Portugal Cove-St. Philip's councillor sues town for seat after harassment and GoFundMe controversies
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's town councillor is taking the municipality to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, seeking to overturn decisions to strip his powers and suspend him from council.
Darryl Harding was suspended from council committees in February — as first reported by the Northeast Avalon Times — after an external investigation found multiple people alleged Harding had harassed or sexually harassed them.
He was suspended from council altogether on March 21, after another investigation found he'd breached the town's code of conduct for soliciting donations from local residents through a GoFundMe campaign after he was injured in a car crash. Both suspensions were for three months from the date the decisions were made.
Harding has filed an application to overturn the first suspension, and a filing on the second decision is forthcoming.
"I am not permitted to comment now that it is before the courts," Harding said Monday. "I really wish I could."
Investigator overstepped, Harding alleges
The specifics of the harassment claims have never been made public, but Harding's lawsuit says complaints were filed by fellow councillor Gavin Will and Mayor Carol MacDonald.
Will's complaint said Harding had harassed town staff and other councillors, including himself. MacDonald's complaint was a "compiled package of documentation prepared for an individual who did not wish to file a complaint in their own right," according to the court filings.
An external investigator was brought in. CBC News has not seen a copy of the report, but Harding's application says the investigator wrote at length in their final report about three allegations of personal harassment and two allegations of sexual harassment that had nothing to do with either of the formal complaints against him. Harding said that overstepped the boundaries of the investigation and should not have been used against him.
Harding also denies the allegations.
His court application alleges the town combined processes under three separate pieces of legislation — its harassment policy, its respectful workplace plan and its code of conduct for municipal officers — when handling the complaint.
He's also accusing Will and MacDonald of being in a conflict of interest when they voted to remove him from his roles on council committees.
He's asking the court to set aside the town's decision and reinstate him on council committees.
Fundraiser stirs drama in council chambers
In a GoFundMe posted in October, Harding said he had been in a car accident in 2019 and was struggling to make ends meet. He said he hadn't worked in eight months and was about to lose his family home.
Harding raised $7,395 from 159 different donors. Many of those people lived in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's.
A complaint was made, and an external investigation later found his fundraiser violated the town's code of conduct for council members, under a section about using influence for personal gain.
Do we really need to take a man that's doing good in the community off for three months, and three months with no pay? - Madonna Stewart-Sharpe
At a council meeting on March 21, the town voted to accept the findings of the report, and then voted to suspend Harding for three months.
"This is a very serious matter and I know nobody around this table likes to do what we are proposing," Will said during debate on the vote. "But it's important that council maintain [the public's] belief in them, and their trust and integrity. Therefore, we are obliged to take action to ensure that public trust continues to be maintained."
The town's deputy mayor, Madonna Stewart-Sharpe, came to Harding's defence and spoke over the mayor's interruptions at times.
"He was emotionally distressed. He was at the lowest point of his life. And he did something in desperate need. He's about to lose his family home and he had nowhere to turn," she said.
Stewart-Sharpe noted she had to vote to accept the investigator's findings, because his actions did break the rules as they are written.
"But do we really need to take a man that's doing good in the community off for three months, and three months with no pay? We have choices here for what we can do with this person. And I don't think giving this person three months with no pay is a great penalty for what he did."
"I think we all have to be responsible," MacDonald responded. "There [are] more serious things that could have happened tonight, but we didn't [do them]. We compromised, and we had a discussion. I think it's done and everybody has had their say."
Harding — who was waiting outside the room while the discussion and vote unfolded — was brought back into the chambers and told of his suspension. He asked if he could address council, but MacDonald told him no.
"Even a murderer gets to speak before their sentence," he said before stepping away.
Barring any decisions by the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, Harding's suspension is due to expire in June.
