Stoney Creek trustee Carole Paikin Miller sanctioned for third time
For a third time this year, Stoney Creek public school trustee Carole Paikin Miller is being disciplined by her colleagues for violating their code of conduct.
While details of the latest breaches have yet to be made public, trustees emerged from more than two hours of private discussion on Monday to issue three sanctions against the Ward 5 representative.
They include a formal letter of censure, a request that Paikin Miller formally apologize to Ward 3 trustee Maria Felix Miller, other trustees, staff and students for her conduct and the cost of an investigation, and prohibit her from sitting on any trustee committees for the rest of her elected term, which ends on Nov. 30, 2022.
While Paikin Miller had been on hand when the meeting went behind closed doors, she was absent when it reconvened in public for votes on the breaches and sanctions.
Trustees had already called on her to resign in early March after an outside probe into complaints by former student trustee Ahona Mehdi found Paikin Miller made overtly anti-Muslim and racist remarks" to other trustees and showed a problematic attitude toward equity issues."
She was sanctioned a second time in late March after another probe concluded she breached confidentiality during a Sept. 8, 2020 private trustee phone meeting with the board's lawyer by allowing her husband, MPP Paul Miller, to be present.
She also allegedly said, Alex, this is war," to then-chair Alex Johnstone when the latter terminated the meeting, apparently held to discuss Paikin Miller's formal complaint, subsequently dismissed, against three trustees who attended an August 2020 media conference held by Mehdi. Paikin Miller refused comment at the time of this incident.
Vice-chair Cam Galindo, who chaired Monday's closed portion of the meeting, said in public session he couldn't divulge details other than that trustees confirmed the conclusions of a report from the board's integrity commissioner.
It found Paikin Miller in correspondence to the board" broke trustees' code of conduct in five areas, he said.
They include upholding the dignity of office and acting in a professional manner, ensuring comments are issue-based and not disparaging of other board members, and respecting the differing points of view of other board members when expressing individual views.
Galindo said Paikin Miller also violated rules against divulging confidential information and failing to uphold decisions of the board.
While no trustees spoke to the violations or sanctions, chair Dawn Danko said the board will be releasing the integrity commissioner's report.
Due to the nature of some of the topics in it, it will need to be reviewed before it's released publicly," she said, adding the letter of censure will also be made public.
In a separate update on past trustee sanctions, Danko said Paikin Miller had declined to resign or issue an apology for the actions an investigator found racist.
Danko noted Paikin Miller had already been barred from sitting on trustee committees until the end of this year, but said arrangements are being made to fulfil a requirement to take additional equity, governance and anti-racism training.