Two Seats Vacant on Municipal Council

Jan 17, 2018 at 11:43

At last night’s Corporate Planning Meeting, Mayor Rody explained that Council had received the resignation letter from Councillor Besner. Last year, Besner moved to Sault Ste. Marie. He did commute to attend council meetings for a number of months, but has now resigned.

This coupled with Council having declared the seat held by Councillor Tamara Liddle vacant for not attending meetings, leaves Council with two vacant seats.

With 2018 being an election year, Council will have to fill these two seats prior to the nomination period beginning in May, otherwise, the seats will remain vacant until the election in October. In the past Council has advertised the vacant seat, with all interested persons (who are eligible to become a councilor) invited to submit their names. The potential candidates were invited to participate in an interview process, in which at a meeting of Council, sequestered, each candidate was invited singly into Council Chambers, and interviewed, one at a time. Each candidate made a statement, 5 – 10 minutes duration on a specific topic. Then each candidate was asked a question from Council. The successful candidate was then invited to become a Councillor.

Discussion at last night’s meeting, resulted in direction being made to go ahead with advertising for individual(s) who would be interested.