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Council has officially approved early-retirement health benefits for city employee David Sisk. The decision regarding the benefits, which are similar to those offered Lord Beaverbrook Arena manager Peter Nevin, was so close, Mayor John McKay had to vote to break a 5-5 deadlock.

Sisk had requested the benefits in the event he decided to retire early. But the city has a policy of providing early-retirement health benefits only to employs who have paid into the pension plan during 25 years service and Sisk was initially told he did not quality, despite his 33 years of service, because he hadn't paid into the plan long enough.

Coun. Rene Smith, who is the councillor leading negotiations with the city unions, said extending the benefits might not be legal.

"Any item must be through the bargaining table. In other words, if you people wanted to to do this, it should have been put to me and the negotiator to present it to the union. It involves a union member … When bargaining is on, the union must consent … That's the law," he said.

However, Deputy Mayor Rupert Bernard said that might not in fact be the case, because not everyone agrees on where such matters fall under the law.

"It appears that if you ask three different lawyers the same question, you would get three different answers — and that sort of confuses me a little bit," he said. "So what if you asked 100. Would you get a 100 different question?"

Bernard said he understood the council couldn't change policy during negotiations, but added that isn't what the city is doing.

"We do have a clear policy on benefits for people retiring and the oddity here is Mr. Sisk's qualifications. But when you do a bit of research on why he doesn't quality after 33 years' service ... you will discover there might have been some very serious mistakes made by the municipality to the detriment of Mr. Sisk. And as far as I'm concerned, if I am going to make a mistake on this, it is going to be in favor of the employee," he said.

In his letter to the city, Sisk requested the same benefits offered to Nevin, who negotiated a deal for salary and benefits in the event the city takes over management of the arena. Councillor and mayoral candidate Reg Falconer said that deal should not enter into the issue.

"I just think we should hold off on this and wait and see. I think this was kind of brought to the table in spite of the LBA thing. Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm really scared that if we dig into this here we're going to be faced with a whole pile more costs," he said.

Coun. Marty McIntyre agreed, saying the LBA deal was about the city buying out a partner in the form of the Chatham Rink Association.

"We just don't have a policy for buying out partners, where there is a policy for retiring employees. I'm told by the manager this employee does not meet the policy standards," he said.

Coun. Lisa Harris disagreed.

"You hear the talk that it's partners and its buying out partners. Well if you bought a piece of land that there was a business on, I don' think we'd have to look after all their employees," she said.

Harris said the issue boiled down to being fair to the employee.

"He wasn't offered to join the pension plan when he became a city employee, so this has disallowed him under the regular benefits. Having said that, I understand that two wrongs don't make a right. But the fact that he wasn't told of the pension plan from the beginning — that was wrong," she said.

Discussion of the deal began to heat up when Smith subsequently demanded a legal ruling on whether or not the benefits could be offered to Sisk at this time.

However, McKay refused to indulge him.

"Councillor, ... you're argument ... was a matter of opinion. There are various opinions around the table and this issue is up to council to decide," McKay said.

"I want a legal opinion, separately from everybody," Smith fired back. "So if you say it's my personal opinion it's wrong."

McKay moved on to Coun. Jake McLaughlin, who suggested the item be tabled until a legal opinion could be sought. Smith seconded the motion and council voted 5-5 on it. McKay then broke the tie to defeat the tabling motion.

When it came time to vote on the original motion to give Sisk the benefits, Couns Peter Manderson, Marty McIntyre, Rene Smith, Jake McLaughlin and Reg Falconer voted against. Couns Brian King, Lisa Harris, Ned Manderson, Rupert Bernard and Wendy Chadwick voted in favor of it. The mayor cast the deciding vote in favor.