Rob Hamilton resigned today as chairman of the Barrie Downtown BIA as well as the board itself.
“Yes, he has resigned as the chair,” confirmed Coun. Sergio Morales, who, along with Coun. Jim Harris, represents the city on the BIA board.
Hamilton could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday afternoon.
He is the subject of a report by Barrie’s integrity commissioner Suzanne Craig that city council will deal with at its meeting tonight.
Craig has recommended that Hamilton be removed as BIA chairman for a derogatory remark about Black people and offensive comments about the homeless, made at last September’s BIA meeting.
The former Barrie mayor (2003-2006) should also be reprimanded for making a “derogatory term toward Black people” said Craig, attend training on addiction as a mental illness, undergo human rights training, as a condition of remaining on the BIA board, and submit an apology letter he wrote, dated April 9, 2021, addressed to Craig in reply to her request for information. It would be posted on the city’s website and forwarded to Downtown Barrie BIA executive director Kelly McKenna.
Craig is to recommend these measures to city council at its Monday meeting. It is council which decides how to enforce its Code of Conduct, which is an agreed-upon understanding by all members of council and its associated boards about what standards should be met in the individual conduct of their official duties.
“(Hamilton) ought to have known, even if it was not his intent, that making the remarks he made would be reasonably perceived as inappropriate, offensive, insulting or derogatory,” Craig states in her report.
