Staying with status quo: CBRM vetoes plan to lower electoral boundaries from 12 to six
THE STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS
SYDNEY – The polls say six municipal voting limits are working, but the council prefers to stay at 12.
After months of soliciting public input through both online and in-person consultations, a consultant’s final report on whether Cape Breton Regional Municipality should adjust its governance and boundaries recommended that the municipality reduce its current district structure from 12 to six.
The community had to prepare a mandatory boundary review application with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board, which must be submitted before the end of the year. Dartmouth-based Stantec Consulting Ltd., the advisory group tasked with overseeing the review, partnered with several CBRM staff to conduct online surveys and six face-to-face meetings — attended by only a handful of participants — to provide input to the public on the Allow definition of the district boundaries.
Continue reading
The group then narrowed down three potential boundary ideas based on discussions with council members, the mayor and the chief administrative officer, and the results of an online poll of several hundred respondents.
But despite their efforts to finalize a recommendation targeting six CBRM constituencies, the council voted unanimously to keep the current constituency structure unchanged.
Not surprised by the Council’s veto
“In general, I work with councils quite a bit on these reviews,” said John Heseltine, who presented the six-district recommendation during Thursday’s special council meeting, adding he wasn’t surprised by the unanimous 12-0 veto against his suggestion.
“Counselors usually support the status quo. And there are a multitude of reasons for this: Council members are usually interested in running again (for the Council), they are interested in the situation of their colleagues, they work in an organization that they feel positive about.
“And I know going from 12 to six[districts]would have been a big change.”
Public input took the form of online polls conducted between October 21st and November 30th. Face-to-face meetings were held between October 24 and 26 at Louisbourg, Glace Bay, Boisdale, Sydney Mines, Big Pond and Center 200 in Sydney, attracting a total of 11 people.
Heseltine’s recommendation came largely from Stantec’s online polls, which had a total of 644 participants: namely, the Community Size Preference Poll, in which 25.8 percent (or 100 people) felt six CBRM districts would be best while 18.3 percent favored the current 12 districts, and 11.9 percent favored eight districts.
In another poll of border options, 45.3 percent (286 people) said they prefer a six-county border arrangement, 25.8 percent (163 people) the 12-county facility, and 17.1 percent an eight-county facility.
Large geographic districts
A decision on a six district configuration would also mean that only six council members would oversee those districts. However, two districts cover large geographic areas: a reconfigured District 5, for example, would cover 593 square kilometers between Grand Narrows and the Sydney River region to Upper North Sydney; while a reconfigured District 3 would cover a much larger corridor: 1,623 square kilometers, between Irish Cove and Gabarus in the west to between Grand Lake Road and Main-a-Dieu-Louisbourg in the east.
Deputy Mayor James Edwards, who currently represents part of this proposed borough, told the council that it would take a full-time job to represent such a large chunk of geographic territory.
“Attracting professionals to the council who may have to leave another job, with the possibility of losing the councilman job in four years, that has to be considered,” Edwards said.
“Also, this is a huge neighborhood (suggested). Going from Mira Gut to Irish Cove and to Gabarus… I don’t even know if we’re in the same time zone. In my current district, I go from Glace Bay to Louisbourg. And during (post-tropical storm) Fiona, that was already a huge area to cover.”
‘Very Nervous’
District 2 Earlene MacMullin felt that reducing the ward council size to just six districts would draw par with Inverness County, except that it would cover a much larger population (93,878, according to 2017 figures).
“Each member would (then) have to represent 15,500 people (in CBRM) for example,” MacMullin said. “As a council member I get a lot of calls and people feel they are not getting enough representation at the moment. I’m very nervous about taking what we have, which by and large seems to be working, cutting it in half and expecting it to work efficiently when we have so many more responsibilities than councils of the same size.”
For District 4 County. Steve Gillespie, cutting boroughs would reduce the quality of services provided, which would be split between municipal and provincial depending on the service (such as roads, sewers, sidewalks, etc.).
“In your breakdown of smaller versus larger councils, you think that smaller council discourages micromanagement and that staff attend to residents’ concerns,” he said. “As if that’s going to happen. That’s why we’re here; We are the ones who go to the residents. The staff does not have time to attend to the concerns of (most) residents.”
Added District 12. Lorne Green: “To look at every reduction is ridiculous, just plain wrong. We all talk about downsizing; We really should be the right size. And 12 is the right size for this church.”
