$5,000 to chief doesn't end fight
By Jason van Rassel
May 01, 2005
The woman who posted a website critical of Calgary police leadership said she wants to meet with Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko to discuss "serious problems" inside the force.
Jann Vahey and her husband, Rene Fisher, have settled a lawsuit with police Chief Jack Beaton by agreeing to apologize and pay $5,000 toward his legal bill. Vahey said Saturday the apology does not mark an end to her desire to shed light on what she believes are credible allegations brought to her by the authors of the website, who called themselves "the Standfirm Team."
"I honestly believe there appears to be serious problems at the Calgary Police Service that require further investigation, and that would be in the form of a public inquiry," she said
The case, which had been kept under wraps for months after a judge sealed its contents, was partly revealed to the public Friday after the Calgary Herald and two other media outlets challenged the sealing order.
However, Vahey said her role in the Standfirm website has been misconstrued and that statements made Friday by Beaton misrepresented its intent.
"I think these people were pawns in a larger scheme," Beaton said Friday
Vahey said a police officer friend delivered the finished website to her and Fisher. Their only involvement was to post it on the Internet last fall
"They didn't have the technical savvy. We had the savvy," said Vahey, a civilian contractor who does transcription work for the police service.
Vahey took exception to Beaton's statement Friday the website contained "anonymous, malicious, deliberate falsehoods calculated to damage the reputation of the service."
Although she didn't author the content, Vahey said she doesn't regret putting it on the Internet because it gave a voice to officers who saw misconduct.
The website called the chief "a bad apple" and listed several instances of alleged misconduct by unnamed officers that went uninvestigated or unpunished.
One of the accusations made on the site and by a former Calgary cop who wrote then-solicitor general Heather Forsyth -- that a veteran traffic investigator drove drunk to a collision scene -- was investigated by the RCMP and deemed groundless.
While Vahey doesn't regret putting the Standfirm site on the Internet, she said she's sorry she didn't verify all the content before agreeing to help.
"Had we thought it through
. . . I definitely would have done due diligence," she said.
Part of the settlement requires Vahey to disclose others involved in the website and a now-defunct successor dubbed "Code 200" -- a reference to the CPS radio transmission signalling an officer in trouble.
Vahey said the officer who brought her the Standfirm site will come forward when required, though she wouldn't yet disclose his identity.
"There's one person. We had an agreement that should this ever come to light, we would act honestly and with integrity," she said.
The Standfirm site was taken down after one week, but was soon replaced by Code 200.
The new site consisted mainly of responses excerpted from an internal police union survey critical of management and giving poor performance ratings to senior officers.
The site, Vahey said Saturday, was her doing.
Beaton initiated the lawsuit -- paid for by a municipal legal fund -- and is listed as the sole plaintiff.
The settlement also orders Fisher and Vahey to attend a confidential meeting "to promote healing and reconciliation, to the extent possible, between CPS members and employees who feel aggrieved by the Standfirm website."
In return, Beaton has agreed not to take further legal action against Vahey and Fisher.
Beaton has been criticized for initially having the lawsuit documents sealed and for obtaining a rarely-used court order to seize a computer from Vahey's southeast home last month.
"Whatever the result of this, it will put a chill on anyone discussing the operations of the Calgary Police Service, and I think that's unfortunate," said Stephen Jenuth, a lawyer who heads the Alberta Civil Liberties Association.
© Calgary Herald 2005