Reports have come out about controversial projects paid for by the city of Brampton as a part of a campaign run by BramptonU. Said payments to the projects can’t be found by city staff, causing concern for certain parties.
The council requested an itemized report on these questionable expenditures back in March after learning how much the bill for consultancy fees had reached. The city’s integrity commissioner is now looking into what could be a case of conflict of interest. Parties in question include Coun. Rowena Santos and former professor David Wheeler, who also served as co-founder and consultant for the Academy for Sustainable Innovation.
In one report, one consultant billed the city for airfare and hotel expenses months before the project was even given the go signal. All in all, it seems that Brampton taxpayers have paid out more than $629,000 under the BramptonU banner. Four vendors have directly benefitted from this arrangement in periods spread out from 2019 to 2021.
David Wheeler, in particular, had charged the city at least $4,200 in airfare and Airbnb expenses. These expenses were secured and requested months before the project he was hired for started. In total, the report puts Wheeler’s “Brampton Expenses” at $10,144.88. These include two expenses that did not line up with the timing of the RFP.
Coun. Santos confirmed that she reached out to the city’s integrity commissioner in August 2019. During that same period, Wheeler also charged Brampton around $3,276.24 in Airbnb expenses.
The other four vendors included in the report are:
- Stakeholder Research Associates – $505,398.95
- Academy for Sustainable Innovation – $101,380.66
- Bellwether Technologies – $17,299.20
- Enterprise Canada Inc -$5,140.16
In total, the four vendors racked up $629,218.97 from city taxpayers. The BramptonU project has now been put on hold, making it part of a post-secondary strategy expense that has now totaled $1,365,000 in the past few years.
