Bratina angry with more than Spectator

Hamilton mayor Bob Bratina is an angry man tonight.

He’s launching an investigation into leaks at city hall which revealed details about his chief of staff’s compensation.

On the surface, it’s about the mayor making accusations against city staff. But underneath, it seems there’s a power struggle going on right now, between the mayor’s office, and council itself. Councillor Sam Merulla will bring forward a motion next Wednesday asking council to censure the mayor. Why? Because he wants to know how confidential information about the city’s “sunshine list” ended up in the Hamilton Spectator before the province officially released the information.

Queen’s Park is set to publish the list this Friday. But compensation details for the mayor’s chief of staff Peggy Chapman became public knowledge earlier this week.

Merulla believes Bratina is bullying senior staff to keep the spotlight away from Chapman.

The mayor insists that he has done nothing wrong, and that council approval is not needed for the city manager to look into confidentiality and code of conduct issues. However Merulla says the mayor is way off base, and deserves a formal censure from the entire council.

Video: Scot Urquhart reports: