South Bruce Peninsula council has formally appointed Deputy Mayor Jay Kirkland to the mayor’s seat.
Council unanimously confirmed a bylaw this morning.
Council has not yet taken any steps to fill the now empty deputy mayor’s seat. A report will come to council at an upcoming meeting outlining its options for filling the deputy mayor’s chair.
Kirkland has served six terms on South Bruce Peninsula Council, three as a councillor and three as deputy mayor.
He says in a statement, “I would like to thank Council for having the confidence in me to lead the community, I will remain fair and ensure the municipality continues to be fiscally responsible” says Jay Kirkland.
Resident Byron Downs made a delegation to council this morning before the appointment was confirmed.
Downs expressed a desire for a by-election.
Councillors had a discussion with Downs, answering questions and sharing their views.
Kirkland noted in his response to Downs, “Typically, small municipalities such as ourselves, don’t have elections within elections.” He noted Toronto has a bylaw in place that says ‘you shall have an election,’ but noted, “All other municipalities of our size, or a little bigger, little smaller have three or four options that the municipal act gives them.”
“We can never be sure we’re doing the right thing,” noted Kirkland to Downs ahead of his confirmation, but noted “My gut right now tells me I’m doing the right thing.”
Kirkland also shared, he didn’t feel the town should go through a by-election, saying, “We need to get back to business. We have budget coming up. We need to bring some normal business actions back to this municipality. For us to have an election right now, we could be six months — running through– there’s a process for nominations to come forward, There’s the campaigning process and in all that aspect of the campaign, I just felt that we were going to see nothing but the words that were said by a former mayor. I just didn’t want to see that.”
Kirkland added, “I know we’ve got some people that are mad and wanted the democratic right for open election. We have a lot of people that are happy too. We are hearing from a lot of people that are saying, you know what? We don’t want an election right now.”
Councillor Terry Bell told Downs, “I guess my bottom line is we were elected to make these decisions, and I take a look at the outcome of an election and I can’t think of —- and I’ve lived here, I don’t know, 35 years, — I can’t think of a better person than Jay Kirkland to be the mayor. I really can’t. Take a look at the experience he’s got. I mean, he’s been through everything and where are you going to find somebody that can match that experience, or has the dedication that he has? I think it would be extremely difficult.”
Councillor Caleb Hull told Downs, “My goal is to uphold the voice of the people, and I want to assure you that I do carefully make decisions and I’m not affected by potential outcomes. That’s something that is important to me, is to make a decision based off what’s on the table.”
Hull noted that at the September 19th meeting he had advocated for a by-election, and also for a public meeting. His was the only vote in favour of a by-election on September 19th.
He added, “But I am also respectful of the decisions and processes of council and I uphold the procedures with a sense of reverence. The decision of council was to put a by-election motion on the table, and we voted on it. With that off the table, I do find it reasonable that we do consider appointing a deputy to the mayor’s position. I know we do talk about Jay’s experience, and that’s great — but I see it as a procedural change in the absence of the by-election.”
He expressed a willingness to have a discussion about coming up with a potential bylaw to compel the Town to hold a by-election when there’s an absence of the head of council.
Councillor Kathy Durst told Downs she felt council carefully considered its decision, and felt she took into consideration the ‘silent majority,’ saying, “Mostly they want peace and calm. They want this to go away, they want us to move forward, they want us to get the budget done. They want us to get on with it.”
Durst expressed an interest in a guideline for filling seats like the City of Toronto, saying, “So that we would not have been subjected to some of the emails that some of us received that were pretty much a personal attack on the decision that we have made.”
Durst added, “This is a good council. This is a mayor that respects diversity of opinion,” adding, “This was not an easy decision and we deliberated it very carefully.”
