
