The Corporation of the County of Lennox and Addington is committed to providing exemplary service to all members of the public and aims to address service requests and complaints equitably, comprehensively, and in a timely manner.

Frivolous, vexatious or unreasonably persistent requests or complaints consume a disproportionate amount of County time and resources and impede staff from attending to other essential issues.   County staff may identity situations that meet the criteria of frivolous, vexatious or unreasonably persistent, and actions may be taken in such circumstances.

The decision to classify a subject person's behaviour as unreasonable, or to classify a request or complaint as frivolous or vexatious, could have serious consequences for the subject person, including restricting their access to municipal services. Restrictions can include:

  • limiting the subject person's correspondence with staff to a particular format (e.g. email only with a particular email address), time (e.g. telephone calls only at specific times and days of the week) or duration (e.g. conversations  may last no longer than ten minutes);
  • limiting the subject person to a particular point of contact at the County (where possible, other staff members should be advised not to respond to the subject person, but to refer them to the point of contact);
  • limiting their interactions through Social Media with the County;
  • requiring any face-to-face interactions between the subject person and staff to take place in the presence of an appropriate witness;
  • requiring that the subject person produce full disclosure of documentation or information before staff will further investigate a complaint;
  • instructing staff not to respond to further correspondence from the subject person regarding the complaint or a substantially similar issue;
  • instructing staff not to investigate any complaints regarding an issue that has already been investigated, or which is substantially similar to an issue which has already been investigated;
  • instructing staff to severely reduce or completely cease responding to further complaints and correspondence from the subject person;
  • instructing staff to close the matter;
  • limiting or regulating the subject person's use of municipal services e.g. community centres, access to technology systems, etc.;
  • refusing the subject person access to any municipal buildings except by appointment;
  • informing the subject person that further contact on the matter of the complaint/request will not be acknowledged or replied to;
  • pursuing legal action; and/or
  • blocking emails being received by County staff;
  • other actions as deemed appropriate.

 

The County of Lennox and Addington is committed to service excellence and good governance by addressing all requests and complaints equitably and efficiently, while acknowledging that there may be a need to protect staff from unreasonable behavior.