A YouTube video city officials cited as rife with misinformation remains online, despite Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini’s prior assurance it would be removed.
During the Aug. 9 city council meeting at which Vagnini was docked 40 days’ pay for code of conduct violations, Mayor Brian Bigger inquired about a post on Vagnini’s Facebook page regarding deaths at Memorial Park.
“Mayor, I will check later this evening,” Vagnini said at the time. “I will check, Mr. Mayor, and make sure that’s down.”
“I would feel better if that posting was removed off of Facebook,” Bigger said, adding local police, EMS and other city officials refuted various points presented in the video.
“I would just like to have that posting removed because I don’t believe that information is correct,” Bigger said. “I do still believe the posting has remained, and to me that’s a bit damaging to the community.”
Although Bigger cited “Facebook” in last week’s comments, the video in question was posted to YouTube.
Bigger affirmed to Sudbury.com this week that he was referring to the YouTube video, which he said “was very clear” from the context of the meeting.
Sudbury.com reached out to Vagnini by phone on Thursday. Vagnini’s voice came on the line in what sounded like an automated message in which he introduced himself and indicated calls may be recorded. After several seconds of silence with ambient sound from Vagnini’s side of the phone, unanswered “Hellos” from Sudbury.com’s side and a lack of sound indicating the caller should leave a message, the call disconnected.
Sudbury.com placed an immediate follow-up phone call to Vagnini and received his longstanding usual answering machine message, which makes no mention of calls being recorded.
There was no response from Vagnini to a subsequent phone message, text and email.
As such, it remains unclear whether Vagnini continues to stand behind the video. Shortly after city staff dismissed various points in the video as untrue in January, Vagnini defended it in conversation with Sudbury.com, likening himself to Christopher Columbus declaring the world is round.
Mayoral candidate Bob Johnston, who is featured in the video, also defended it after every one of its key points was refuted by city staff. Johnston encouraged Sudbury.com to “do some homework” to verify its claims.
Claims made in the video city staff cited as untrue include:
- Two frozen bodies were pulled out of downtown tents two to three weeks prior
- A woman froze to death in a tent outside of Tom Davies Square the prior Thursday
- There had been a double stabbing at a shelter in the city recently
- The city had been evicting people from their tents
- There’s $300 million “sitting there” in a city bank ready to be used to aid in the city’s homelessness crisis
Vagnini’s political opponent in Ward 2, Eric Benoit, said he’s “trying not to do the dirty politics thing,” but did offer confusion as to why Vagnini hasn’t deleted the video.
“I don’t understand why it’s still up. I would have taken it down months ago when it first became an issue,” he said, adding a retraction might also be necessary.
Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc, who called to question Vagnini’s YouTube video during a finance and administration committee meeting earlier this year and put forward a successful motion to remove Vagnini from the police board, said it’s clear Vagnini should delete the video.
The city’s social media policy, which council was unanimous in supporting in July and ratified last week, indicates members should “ensure that the content they post on social media is accurate and factual.”
Further, it states, “Members shall not post or allow the posting of any content which they know or ought to know is misleading or false.”
It’s unclear whether this policy applies to material posted to social media prior to city council ratifying its associated bylaw on Aug. 9, and city integrity commissioner Robert Swayze did not immediately respond to Sudbury.com’s request for information on Thursday.
Regardless, Leduc said he’s not confident Vagnini’s video would constitute a breach of the policy yet, as it’s unclear how quickly offending material needs to be removed.
“Nobody has indicated, is it a week, is it a month, is it a year?” he asked.
Further, he added, Vagnini was removed from the police board in part due to the misinformation reportedly in the video, so has already been punished for it.
“I would hope that Coun. Vagnini would respect, and every councillor, would respect the social media policy,” Leduc said. “I know it’s going to be challenging for a lot of us that use social media.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
