LEVY: The bullies who run small-town councils
Sue-Ann Levy writes, "There is absolutely no scrutiny on these overpaid mayors and councillors and they can use their powers not to be accountable but to silence others."
City of London councillor Susan Stevenson has faced eight integrity complaints, one formal reprimand and one 30-day pay sanction during her four years in office — simply for asking hard questions of the city’s bureaucrats.
”I ran thinking the city seemed to be going in the wrong direction,” she said recently.
She thought she’d be a “minority voice” but had no idea her questions upset the “carefully coordinated plan not to talk about difficult things.”
From the very outset, her questions about homelessness and harm reduction have led to numerous attacks by the agencies and activists invested in the homeless and drug industry.
They’ve called me “dangerous,” she said.
She also claims city manager Sandra Datars-Bere —who came on board in 2024 and made an outrageous $305,012 last year (for a city with a population of 630.000) – charged her with “bullying and harassment” for asking her questions that should be the right and duty of a councillor.
The agency serving as Integrity Commissioner for London — Principles Integrity — said while Stevenson has a right to ask questions, persistent questions about homelessness could be construed as “harassment.”
Apparently, in the city of London, one is not allowed to ask questions about — in this case, homeless programs — because essentially the bureaucrats have been “delegated authority” to do what they wish and not have to report their successes or failures, she says. They think they can spend with impunity because it is federal tax dollars.
Stevenson said when she tried to ask for details about the budgets and contracts for various homeless programs, the “silencing tactics began.
”Asking for information is perceived as an attack,” she said, noting she had to file FOIs to get contracts the council had approved.
She paid money, waited for months and when the information came back, all the budgets were redacted.
She adds that the rest of the councillors don’t ask for details, claiming they “trust” staff.
Woke mayor Josh Morgan, who made $226.893 last year, goes along with it.
Morgan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Stevenson came under fire — virtually being mobbed on social media — for tweeting a story by CNN’s Michael Smerconish in July of 2023 on how to deal with the homeless. In it, he suggests that if all the efforts to house and rehabilitate them fail and they return to the streets, perhaps arresting them is the only answer.
The leftists went nuts, repeatedly claiming that the councillors advocated jailing the homeless— all in an attempt to silence her.
“It was a complete witch hunt,” she says.
In smaller Ontario towns — away from the media scrutiny — the city’s councillors, mayor and highly paid bureaucrats have discovered a perfect way to silence those with hard questions and the Gravy Train they enjoy.
It’s the code of conduct complaint process — one they control using their handpicked and no doubt generously paid agency Principles, Integrity. The co-founder of that agency, Jeffrey Abrams, once worked as a solicitor at the city of Toronto.
In a 33-page Dec. 8, 2023 report, Principles, Integrity reprimanded Stevenson for taking photos of the homeless in a public park, calling it “unnecessary and insensitive.”
I guess Abrams would have reprimanded me continuously, seeing as I regularly wrote about and took pictures of the homeless occupying Toronto’s public parks.
If Abrams and his partner Janice Atwood are getting paid per eye-glazing word, they are doing very well. He proclaims in one of the reports written about Stevenson that he and his partner are “privileged” to act as Integrity Commissioner for several Ontario municipalities.
In the small town of Pickering, it appears mayor Kevin Ashe has Principles Integrity on speed dial, essentially to silence the thorn in his side, councillor Lisa Robinson.
Robinson, also a first-term councillor, has not been paid for 21 months over a series of integrity complaints and pay sanctions, launched primarily by Ashe and the CAO Marisa Carpino, who made $278,553 last year.
By contrast, Robinson made a grand total of $13,000 out of a total salary of $65,000 in 2025.
One of his complaints was that Robinson was given donations from crowdfunding on Give Send Go– a total of $15,000 to help her pay her mortgage and support her son (she’s a single mom).
Ashe freely admits in his response to me that she’s been sanctioned for “twice accepting prohibited gifts or benefits through online fundraising campaigns” which is a violation of the council’s gifts policies.
He seems to gleefully declare that their “third-party” Integrity Commish has investigated Robinson a total of eight times and found “repeated breaches” of the Code of Conduct–and that the Divisional court has upheld the Integrity Commish’s findings.
He maintains that the court also rejected allegations of “unfairness or bias.”
Ashe contends that the Integrity Commissioner’s “independent rulings” and the sanctions speak for themselves.
Stevenson argues otherwise. She has found that Principles Integrity has issued biased rulings about her, and from reading some of them, they appear to tell councillors what they want to hear.
Ashe did not respond to my question as to whether such a pay sanction was abusive, considering that according to records, he made $319,890.65 in total during 2025
Reports say Ashe is the highest-paid mayor in Durham, a town with just six members of council and a population of 117,000.
He is also apparently a good friend to Premier Doug Ford, who comparatively made $270,000 in 2025 and who attended his gala last November.
Robinson says Ashe has also harassed her on social media in response to videos she posts online about the council’s “disgusting” secrecy, lack of transparency and the mayor’s high salary.
Ashe and council have also moved meetings online, she contends, because they didn’t like that “people were showing up” to criticize them and journalists are no longer allowed to record meetings unless two-thirds of council votes in favour.
I thought the antics of the Toronto city council were bad and that Olivia Chow was a train wreck.
But at least we see what she is doing in living colour, even if it makes us sick.
But the greedy bullies who run small towns like London and Pickering – propped up by an integrity firm that may not be as objective or morally driven as they claim to be – are mob bosses unto themselves.
Trouble is, there is absolutely no scrutiny on these overpaid mayors and councillors and they can use their powers not to be accountable but to silence those who try to do their jobs properly.
Why am I not surprised?