Wellington North council has decided to move forward with council restructuring, but not all members seem happy about it.
On Sept. 12 clerk Karren Wallace presented a report outlining suggested changes after she was asked by Mayor Andy Lennox to look into a committee structure alignment.
The amendments to the council structure are:
– eliminate public works and administration and finance committees;
– restructure the economic development committee to become the community growth plan steering committee;
– all business go directly to a meeting of council;
– report recommendations will be approved by council in a consent agenda;
– the recreation and culture committee will meet every two months immediately prior to the regular daytime council meeting;
– two council meetings will be held every month, one in the daytime and one in the evening; and
– council remuneration will be paid on salary, with the mayor earning $27,000 plus benefits and councillors earning $17,000 plus benefits.
Council voted 3-2 with Lennox and councillors Lisa Hern and Steve McCabe in favour of the changes and councillors Dan Yake and Sherry Burke opposed.
The amendments do not take affect until after the approval of a new procedural bylaw, which is expected by January.
Burke said she thinks the remuneration is too big of a change.
“I think it’s completely inappropriate to change how council operates halfway through a term,” she said.
“Residents don’t expect us to govern Wellington North for free but a remuneration increase at the cost of living would seem fair and sufficient in my opinion.”
Lennox, however, said the changes would improve transparency.
“I would rather just be a flat rate and I will be happy to have the public pass judgment on the way I do the job every four years as opposed to feeling like I might get caught out claiming an inappropriate meeting,” he said.
“I don’t want to be the Mike Duffy of municipal politics.”
He added, “I don’t want to go anywhere near that and I don’t think I want any members of council to be caught in something like that; doing something where there isn’t clear rules around it and it not being perceived in a positive light by the public.”
Wallace explained the flat rate is not out of line with other councillors in Wellington County.
She provided in her report a table that outlined the remuneration for all mayors and councillors from other municipalities.
While the current base pay for Wellington North councillors is $12,700, after additions of other meetings and benefits, the average sits around $15,500.
The issue, Wallace said, is councillors do not claim their remuneration the same way.
“You’re not at the top of the pack and if you’re not putting in all your remuneration, and others are … it’s not a transparent process,” said Wallace.
Yake raised concerned about the elimination of committee meetings.
“I don’t think that this council has enough discussion on topics as it is,” he said.
“I think there’s advantages to having discussion at those committee levels and I think there’s advantages to having councillors chair those positions and keep them involved in the process.
“I think if you start to eliminate these I think the role of the councillor is certainly going to be diminished.” Yake added there should be more discussion on the amendments.
McCabe disagreed, saying, “I think it will promote actually more discussion if we’re all there and the public can attend.”
The amendments would decrease the amount of meetings to 32 over a year instead of 68.
Wallace also stated in her report the change in structure may reduce duplication of resources, paperwork, overtime costs, mileage costs and consultant costs.
“I think there is a potential for real reduced costs,” said Lennox.
“I mean, we do deal with issues at a committee meetings, at council meetings and all of those times we do take that effort requires staff time, preparing agendas, completing minutes, sitting through those meetings. I think those costs are real and we should give due consideration to those.”
Lennox added restructuring would help make the local government accessible and transparent to the public. He said council should still be using ad hoc committees for specific issues, like the burn bylaw and fleet management, ad hoc committees already created.
Staff will be bringing a new procedural bylaw and remuneration bylaw to council before the first council meeting in January.
