At a time when voters are expecting more bang for their buck, the decision by the Municipality of Cumberland to change from a warden system of leadership to a mayor and reduce the number of councillors is something that should be well received within the county.
Following the dissolution of both Springhill and Parrsboro several years ago the size of council ballooned to 13 from 10 with Springhill being allowed to have two elected representatives on county council and Parrsboro one – this despite a recommendation from the consulting firm Stantec to have a council of between eight and 10 members.
While the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board is usually pretty strict when it comes to the number of electors per council and has a standard of plus or minus 10 per cent it seemed willing to look the other way in 2015 when the county chose not to follow Stantec’s recommendations and set the number of councillors at 13.
Understandably, the utility and review board saw council’s reasoning that the citizens of the former towns of Springhill and Parrsboro needed effective leadership during their transition into Cumberland County. However, it also made it very clear the county had to review its electoral boundaries and the number of councillors it has prior to the 2020 election.
With the Dec. 31, 2019 deadline approaching for municipalities to decide on how many elected officials it would have, the county directed its staff to review the situation and come back with a recommendation on council’s size and whether it should abandon the tradition of having its leader selected from council and move to a system in which all voters in Cumberland County decide.
While it was a tough decision, and one that didn’t come without opposition from within council, the county is to be applauded for taking the courageous step and following the wishes of its people.
During the public consultation process, the public told county officials it wanted change. Through surveys and online polls, the voters said they wanted to change and even though people did not turn out in large numbers to voice their opinions those who did were clear in they wanted to choose the county’s leader and they wanted a smaller council.
The past few years have been difficult ones for the present council. They had to raise taxes significantly in 2017-18 after previous council’s opted to balance the budget by withdrawing from its reserves to the point it could no longer do it. Plus, they faced the reality the utility and review board was not going to look the other way when it submitted its recommendations on council size.
As planner Nelson Bezanson told council while making his recommendations during the Nov. 4 meeting, the utility and review board could have enacted its own decision if council opted for the status quo of 13 councillors instead of reducing its size to be within the variance it enforces with other municipalities in Nova Scotia.
While the decision may not have been popular with some members of council, those who voted for change showed courage and delivered on the promise to enact change when they were elected in 2016.
Also, now that Cumberland County has made the decision to go smaller, perhaps it could reopen the door to a regional governance study that it slammed shut several years ago when it said it was too busy with the amalgamation of Springhill and Parrsboro to consider some form of regional union with Amherst and Oxford.
