City of Calgary Councilor Expense Scandal
So Ward 2 councilor and noted "fiscal hawk" Joe Magliocca is caught up in an expense scandal.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...ravel-expenses
Coun. Magliocca calls nonexistent guests on travel expenses a ‘clerical error'
Chestermere Coun. Yvette Kind (formerly Wagner) says she was surprised to learn her name was attached to a $331 bar tab at the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac for a meeting that she never attended. Kind said she met Magliocca for the first time at the conference, but they never met for drinks.
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The incident has raised fresh questions about a trove of hosting receipts submitted by Magliocca from his trip to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference last spring.
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But four elected officials listed on receipts submitted by Magliocca and obtained through a freedom of information request say they did not have meals or drinks purchased by him, nor were they present in the bars or restaurants identified on the receipts; and at least two people listed on the receipts said they couldn’t recall having ever met Magliocca.» Click image for larger version
Luckily we have an integrity commissioner to look into such things:
Integrity commissioner recuses himself from Magliocca expense probe, citing free meal with councillor
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...461145?cmp=rssMagliocca’s ward expense disclosure shows $163 for a meal with integrity commissioner Sal LoVecchio at Franca’s Italian Specialties. LoVecchio said in a statement to Postmedia on Tuesday that the lunch on July 19, 2019, was “purely social” and not related to an investigation. LoVecchio said that when Magliocca offered to pay, he “did not object.”
“The taxpayers of the City of Calgary should not be paying for a social lunch of mine and I am deeply concerned to find out that this has occurred,” he said, noting he only learned of the expense in the past 24 hours.
Integrity commissioner's recusal leaves council scrambling to continue expenses probe
Joe did pay back some of the costs as "Money’s no object for me, trust me." But his $6400 expense also had rejected items on it (the other 9 people who were there averaged under $3000 of expenses).LoVecchio said that because he dined socially with the councillor, and the meal was expensed without his knowledge, he felt it would be inappropriate for him to handle the probe into Magliocca's expenses.
Coun. Jeff Davison said on Wednesday that recusal isn't good enough.
"I think at this point it's become very abundant that the integrity commissioner is not independent," he said.
"At no time should an integrity commissioner be meeting to have social lunches with any member of council."
Gondek said council members were told never to go for coffee or socialize at all with the integrity commissioner, who could potentially one day investigate complaints against them.
"When we have met with the integrity commissioner in the past, it's been made very clear that, 'When I talk to you, it'll be for reasons of an investigation,'" Gondek said.
Magliocca says he'll repay portion of Quebec travel expenses that included alcohol
While Joe claims he has a bad memory 'because he's old' and that he asserted that his apology was 'the end of the matter' because apparently he gets to decide when the matter of expense fraud is over, things haven't been getting better for him.Magliocca also expensed a $238 meal of steaks and wine with Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita.
Some of Magliocca’s receipts were ultimately rejected, according to the head of the co-ordinating committee of the councillors’ office.
Two more people say they didn't dine with Magliocca as pressure mounts on him to publicly explain expenses
The new cases — in addition to eight elected officials who said or confirmed through spokespeople they didn’t dine with Magliocca — make it 10 people in total who say they didn’t sit down with him despite being named on his receipts.
According to receipts obtained by Postmedia through a freedom of information request, Magliocca expensed a $138 meal at a restaurant called Cafe Hobbit on June 1, 2019, and listed an “E. Mendes” from Airbnb as the only guest. A spokesperson from Airbnb said four people from the company attended the FCM trade show, including a woman named Elizabeth Mendes, but their record of appointments from that day shows meetings with councillors from a different city, and no business with anyone from Calgary.
I've always disliked Magliocca because he's a populist, faux-fiscal hawk who's developer backed and supports sprawl, dislikes active transport, so it's always fun to see those types get caught up in these...transgressions.
Ward 2 has always been a disaster, Magliocca embodies it quite well, really.
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Originally Posted by gatorade
