by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 05/97) - The Yellowknife Ratepayers' Association won a legal victory Monday in its fight against the city's secret-meetings policy.

The association, embroiled in a two-year fight over council's practice of holding closed briefing sessions prior to their regular meetings, succeeded in a bid to order city manager Doug Lagore and former councillor Dick Peplow to testify in court about the meetings when the matter is heard before the Supreme Court.

The city opposed the order, preferring to have the matter settled using affidavits. The trial, expected to last two days, will probably not take place until February at the earliest.

The ratepayers also want to call Mayor Dave Lovell, but the judge ruled that only the city's lawyer could call him as a witness.

Lawyer Steven Cooper, representing the ratepayers, argued that written accounts of the meetings from Lagore and Peplow filed with the court contradicted each other, and the only way to cut through the confusion was to call the men to testify under oath.

"There are two mutually exclusive versions of the truth here," he said, calling the issue a "credibility gap."

"The credibility concerns cannot be dealt with on paper."

Barry Sjolie, representing the city, urged Judge A.H. Wachowich to allow the case to be settled on the written evidence alone, saying the only question the court had to settle was whether the briefing sessions were actually meetings as outlined in the territorial Cities, Towns and Villages Act.

If they are considered meetings, then they have to be public unless they deal with specific issues such as legal matters, and are governed by normal meeting procedures.

The ratepayers are concerned that votes on issues are taken at the meetings and direction given to city staff as a result of the votes.

Allowing the ratepayers to put people on the stand amounts to a fishing trip, Sjolie told the judge.

But Wachowich, who noted that there was little case law to serve as a precedent, said having the two men testify will serve the public good and will not be unnecessarily burdensome.

"Spending a few days answering the concerns of citizens at large is not an imposition," he said.

Robin Beaumont, one of the ratepayers who launched the action, said he hoped the matter had been brought one step closer to conclusion on Monday.

"Anything that gets it moving again is going to help the case," he said.