Citizens appointed to port board
Council approves recommendations at Wednesday meeting
The citizen appointees to the board overseeing the Port of Sydney Development Corp. have been approved by council and are now public.
Council approved the recommendation for the slate of members for the board of directors at its meeting Wednesday.
The appointees are Elizabeth Brunet,
Owen Fitzgerald,
Jerry Gillis, John Khattar, John Strasser, John Anderson and
Lucia MacIsaac.
MacIsaac is president and chief operating officer of LearnCorp. International through Cape Breton University. Khattar is a well-known Sydney lawyer, while Fitzgerald works with the Mi’kmaw Economic Benefits
Office. Strasser is a former president of
Sysco.
The chosen appointees had already been notified that they had been selected and accepted the positions.
Earlier this year, the chair of the interim board, CAO Michael Merritt, said that removing the potential container business earlier this year from the mandate of the port’s incoming permanent board was in keeping with the vision of having that development led by the private sector, with direction from council.
That leaves the incoming permanent port board’s mandate principally relating to the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion, its marine terminal, the wharf and general marketing of the port of Sydney. In the future, if there are specific tasks that council wants to delegate to the corporation, it can do so.
Council had articles of association prepared by its solicitor Jim Gogan with one amendment requiring monthly financial reporting to council and setting out who can and cannot be members of the board, how meetings are to be conducted and the expertise and skill sets it is to include, which were approved by council.
In January, provincial and federal money for a second berth was announced. The three levels of government will equally share in the project’s $20 million estimated cost.
The intention was to have a new board in place by April 1.
Members of CBRM council have been on the port’s interim board since it was established even though that goes against the port’s articles of association.
Originally, councillors were to comprise the initial board and chaired by Merritt, with a permanent board to be in place by 2016.
Councillors also voted to accept the nominations of citizen appointees to other CBRM committee including heritage advisory, board of police commissioners and the regional library board but their names have not yet been made public because they haven’t yet been notified of their selection and accepted the positions.