Brian Cullen, CAO for the Municipality of Pictou County, said he expects public meetings will be held over the next three weeks in various locations for Pictou County residents in learning more about how new regional council would look and which new district they would fall into.
The meetings will be advertised in the media and on the onepictoucounty.ca website.
On Monday, county councillors browsed over the proposed governance report done by Grant Thornton for the MOU steering committee.
The report recommends that the council be made of 10 councillors and a mayor which would be one councillor per electoral district and the mayor would be elected at large.
This council formation would be reviewed in four years. The mayor’s honorarium would be $50,000 a year and the councillors would earn half that.
“If we form a regional government, whoever becomes the first mayor will earn his pay in the first few years,” said Coun. David Parker, adding that he is disappointed the steering committee didn't accept Grant Thornton’s recommendation that the new councillors could have their RRSP contributions matched.
“I think to encourage people to save for retirement is good public policy,” he said. “No matter what job we are working at, we should be planning for a day when we are not working. Maybe the new regional council can look at that.”
Council also reviewed a draft of the new 10 districts and Coun. Robert Parker expressed concern that five of the seats will be “rural” while one seat will be 40 per cent rural and 60 per cent urban.
“I always said you can put all the pre-conditions in that you want but the new council will do what it wants,” he said, adding that if it comes to a tie vote on this council based on rural and urban districts a mayor would have to break the tie.
Coun David Parker added that if Trenton and Westville eventually do join in on the MOU or the new regional government rural Pictou County will be outvoted 7-5.
He said he would have preferred to see more blended seats but he was quickly reminded by county staff that it was the wish of county councillors to have the representation by population.
Deputy Warden Andy Thompson said make-up of the regional council should look out for the interests of all districts and not have councillors putting their own agendas first for their own rural or urban areas.
“We make decisions here for all the residents of PIctou County and any regional council should look at things that way too,” he said.
