Siġġiewi mayor Dominic Grech has been chastised by the environment ombudsman for giving the green light for a wider pavement in front of the locality’s football club bar without previously seeking approval from the council.
The commissioner for environment and planning within the Office of the Ombudsman recommended that Grech and the council’s executive secretary personally pay for the reinstatement of the pavement since its widening was not in the best interests of residents.
Alan Saliba was ruling on a complaint over the widened pavement, which took up the limited parking spaces in the locality’s main square.
Although the work was carried out by Infrastructure Malta, it had been approved by the mayor who overturned a previous position the council had taken when it objected to an application for the same widening project. He found that Grech had committed an act of maladministration when he approved, through an e-mail from his personal gmail account, the widened pavement.
The commissioner’s office had previously investigated Infrastructure Malta over the same pavement but had absolved it after investigations showed the work had been carried out after receipt of a no objection from the mayor and Transport Malta and after filing a development notification order with the Planning Authority.
The commissioner then opened a separate investigation into the mayor to determine whether the green light he had given had been sanctioned by the council, which had objected to a 2017 application to widen the pavement.
The PA had turned down the application and the decision confirmed by the Planning Appeals Tribunal.
The commissioner said in his report that he had asked the mayor and the executive secretary to answer direct questions related to the approval.
However, the only reply his office received was a complaint that the council had not been consulted during the previous investigation targeting IM.
The commissioner also referred to a motion filed by a councillor in July on the no objection issued by the mayor but this motion was defeated when the mayor used his casting vote.
In his report, the planning ombudsman said that the previous investigation was about IM so the mayor or the council did not feature and, therefore, did not need to be consulted.
It was only when he opened a separate investigation into the mayor’s action that he asked for his comments.
The mayor’s approval, he concluded, was in breach of the procedures governing local council, especially when such a decision went directly against the residents’ wishes.
He recommended the pavement is reinstated by the council and that the expenses should be shouldered equally by the mayor and the executive secretary.
In reply to questions, Grech said the council had discussed the report in a meeting last week.
“The majority of the council is not in agreement with the Office of the Ombudsman’s position and we are in the process of replying to his opinion in due course,” Grech said.