Simcoe County councillors found their way back to chambers virtually on Wednesday after more than half refused to return following a break in the regular council meeting on Tuesday morning.
The walkout took place following a failed vote on an amendment that requested the draft composition bylaw be sent back to staff to include an amendment to repeal the current weighted-vote bylaw.
As a result, the council meeting was forced to adjourn without a confirmatory bylaw due to a lack of quorum, which meant anything passed at that council meeting was not ratified.
Included in the items, Warden Basil Clarke said at the time, were some “time-sensitive issues,” including $150 million for the 2025 licensed child care and early years system funding.
In order to ensure those agenda items were dealt with in time, Clarke opted to call a special meeting of council, which took place Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. At the start of the online meeting — which lasted less than 15 minutes — Clarke thanked those who attended for clearing their schedules to participate, and quickly addressed Tuesday’s incident.
“I don’t think there is any surprise the optics didn’t look good on what happened yesterday. I know we weren’t well received by the public and media … but I have faith in this council and I believe we can move on from this,” he said. “We have always worked together … and we have always been a team. What I do want to say on behalf of all of us is this does not reflect on Simcoe County and Simcoe County’s ability to deliver the services that we do.”
All councillors are “committed” to ensuring the services the county provides carry on, which is why it was important to hold the meeting Wednesday, Clarke said.
“What happened yesterday I understand was a political issue over a political matter, not over the services we deliver, and I want to put full confidence out to the folks there that the team at this table is fully committed to Simcoe County and the services we deliver,” he said.
Not voted on during the brief meeting was the proposed bylaw regarding a change to council composition.
“I am just addressing the elephant in the room, the one we are not passing. I just want some validation that it will be on our next council agenda in two weeks,” said Midland Mayor Bill Gordon. “And, I’m just putting it out there … it would be lovely if we didn’t have a repeat of yesterday’s political action and we can actually move the matter of this county forward at the next meeting … assuming we are revisiting that topic then”
Clarke confirmed the contentious item is scheduled to be back before council at the April 8 regular meeting, as everything on Wednesday’s agenda was part of the March 11 committee of the whole reports that had needed ratification.
