County Council divided on governance issues

By Sandy Agnew and Kate Harries AWARE News Network October 21 2012

At a special meeting of County Council on October 16, 2012, councillors discussed three recommendations from the Governance Committee.

The first was to make the Warden position a four-year, full-time position. The Warden would be elected by County Councillors but would not have to be an elected member of County Council. If the new Warden is an elected Mayor or Deputy Mayor then that person would have to resign their elected position, thus forcing their municipality to hold a by-election to replace them.

On the role of Warden, a narrow majority agreed with the four-year tem but were divided on making it a full-time position. Proponents of the four-year term – chief among them governance committee chair Doug White, mayor of Bradford West Gwilimbury – argue that it gives the position authority and credibility with other levels of government.

Opponents – including New Tecumseth Mayor Mike MacEachern – want to ensure the Warden remains accountable to county council.

There’s no doubt that after two years, at the halfway mark of council’s four-year term, new county councillors have a better understanding of how the county works, and all county councillors are in a better position to evaluate the performance of the person they elected at the starr of their term. 

The second recommendation was to change from the current standing committee structure to a Committee of the Whole. There was general agreement that, while the Committee of the Whole meetings would be longer, it would avoid rehashing the same arguments all over again when issues came to County Council for ratification since all members would have had their say at Committee of the Whole.

The third recommendation was to keep the number of Councillors at 32. On this County Council is divided fifty-fifty. Having a board of 32 persons seems to be too unwieldy to be effective, but it appears that some current members don’t want to relinquish their authority. The other options presented were a total of 17 members, one from each municipality and one head or a total of 23 members, one from each municipality and seven elected at large as recommended in the Berkeley Report.

To us as observers of County Council it is obvious that the work of virtually every Mayor is a full-time job. The work at the County is also a full-time job. To expect the Mayors to do both means they either neglect one role or don’t give either role the attention it deserves. The role of Deputy Mayor is much less demanding so it makes more sense to us to have the Deputy Mayor allocated to the County and reporting back to their respective Council.

If a system to have only one representative per municipality is adopted, it seems a good idea to allow for an alternate to fill in, if a munciipality’s county councillor is unable to attend.  For a municipality to go completely unrepresented at even one of the county’s 12 annual council meetings would be a major disservice to ratepayers. 

Extending the warden’s term to four years, and moving to a Committee of the Whole system can be done by a simple vote at County Council.

But any change to the numbers, whether it is to make the Warden an extra 33rd member of council, or to reduce the number of councillors to 17 or 23, is considered a structural change under the Municipal Act and requires a triple majority: >50% of County Council,  and >50% of the municipalities representing  >50% of the population of the County. This seems to dissuade some members from attempting it.