Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens is sticking up for Councillor Ed Sleiman after he was seen on a meeting livestream questioning a recorded vote about the Adie Knox Community Centre.
As you've heard on AM800 News, Melinda Munro has filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request after the incident calling on the city to disclose the transcript and recording of what happened in the room with councillor Sleiman and disclose the name and role of the person who she believes instructed the councillor how to vote.
Dilkens tells AM800 News the whole thing is a misunderstanding and Councillor Sleiman did nothing wrong.
"Ed Sleiman is the hardest working member of city council," says Dilkens. "He is often here before I get here in the morning and his car is often here when I leave. And we're sitting in a zoom meeting for eight hours discussing a motion that didn't make sense to half the people on the call, in fact we had to ask for clarification."
When the recorded vote happened, Dilkens says it moved fast and he believes Sleiman's comments in question were simply expressing confusion regarding Councillor Jo-Anne Gignac's vote.
"Where he is surprised that Jo-Anne, who is normally a fiscal conservative, voted the way she did on the Adie Knox vote and it surprised him," he says. "You can tell, and when you've known a guy for as long as I've known Ed Sleiman, you get to know the way he speaks, the way he uses his words and what he said is completely not a surprise to me."
Dilkens says it's despicable that some people are suggesting based on the video that Councillor Sleiman can't think for himself and was asking how he should vote.
"At the end of the day, Ed Sleiman is and always has been an independent thinker," Dilkens explains. "Where Ed Sleiman is very smart because he's here at least five days a week in the office, he comes up and he talks about issues. He's always here asking about issues."
In a statement to AM800 News, Councillor Sleiman stated his vote on Council is sacred and he goes on to say that his constituents placed their trust in him and he honours that work every day.
In response to the FOI request for the name and role of a person who was allegedly in the room with Sleiman while he attended the meeting, Sleiman told AM800 News, he attended the meeting from a boardroom at City Hall and when he was surprised by Councillor Gignac's vote, he made a comment to himself, that was captured by the livestream recording.