A new battle between Ontario’s education minister and one of the province’s trustees is brewing, this time over a charity using a portable at a Brampton high school as a storage locker.

The Peel District School Board’s government-appointed supervisor wrote to trustee and chair David Green on Friday, telling him he must stop using a portable to store items used by Free For All Community Services, a foundation Green is involved with.

Green is a long-time Brampton trustee at the Peel District School Board, which was again placed under the control of Queen’s Park earlier this year. He is also the executive director of Free For All.

Education Minister Paul Calandra said it was “outrageous” that an organization run by a trustee was using school resources without paying.

“He’s been using a portable at one of the schools as a storage locker, basically, for at least the past 10 years,” he told Global News on Monday morning. “So we have politely asked him to vacate that portable and have the school board find other uses for the portable.”

The letter informs Green he has 60 days to remove all items relating to Free For All from the school — and says a formal review has been started.

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Green, however, said the agreement with the school board was long-standing and included providing free services to the local school in exchange for using the portable.

“It’s not with me, it’s with the organization that I represent. So it has nothing to do with me, I’m just the face being the executive director,” he told Global News in a phone call.

“We’ve been storing there. In return, we provide free programs to the school that the portable is at. We provide free programs, no cost to the families, and we’ve been doing that since 2010.”

Green — who said he wouldn’t fight the 60-day deadline — explained the portable has been used to store various items related to the group he runs, ranging from football equipment, computers and barbecue paraphernalia.

Both Calandra and the supervisor said they were struggling to find an official record of the lease. Green sent an unsigned version to Global News, which appeared to have been drawn up in 2010.

“There’s more work that needs to be done in terms of looking at that, but we definitely want the portable back,” Calandra added.

“We’ve asked him politely to call us so we can watch over him as he removes this portable. It’s 10 years he’s been using a portable at a school, it’s outrageous.”

Green suggested he was being singled out for his criticism of the government’s decision to sideline trustees at the Peel District School Board.

He said the work the organization does would outweigh any perceived conflict of interest, which he denied, saying the contract was with the organization and the board, not himself personally.

“The work that the charity does outweighs that,” he said. “My role being a school board trustee carries no weight whatsoever to what staff does. The contract is under Free for All. Even though I’m the executive director, I’m not the one that signed the contract.”

The letter from the Peel District School Board supervisor to Green comes after the school board was taken over by Calandra amid a push to reform governance and complaints from the minister about trustee conduct.

Since taking over as education minister last year, Calandra has put eight school boards under supervision and introduced a law that will cut trustee pay and responsibilities.

Last year, he also engaged in a fight with two trustees at the Toronto Catholic District School Board over their expenses, including technology purchases.

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