Noyes accuses council colleague of plagiarism
Posted By Mark Ladan
Posted 2 years ago
What should have been a “rubber stamp” item on Fort Erie Town council’s council-in-committee agenda last Monday, turned into something a little more raucous than what you would expect, with one member of council accusing another of plagiarism.
The matter in question had to do with new guidelines for business improvement areas (BIA) as set out under the new provincial Municipal Act.
The new guidelines and suggested bylaw for dealing with BIAs includes a code of conduct for members of BIA boards of management. Ward 1 Coun. Sandy Annunziata, who is council’s representative on the Bridgeburg Station BIA board, had staff include a code of conduct in the report on the issue – a code of conduct which noted at the end “authored by Sandy Annunziata.”
It turns out, this particular code of conduct is almost entirely the same as one on an African-based website – www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct.
Ward 6 Coun. Ann-Marie Noyes pulled no punches in her evaluation of the two-page document.
“This is not ‘may be’ plagiarized. It is definitely plagiarized,” Noyes told council. “I’m not talking about a word or two here. This is 90 per cent another document.”
The document was first presented at a meeting of BIA members from Ridgeway and Bridgeburg Station when the new provincial guidelines were outlined. After that meeting, Noyes says, someone (she would not identify) suggested to her that she do an Internet search on particular phrases in the piece. When she did, the Ubuntu website came up.
Noyes makes no apologies for accusing Annunziata of plagiarism in an open council meeting.
“Well, what other forum is there,” she told The Times on Tuesday. “It’s part of the report, it’s not a closed session matter and since the public was provided with the document, I think the public was entitled to hear the explanation.”
Noyes’ biggest concern is “the fact that it’s plagiarized and that it’s on a code of conduct. I think that should say enough. I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
For Annunziata’s part, he stands by his use of the Ubuntu information. He said many businesses and organizations have adopted similar principles. He said he simply put it forward for information purposes, and rejects the notion that he plagiarized anything.
“The last time I checked, we weren’t in a setting of academia, so I don’t understand where the term plagiarism comes out.”
Annunziata believes there are hundreds of companies that use the “exact same verbiage and the exact same wording, because it is very precise.”
All he wanted to do was suggest that it could be used in the context of a BIA. He also admits that perhaps, he shouldn’t have used “authored by Sandy Annunziata” at the end of the document.
“I did not want the misconception that this was being endorsed by council or that this was being endorsed by staff and that’s why it was put ‘authored by Sandy Annunziata.’ So, maybe it should have been ‘submitted by,’ maybe it should have been ‘forwarded by,’ but I wanted to attach my name to it, just so there was no misconception that this was a council driven document.”
The way in which Noyes went about bringing the matter to the forefront doesn’t sit well with Annunziata. “Totally uncalled for” is how he described it.
“If she had any concerns, as far as plagiarism goes, she knows my number.
“She could have called me and she could have asked me very specific questions and I would have given her very direct answers.
“To be submarined like that and to be disrespected in that forum, I don’t appreciate that.”
