The Citizen, 2012-11-15, Page 12PAGE 12. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2012.
In a tight vote at the Nov. 7
meeting, Huron County Council
voted to extend the warden’s term to
two years, beginning after the 2014
election.
The vote was passed with nine
votes for the change and six votes
against it. One councillor was absent
for the vote.
While Nov. 7 was the public
meeting to discuss the issue, no
members of the public spoke in
favour or against the issue, leaving
only councillors to comment. Two
written comments had been
received, one from North Huron
Reeve Neil Vincent, who was not in
favour of the change, and one from a
citizen who was in favour of the
move.
Bluewater’s Paul Klopp said he
would be voting against the change,
saying that the opportunity for a
second one-year term as warden has
been there all along, it’s called
running for a second term, which
any warden is welcome to do.
“It’s unnecessary,” Klopp said.
“One can run for a second term and
it’s up to the will of council if they
want to have them back or not. It’s
not a celebrity contest.”
Klopp compared the annual
warden election to the annual review
for members of the senior
management team.
“This is our yearly review,” Klopp
said. “The system is working fairly
well.”
Bluewater’s Bill Dowson agreed,
saying he couldn’t support the move
to a two-year term either.
Tyler Hessel of Bluewater said he
didn’t feel a one-year term was
enough to fully comprehend the joband felt two years sounded like amore appropriate term.
Huron East’s Joe Steffler said
councillors shouldn’t consider the
workload a negative when voting on
the term, as some had, saying that if
a warden is committed, they’ll do the
job.
Dowson, who is a past warden,
challenged Hessel’s statement,
saying that he has never seen a
councillor run for the warden
position without being a councillor
for at least four or five years, so the
argument that after one year the
warden would still be getting his feet
about him holds no water.
“If they have been here for years
and they don’t know the job, then I
just don’t understand that,” Dowson
said.
Central Huron’s Dave Jewitt said
the warden’s job was important for
continuity between council and the
senior management team and
furthering that continuity couldn’t
be a bad thing.
George Robertson of South Huron
said he didn’t think it would be fair
to the lower tier municipalities if the
warden became a two-year position.
Robertson, who is running for
warden this December, said it
wouldn’t be fair to councillors at the
lower tier level for a warden to be
essentially absent from the lower
level for two years, half of a regular
term of council.
Past warden Ben Van Diepenbeek
agreed with Klopp, saying that the
opportunity to run for a second term
has always been available, but this
way, if a warden is doing a less-than-
stellar job, council has a way to
change its leader, rather than being
stuck with them for two years.
Goderich’s Deb Shewfelt, who isalso a past warden, supported themove to a two-year term, saying that
with the discussion council has been
having surrounding economic
development, the county needs a
leader in its top position, to lead
those discussions and lead the
county into its future.“This is a chance for us to bedoing all the things that we haven’t
been doing,” Shewfelt said, citing
economic development as an
example. “It’s more than kissing
babies and cutting ribbons.
“This county is losing people,” he
said. “There has to be action and wecan’t have someone working on thatin one-year terms.
“This is a big operation, but it can
be bigger.”
Central Huron’s Jim Ginn
supported the motion, saying the
Warden term officially extended to two years
Showing their pride
Grade 1 and 2 students showed how they remember their country’s fallen soldiers on Friday
as Hullett Central Public School held its annual Remembrance Day ceremony. Members of the
Blyth Legion were in attendance for the ceremony before travelling to Clinton to participate in
ceremonies at local high schools. (Denny Scott photo)
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Continued on page 20