A downtown business owner is filing an official complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner over Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens blocking his constituents on social media.
Jon Liedtke, who owns Higher Limits, says it violates the discreditable conduct section of Windsor’s Code of Conduct, as outlined by the Integrity Commissioner’s Advisory bulletin on Nov. 1, 2016.
He says the advisory makes it abundantly clear that “as a general rule, Members of Council should not block or unfriend members of the public from social media platforms.”
The advisory stipulates that blocking constituents without sufficient cause could prompt a complaint of misconduct for violating the Discreditable Conduct section of the act.
The complaint also seeks to determine ownership over councillor and mayoral social media pages.
“Blocking someone on Twitter or Facebook has a deleterious effect on the ability of constituents to meaningfully and earnestly engage with their political representatives,” said Liedtke in a news release. “It is the social media equivalent of saying you will no longer take their phone calls or even the letters they address to City Hall. What’s even worse is that blocking someone prevents them from seeing important bulletins and statements issued by the mayor in his official capacity.”
The mayor responded today, saying the timing is very interesting considering municipal election season is about to begin.
"People in the City of Windsor are smart and they can see what's going on, they know there are two elections coming up this year and silly season as some call it will be upon us very soon," Dilkens said. "Electioneering will be upon us very soon and I suspect in some ways it's already here today."
Dilkens is not the only city official to have a complaint filed against him to integrity commissioner Bruce Elman, who charges the city $300 an hour for investigations.
Windsor resident Jessica Bondy filed a complaint against councillor John Elliott over comments he made in council that she found “highly offensive.”
The integrity commissioner found councillor Rino Bortolin in violation of multiple sections of the code of council with his choice of words to The Windsor Star in October 2017.
