Town Ward to expand
City council comes up with a hybrid alternative to adjusting municipal election ward boundaries
City councillors say Town Ward should expand as the city redraws the electoral ward boundaries, in advance of the 2018 municipal election – but councillors unexpectedly redrew the possible boundary lines, on Monday.
The plan is to extend Town Ward west to Medical Dr. and then south to Sherbrooke St.; that means a slice of Monaghan Ward is swallowed by Town Ward.
In addition, Town Ward would also take a slice of Otonabee Ward; Town would extend west to Monaghan Rd. and south to Lansdowne St.
The idea came from Coun. Dean Pappas, who called it a “hybrid” of other options drawn by city staff.
This particular option wasn’t presented to the public in consultations; it had been considered by staff, but wasn’t presented to citizens as a possibility.
The idea is to roughly even out the number of electors in each ward. Town Ward is currently the smallest ward in terms of population (roughly 12,600), and Monaghan Ward is the most populous (21,000).
City staff had recommended another option: one that would have extended Town Ward west to Wallis Dr. and south to Sherbrooke St. (which would have meant Town extending only into Monaghan Ward).
This option was preferred by staff because it “provides the most immediate and equitable distribution of population between wards in the short term,” reads the report to councillors.
But Pappas asked for the new hybrid option; he thought it was preferable to take a little bit from two neighbouring wards instead of a larger piece of one.
Coun. Diane Therrien said she was glad to see Town Ward getting bigger, but she didn’t think it was appropriate for council to debate it because it could create political advantages for them.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily up to us to decide where those boundaries are,” said Therrien.
She would have preferred an outside consultant make the decision, she said, although clerk John Kennedy pointed out the Municipal Act allows councillors to vote on this boundary matter.
Coun. Henry Clarke said he was also uncomfortable “slicing and dicing” the electoral wards.
“We’ve tasked staff with doing this - and we should simply accept the recommendation,” said Clarke.
Mayor Daryl Bennett also said he thought council should consider staff ’s recommendation and accept it, rather than “make a decision on the fly” about boundaries.
City staff’s recommendation works well for this election, he said. “It meets the immediate need.” But Coun. Don Vassiliadis said he saw nothing wrong with discussing the possible ward boundaries, and he thought the suggestion from Pappas was fine - and most of council was with him on that.
Kennedy reminded councillors that they have until the end of 2017 to change the ward boundaries in order to allow staff to plan for the municipal election in October, 2018.
Although the plan received preliminary approval on Monday, it needs a final vote before council on Oct. 2. Citizens can speak to council before the final vote, at that meeting.
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