By Cecilia Nasmith
Every Northumberland municipality on county council has both delegate and alternate, with one exception – the Municipality of Port Hope.
The mayor of each of the county's seven member municipalities is that municipality's delegate to county council and, typically, the deputy mayor is the alternate. Mayors were previously administered the Declaration of Office, and the first order of business at this week's county council meeting was the Declaration of Office for alternates – Nicole Beatty for the Town of Cobourg, Ron Anderson for the Municipailty of Brighton, Sandra Arthur for the Township of Cramahe, Michael Metcalf for the Municipality of Trent Hills, Joan Stover for the Township of Alnwick-Haldimand, and Larry Williamson for the Township of Hamilton, all of them deputy mayors for their own respective municipalities.
At present, Port Hope is without an alternate, as the deputy mayor's position is not yet filled. But, as their council decided earlier this month, there will not be just one deputy mayor during this council term – and this could pose a problem.
Warden Mandy Martin prefaced the swearing in by reiterating the rules, including the fact that member municipalities “cannot appoint more than one alternate member during a term of council unless the alternate member's seat becomes vacant.”
Over this term of council, Port Hope will have six different Deputy Mayors – each elected councillor getting a turn on a rotating basis.
This change was decided on by the new council complement, which reviewed three options before choosing this one – the status quo (which calls on council to appoint one of its members as deputy mayor within three months of the new term, such position to be held for four years), making this appointment of deputy mayor a one-year term, and rotating the appointment among all six councillors over the course of this council term.
The bylaw amending this process is expected to come before Port Hope council in the near future, but its impact on who can be a county council alternate was not addressed at the county council meeting.
