Chatham-Kent council rejected the idea of consulting the public about reducing the size of council effective 2022 with a referendum question on the ballot of the fall municipal election.
At the Feb. 12 council meeting, the motion by Chatham Coun. Doug Sulman was voted down 11-7 by members, with only the six Chatham and East Kent Coun. David Van Damme voting in favour.
Sulman said while he was disappointed by the vote outcome, he was pleased it generated some discussion among council members about the issue, which wasn’t necessarily just about reducing the number of councillors.
Some citizens who attended the public meeting, including Yvonne Laevens, believed reducing the number of council members would mean less say for rural residents. She added she doesn’t believe councillors in Chatham understand the issues rural residents face.
Other speakers felt there wasn’t enough detail in the question, “Effective the term of Council beginning Dec. 2022, the number of councilors in Chatham-Kent be reduced.”
Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor and Derek Robertson, who were in favour of the motion by Sulman, said after the meeting on social media that people were misunderstanding the point of the question on the ballot.
“If we had put the question on the ballot, there is more than enough time to have individuals campaign for the ‘no’ or ‘yes,’ and there would have been plenty of opportunity for public discussion. At the end of the day, the choice was made not to put the question on the ballot, thus denying the next council an opportunity to work with a mandate if they choose to address council size/ward redistribution,” McGregor said in a discussion on Facebook regarding Sulman’s motion.
“There was no willingness around the table by many to engage in this process from any constructive start. The same can be said about the past motion to re-evaluate ward boundaries. The majority of council is adverse to even approaching the topic, or seeking public input. Call it self-preservation, protectionism, etc. It was never about cost savings, efficiency, or workload. This is all about maintaining the status quo that very clearly does not follow any representation by population principle, and would never be approved by a provincial government based on today’s requirements (i.e. equal number of councillors per ward, representation by population),” he added.
Robertson previously in this council term asked members to consider a motion that would have seen a consultant come in to talk with council about reducing its numbers, something that was done in the City of Kawartha Lakes starting in 2013. According to that city’s web site, the number of wards in the amalgamated city will go from 16 to 8, with one councilor per ward after the 2018 election.
Dr. Robert Williams, PhD, a University of Waterloo professor whose areas of expertise include municipal government was the consultant for that city during the ward boundary review. In 2013 the previous council determined a ward boundary/size of council review should take place under the new council elected in 2014.
West Kent Coun. Mark Authier, who voted against the motion, said he did so because that is what his constituents asked him to do.
“I am not afraid of losing my position on council. But I will not vote for something the population in my area does not want me to vote for. I did not have one person in Ward 1 ask me to vote for it, but I had over a 100 people tell me not to vote for this,” Authier stated in the forum discussion.
