Time for transition
Outgoing and incoming Three Rivers mayors confident about state of new municipality
Three Rivers interim Mayor Merrill Scott only mentioned one regret during his final committee of council meeting Monday. He wishes he were younger. “I would love to be 25 years younger, as the next four years will be history in the making … this new council will have hundreds of decisions to make,” said Scott, who has served as interim mayor for the past couple of months in preparation for the newly amalgamated area’s first elected council.
Monday saw the final public meeting of the interim council at Kings Playhouse before mayor-elect Ed MacAulay and 12 councillors, some of them with previous municipal experience, will take over.
Despite being an “inactive council of sorts” that was unable to initiate major projects, Scott said the group has helped provide a transition as well as pulling together the area’s first municipal election with only about a month’s notice.
“There were a number of details that had to be worked out in an orderly fashion, and it all went like clockwork,” said Scott. “I have enjoyed my very short stay, the shortest mayor in history.”
Scott also thanked town staff from both Montague and Georgetown, who have been working through the transition in an unofficial role since it will be up to the new council on re-hiring them.
MacAulay thanked Scott and said he felt the interim council has left the new council in a good position to move forward.
“The amalgamation came too quickly in a lot of ways, especially for ongoing day-to-day operations, so the interim council stepped in and took charge of things,” he said.
One of the first major projects council will have to look at will be forming an official plan and setting bylaws for the area. Currently, the entire area is operating under Montague’s former bylaws, simply because the municipality had the most comprehensive set of bylaws at the time of amalgamation.
However, Scott noted that the Montague bylaws may not fully serve the more agricultural areas outside of the town.
MacAulay said the official plan will be on a long list of work ahead.
“The plan is big, at the same time there’s a lot of other things we have to deal with… there’s a lot of work ahead,” said MacAulay.
“Right now, (the goal) is kind of pulling everybody together.”
The new council will have its first public meeting on Monday, Dec. 10, followed by its first committee of council meeting on Monday, Dec. 17. Both meetings are at 7 p.m.