In a rare move, a special meeting of Orillia's city council has been called through a petition from six of the eight ward councillors.
The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the council chambers and the public is welcome to attend. It was called for by six members of council to discuss the granting of strong mayor powers to Mayor Don McIsaac and his use of them, namely by changing the candidate hired for the position of chief administrative officer from Trevor Lee to Amanpreet Singh Sidhu, the city's deputy CAO and solicitor.
According to the one-page petition published on the city's website as part of its council information package, the discussion will "provide an opportunity for council members to pose questions to the external legal counsel present and provide further direction to staff."
The memo says the discussion may include the process by which the mayor requested and received strong mayor powers, the mayor's "refusal to release details of this request to his fellow council members and the appopriateness (procedurally and otherwise) of the mayor's use of strong mayor powers to date."
Councillors Janet-Lynne Durnford, Jay Fallis, Tim Lauer, Jeff Czetwerzuk, Luke Leatherdale and David Campbell signed the petition. Councillors Ralph Cipolla and Whitney Smith did not sign the petition.
Cipolla told OrilliaMatters he would have signed the petition, but he didn't learn about it until late Friday and has been dealing with flooding in his basement. He will attend the meeting.
Petitioning for a special council meeting is rare, said Cipolla, who has been a city councillor for more than three decades.
"I haven't seen that for a long, long time. The only other one I can think of was way back in the 1990s. Usually special meetings of council are called by the mayor," said the veteran Ward 2 councillor.
Fallis said in his seven years on council, he's never had to resort to a petition to call a special council meeting.
"This is a first. This is a whole new ball game," he said.
Fallis said he is eager to see where the discussion leads. There will be portion in closed session (that is not open to the public) and a portion in open session. City matters involving staff are discussed in closed session.
"We are wanting to have serious discussion on what is happening and what has happened," Fallis said.
"We are hoping that members of the public can hear what's going on and maybe have an opportunity to bring up questions," he said, adding the public has to go through the city's website.
Fallis and Jeff Czetwerzuk, Ward 3 councillors, hosted a ward meeting Friday night. Fallis said there was a lot of public response to the issues around strong mayor powers and McIsaac's use of them.
"Residents have a lot of questions and are very disappointed," he said.
Orillia was granted strong mayor powers on April 3 after McIsaac requested the powers to help deal with the ice storm.
In a move that shocked council, he used the powers to rescind the hiring of Lee, who was to have started as the city's new CAO today. Instead, McIssac appointed Sidhu to the position. Lee admitted to being shocked at the decision.
Across Ontario, 47 municipalities currently have strong mayor powers, including Barrie.
Last week, the province extended strong mayor powers to another 169 municipalities, effective May 1. That expansion means that 14 of 16 municipalities in Simcoe County will have strong mayor powers. (Essa and Tiny townships were not given strong mayor powers) The purpose of those powers is to expedite the building of housing and infrastructure including roads and transit.
"Municipal politics will be impacted the same way in 169 municipalities, so it's very challenging what they will be going through as well," Fallis said.
OrilliaMatters reached out to Mayor McIsaac and received a response from Melissa Gowanlock, the city's manager of communications. She said the meeting will be regarding external legal advice with respect to Part VI. 1 of the Municipal Act, 2001 — amendments to the Act related to strong mayor powers.
"The mayor will not be providing further comment," she said.
Coun. Durnford said the point of the meeting is to "determine what our response is to Mayor McIsaac's actions using the strong mayor powers. It will be to discuss what our strategy will be and to pass a motion," she said.
The meeting is "unrelated" to the Change.org petition started April 10 to have Trevor Lee re-instated as the CAO, said Durnford. That petition was started last week and now has 314 signatures on it.
The council information package is available on the city website.
