Whitchurch-Stouffville Governance - ballot question coming

NRU
Dec. 6, 2017
By Daniel Taylor

Whitchurch-Stouffville council is exploring options about potential changes to the town's governance structure amid concerns that the current ward boundaries don't reflect a balanced distribution of the town's population.

Last Friday, council agreed to explore options for adding a question to the ballot during the 2018 municipal election concerning possible changes to council's structure. Currently organized in six wards-three urban and three rural-the town's population largely resides in the urban wards.

Ward 5 councillor Iain Lovatt told NRU that he had posed the motion because of feedback he was getting from constituents saying they are not being properly represented in the current six-ward system.

"I started getting comments from residents about some inequities they were feeling in the current ward system, specifically relating to issues within the urban boundaries of town. It became a fairly common theme that I noticed over the fall."

An advocate for council restructuring, Mayor Justin Altmann points to the unequal distribution of population across the town's urban and rural wards. Noting that half the town's population lives in Ward 6, Altmann says that councillors with a larger number of constituents are having difficulty coping with the workload.

"Some of our wards can have close to 7 or 8,000 people and others may have around 2,000. So, when you look at the rural wards [in comparison] to the urban wards, the balance is off," said Altmann. "All members of council are paid the same but have different responsibilities and [numbers of constituents,] representation by population. I'd like to see something with more balance."

Furthermore, Altmann says that a council made up of part-time members will be increasingly problematic if Whitchurch-Stouffville's population increases as forecast.

"We grew from a small town of about 16,000 to 46,000 [today], and by 2031 we'll go up to 62,000 [people]. We need a council that can be full-time and that can be aggressive. We need a council that can attract the kind of people that have professional backgrounds and that are doing smart planning and smart work. Part-time just doesn't cut it."

Altmann also suggests that council be reduced from six ward councillors to four at-large councillors in order to make better use of the town's resources.

Whatever the future holds for Whitchurch-Stouffville council, it all starts with a decision to put a question on the ballot in the upcoming municipal election.

"There's a ward boundary review coming in 2018 after the election, so if we're going to have questions on the ballot we have until March 7 to make this decision and it's an opportunity we'd be remiss not to take."

Staff anticipates reporting to council at its December 12 meeting with an initial report on the process necessary for council to pose a question on the ballot. Council has until March 7, 2018 to approve the question if it is to be included on the October 22, 2018 ballot.