Remember council’s decision not to shrink itself? Well, late last night, at the tail end of a Halifax regional council meeting that lasted until 11pm, councillor Brad Johns notified council that he will introduce a motion of rescission regarding that decision.
Rules for motions of rescission are laid out in council’s rules of procedures:
56A (1) After a matter has been decided in the affirmative, a member, at any subsequent meeting, may give notice of motion of rescission.
(2) At the next meeting of Council, the giver of such notice,
or in that member’s absence, any other member on the
member’s behalf, may put the motion of rescission.
(3) A motion of rescission is debatable.
(4) A motion of rescission shall be passed by a majority
vote.
The votes leading up to the vote Johns is contesting hit a 12-12 council gridlock, but the vote to keep council size at 23 councillors and the mayor passed 12-10 because two councillors—Sue Uteck and Reg Rankin—had left the August 2 meeting. If we assume Uteck and Rankin are present next week, and if all councillors vote the same way they did last week, we’ll still have a 12-12 gridlock, and Johns’ motion will fail. (A majority vote will require 13 councillors.)
So unless Johns thinks he can change someone’s vote, it’s unclear why he’s bothering.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.
“So unless Johns thinks he can change someone’s vote, it’s unclear why he’s bothering.”
G-R-A-N-D-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G
….because hopefully a few of the councillors will have come to their senses and vote to down size council.
Edmonton, population approximately 750,000 in the city proper, does fine with only 12 Councillors. Why does HRM, population approximately 400,000, need 23? Way too much government! Cut back on the number of MLAs while we’re at it.
Edmonton also has a stronger, more progressive mayor too (though, of course, that’s always up for debate).
Voter turnout for Edmonton city elections is among the lowest in Canada:
http://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/mun…
Are you insinuating that this is because there are fewer Councillors in Edmonton? Perhaps it has a lot to do with Edmonton’s relatively more transient and blue collar population?
Edmonton is moving to having a 12 districts with one councillor each for the upcoming municipal elections rather than 6 wards with two councillors each. It should be interesting to see if/how this affects voter turnout for the upcoming municipal elections this Fall. However, with few significant municipal issues plus a relatively popular mayor and most councillors considered likely to be re-elected, it may still stay low. One up and coming, popular young councillor to keep an eye on is Don Iveson! Anyway, off on a tangent about my current home city. I should really pick of a copy of the Vue some time.
Anyway, further to my point, numerous factors affect voter turnout, not just the number of Councillors. It doesn’t change the fact that HRM is over-governed when compared to many other municipalities.
qpmz – you forgot to mention the money each Edmonton councillor gets to spend on top of their salary and the office staff at City Hall.
Councillors 2009 Budget $102,840 each for Research, mailouts etc.
In Edmonton the voter gets one councillor for the cost of two.
Info taken from the Edmonton Council website.