Janette MacDonald, the head of Downtown London, is hoping to move forward “on a lot of very good work” amid an ongoing dispute between the board of the downtown BIA and a segment of its members.

Frustration came to a head at last week’s general meeting, where the board of the London Downtown Business Association (LDBA) was asked to consent to forming an ad hoc committee to delve into issues raised by a group of anonymous association members represented by Lerners LLP.

In a letter issued Thursday, lawyers representing the board agreed to form that committee, but also called on lawyer Michael Lerner to recuse himself from representing the anonymous group of members, citing conflict of interest.

“If you hire a lawyer you expect that lawyer to be working for you and you don’t want to turn around a couple of years later and suddenly that lawyer is working against you because that’s not going to instill any trust in the legal profession,” lawyer Susan Toth explained on the Craig Needles Show on 980 CFPL.

“In this particular case, Lerners actually did represent the London Downtown Business Association and not historically, it was fairly recently, it’s just from a couple of years ago.”

With the general meeting and the board’s response to Lerner now made public, Downtown London (which consists of the LDBA and the group MainStreet London) general manager MacDonald is hoping to get back to business.

“We’ve lost an awful lot of time and energy on this and we have a lot of very good work to do this year,” she said in an interview.

“We want to communicate with our members — all of them, happy and unhappy — so we can move forward and hopefully clear up what we actually do and how we actually do it and what we’re responsible for.”

In terms of communication, MacDonald noted that some of the first issues raised by these anonymous members included items like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and supervised consumption sites.

“We’re policy advocates, but we have no authority,” she said about the limitations of the BIA.

“We will advocate on behalf of our businesses but we don’t do it blindly. A lot of discussion at our board level, a lot of research, a lot of me calling my colleagues in other cities as to how they handle this. We don’t come out with a decision just based on my opinion or a board chair’s opinion or a couple of people on our board.”

980 CFPL has reached out to Lerner who has declined to comment until he’s received further direction from his clients.

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