Consultant recommends trimming Chatham-Kent council to 13 seats

A consultant’s preferred option would cut Chatham-Kent council to 13 members, including the mayor, says a report going to council Monday.

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Council will vote on whether to approve StrategyCorp’s proposal, or one of two other options: trimming to 15 members, or keeping the status quo of 18.

“In our view, while each of the preferred options involves tradeoffs, we believe that each are acceptable, preferable to the status quo, and would pass the ‘effective representation’ test,” the consultant’s report said.

As boundaries would need to be adjusted, ward maps for the various options were included.

In October, councilors voted to seek options for a 13- to 15-member council, including the mayor, and the 18-member status quo. An update was provided in November, along with further public consultations.

The preferred option, 13B-V2, was recommended because:

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• It delivers effective representation, offering a better ratio of advisors to population today, and projected in 2026 and 2030, and boundaries that respect community of interest, prominent physical features and patterns of transportation and communication
• It’s superior to the status quo and other options considered.
• It would reduce the size of council.

This option, with the mayor, would result in a council of 13, where one or two councilors would be elected per ward, the report added.

“Boundaries were adjusted to improve voting parity in Ward 2 and Chatham and Wallaceburg boundaries have been modified based on feedback for consultations,” it said.

Revisions to this option included combining northern county wards and adjusting boundaries to keep Wallaceburg as one ward with two councilors, rather than dividing it.

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It also reduced the number of Chatham wards from five to three with one or two councilors each to avoid splitting existing neighborhoods, and adjusted Wards 1, 2 and 3 to improve population parity in Ward 2 from -21 per cent to -14 per cent.

“Public review of the drafts gave us a second opportunity to hear feedback on what matters to participants,” the report stated. “We used that feedback to either validate, or in some cases, to adjust the design parameters.”

Previous councils, including in 2015, discussed changing ward boundaries and council numbers, but stuck with the status quo. In 2011, council voted down proposed boundary changes after a governance task force considered the issue.

North Kent Coun. Rhonda Jubenville, who led the push this year to kickstart the review, cited the 13-member Greater Sudbury council as an example of ideal size.

To view the final report and its recommendations, visit pub-chatham-kent.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=17063

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