Reduction in size of Simcoe County council likely coming: Springwater mayor
Ontario government recently announced review of 8 regional municipalities and County of Simcoe
By Chris Simon Barrie Advance
Expect Simcoe County council to shrink, Springwater Township Mayor Don Allen said.
After seeing the Ontario Progressive Conservative government take a hard line on the size of Toronto city council last year, it’s clear Simcoe needs to re-evaluate its own governance model, Allen told Simcoe.com Jan. 17.
Allen said a structural review was already under consideration at Simcoe’s governance committee.
“We’ll have to address it,” he said. “If we don’t get our size down by the next election, it’s going to be mandated.”
In the last term, it was a close count on developing another model during one of our strategic sessions. I have always believed that having the current Mayor and Deputy Mayor as County Councillors creates the problem of answering to two masters and that is a conflict of interest. The constituents at the local level elects their Council to represents their best interests and sometimes there may be divided interests. The model I preferred was to elect a separate County Councillor during the Municipal Election to represent the Municipality at the County Table separate from the local Council. There was divided thought on the election of Warden and Deputy Warden. Some suggested election of the Warden and Deputy Warden at large at the time of the Municipal Election while others preferred that the Warden and Deputy Warden be elected by the new Councillors which makes a lot of sense.