Goulbourne still ‘passionate about the job of being regional chair’

Damian Goulbourne has never taken his eye off the target.

Even now, weeks after the municipal election and months after the provincial government scrapped the regional chair’s race, Goulbourne said he remains “passionate about the job of being regional chair.”

While other candidates opted to instead run for regional council seats after the provincial government abruptly cancelled the direct election of Niagara’s chair, Goulbourne let his name stand for an election that would never take place.

Goulbourne said doing otherwise would have been dishonest.

“I couldn’t say with a straight face I want to be Welland’s regional councillor when really I want to be the regional chair of Niagara,” he said in an interview Monday.

While his interest in council’s top job hasn’t waned, a 2013 bylaw prevents council from looking beyond the horseshoe to fill the chair’s position. And Goulbourne said he put his political ambition aside to focus instead on his family and career.

Still, with the new council’s inaugural meeting quickly approaching Dec. 6 — including the selection of the next chair — the Niagara College professor and former two-term Welland mayor said there seems to be interest in again opening the job up to the community, as had been permitted for more than four decades.

“Over the past three days, I’ve had some calls from people asking if I’m interested. Never was there a conversation about the procedural bylaw — never,” Goulbourne said.

Goulbourne, who did not identify people who contacted him, said

he also has yet to respond to several voice mails and text messages from people hoping to discuss the issue.

“Something’s been going on over the last three or four days,” he said, adding he did not initiate those conversations.

Before Goulbourne could put his name forward, elected regional councillors would have to approve a motion to allow him to do so.

“It would require someone on regional council and then a seconder to move the motion, and then it would have to be passed,” he said. “The motion could be to suspend the procedural bylaw … But as of right now, I’m not permitted to put my name forward because the bylaw doesn’t allow that.”

Following the provincial government’s decision in June, there had been some discussion among councillors about allowing regional chair candidates to be considered for the job, although no decisions were made at the time.

Out-going Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn also ran as a regional chair candidate before the election was cancelled. But Augustyn who lost his bid to represent the town as a regional councillor said the Region should not change its bylaw, “and I don’t think council will do it.”

“It’s like 2010 all over again,” Augustyn said, referring to Goulbourne’s previous interest in a community appointment as regional chair.

“I think the cleaning house that occurred is a clear sign to regional council that they (voters) are sick and tired of the backroom deal making.”

Appointing an unelected regional chair would be another of those backroom deals, he said.

“I don’t think the electorate would have an appetite for that, and I don’t think the new councillors who make up 75 per cent of council would like that either.”