The new town of Tantramar council met for the first time ever on Tuesday night, and the meeting was over in record time, clocking in at just under 13 minutes. In that time, council managed to swear in councillor Allison Butcher (who had to miss the swearing-in ceremony in December) and officially accept minutes from the final meetings for the now-defunct councils of Sackville and Dorchester.
The agenda was extremely light, and did not include the election of a deputy mayor or a public question period, two items which some councillors felt should have been on the agenda.
Former Dorchester mayor and new Tantramar councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell moved to add the election of a deputy mayor to the agenda, but the addition would have required a unanimous vote from council, and Mayor Andrew Black cast the single nay vote that blocked the motion.
Black said he was opting to delay the election of a deputy mayor until a future meeting so that councillors would have more of a chance to get to know each other before choosing their second-in-command. The deputy mayor receives slightly higher renumeration than councillors, and is responsible for filling in for the mayor when they are unavailable. In 2020, after the resignation of then-mayor John Higham, deputy mayor Ron Aiken served as acting mayor until May 2021 elections.
“We haven’t really had any communication other than a few emails back and forth. And the deputy mayor position is an important one,” said Black after the meeting Tuesday. “I think having the opportunity to get to know each other a little bit, and how we operate individually and as a council, is important before you make the decision of who you’re going to vote for,” said Black. “Otherwise the vote may kind of come from nowhere… it might just be who you know, where it should be who is the best person for the position.”
Black said council’s next meeting, a committee of the whole session on January 23, will be much longer and more involved than the first regular meeting this week. “At the very least, I think just even having one good council meeting like that will give some understanding about who we are as council members,” said Black.
‘On the fly’ question period rejected
Another last minute agenda item was turned down by council last night, this time a motion to add a question period to the agenda for the meeting.
Question Periods we’re a regular feature of Sackville town council, though the item was not included in the new Tantramar procedural bylaw created by amalgamation facilitator Chad Peters.
Councillor Mike Tower made the motion to add a question period to Tuesday’s agenda, but three councillors voted against doing so: Debbie Wiggins-Colwell, Matt Estabrooks, and Bruce Phinney.
Tower said after the meeting he was not overly surprised at the reaction, but had hoped council would see fit to allowing a one-time approval of a question period, and then work on possible permanent amendments to the new procedural by-law later on.
“I think that people should always have a chance to ask questions,” said Tower, adding he’d even like to restore the ability for virtual public participation which was in place during the height of COVID restrictions. “I think it’s important,” said Tower. “We make decisions, let people ask us why.”
Mayor Andrew Black pointed out that the new procedures bylaw was written and approved by the province, and not yet customized for Tantramar. “From my understanding this procedure… was pulled directly from the city of Moncton,” said Black, and the outlined agenda in the bylaw contains no mention of a question period.
Peters approved four bylaws for the new town of Tantramar: a procedures of council by-law, a code of conduct by-law, a by-law enforcing a new corporate seal, and a by-law setting the starting rates of renumeration for council members (which guarantees them annual adjustments based on CPI.) Other bylaws enacted by Sackville and Dorchester will remain in place in their respective jurisdictions unless they are replaced by the new Tantramar council.
The new procedural by-law includes a number of changes compared to the town of Sackville’s former by-law. There will be a ‘consent agenda’ system where routine motions can be combined together to save time, and the mayor will vote on all motions. Under Sackville’s system, the mayor reserved their vote unless there was a tie among councillors.
CAO Jennifer Borne said after Tuesday’s meeting that a number of recently amalgamated municipalities in the province have the same set of new by-laws to start. “We’ll be forming a bylaw review,” says Borne, “so that if there’s any potential amendments, any feedback that comes in, any information will go into the file for potential amendments going forward and council can review them.”
Black says that he’s in favour of a question period in principle, but will wait for the issue to be discussed at council. “It’ll go through the bylaw process, rather than something like this happening [Tuesday night] where it’s just on the fly. I think that there needs to be a discussion,” said Black.
No QP, but public presentations permitted under current by-law
Though it does not include any mention of a public question period, the new procedural by-law does make room for public presentations “on matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of Council.”
Members of the public can register a week in advance for the opportunity to make a five minute presentation at the monthly council meeting. They can also sign-in with the clerk at the meeting in question for the opportunity to make a presentation of up to two minutes. The by-law says those “unregistered” presenters will be called on in the order they sign in.
First time councillor Greg Martin said he wasn’t bothered by the brevity of Tuesday’s meeting, and in fact appreciated a light agenda for his first time on the job in council chambers. “For us new people especially, [it helped to get] over a little bit the nervousness that we might have had coming in,” said Martin, “and get to see a bit more of the procedure other than what we’ve seen on YouTube.”
Borne said Tuesday’s meeting was, “obviously a lot quicker than what we expect them to be in the future going forward.”
The next meeting is happening on Monday, January 23 starting at 4:30pm, and will be a committee of the whole style meeting, with a more flexible and much longer agenda.
