Cobourg Councillor Nicole Beatty will become a special council liaison to the Transition House Emergency Shelter board of directors, following a vote at Tuesday's council meeting.
This duty involves no voting privileges as Beatty attends the monthly meetings (and any additional meetings as determined by the board chair), but it will enable her to remain up to date on the shelter and to update council members, senior staff, media and members of the public on its operations through the Co-ordinator Announcements portion of regular council meetings.
Whenever Beatty is not available for this, Councillor Adam Bureau will serve as the alternate council liaison – also without voting privileges.
The motion passed with Deputy Mayor Suzanne Seguin and Councillor Emily Chorley voting in opposition. These votes reflect concerns they voiced in discussions at last week's committee-of-the-whole meeting about why council would ask a councillor to sit on the board without a voice in terms of voting privileges for a service for which the town is not a primary funder.
Council has already heard the concerns expressed by residents of the surrounding community with how the emergency shelter is adversely affecting their neighbourhood when the Good Neighbour Coalition made a presentation, Chorley pointed out. However, her amendment to require Beatty also to meet with this group did not pass.
For Beatty, the idea of the town having a presence on the board as it carried on the business of the shelter – if for no other reason than the ability to keep council accurately informed – had immense value.
“I think it's a good idea,” Bureau declared last week.
“I know there's a lot of critical issues between Transition House and the neighbourhood, and this is a really good way to keep our thumb on the pulse of how Transition House is relating.”
One alteration to the motion that did come from these discussions is that the appointment is for a one-year term, to be reviewed in April 2021.