ARICHAT: Council’s decision to limit the number of voting delegates attending upcoming federal and provincial municipal conferences generated a lot of discussion.
During the monthly meeting of Richmond Municipal Council on January 22 in Arichat, district 2 councillor Alvin Martell requested permission to attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference in Halifax from May 31 to June 3.
Earlier this month, Martell said he received an e-mail from Richmond Warden Brian Marchand asking who wanted to attend the FCM and Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities (UNSM) conferences. Martell responded that he wanted to attend and requested permission to travel. Without a response for two weeks, Martell said he added his request to the agenda of the regular monthly meeting last week.
Noting that most accommodations are starting to get booked, with some already sold-out, Martell wanted the Richmond delegation to start making arrangements.
“[The warden] didn’t respond so then I took it to council and when I took it to council, things didn’t go very well,” Martell said.
“The motion got turned around for some reason. It didn’t deal with what I was asking so they made a motion for something else instead.”
District 4 councillor Gilbert Boucher supports attending the conferences but wants a strict limit on how many and who can attend. He prefers having the warden, deputy warden and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) go to such events.
“You send four councillors or five councillors to something like that, nobody comes back and gives you a report,” Boucher said. “The warden is the representative of the council, the CAO is the representative of the staff. Those are the two main people to go.”
Deputy Warden James Goyetche agreed that Richmond County should send no more than two voting delegates.
“Whatever the amount of delegates you’re allowed, that’s the maximum you should send,” he noted. “If you go and you’re a delegate, then you can vote. If you can’t vote, what’s the sense of going?”
Since the new travel policy dictates that the warden must choose who goes to the conference, Brian Marchand said the municipality will send two voting delegates, in addition to the Chief Administrative Officer, to the UNSM conference but no decisions have been made about the FCM conference.
He said he understands the urgency in making travel arrangements but there have to be limits on how many can attend.
“Two is enough attending these events,” Marchand stated. “We did enough traveling in the past.”
Boucher stated after the meeting that past practices cannot continue.
“One time they went to Germany and spent $30,000 of the taxpayer’s money to the FCM, which I’ve never gotten over that,” Boucher said. “I just can’t understand why council ever did something like that.”
Martell said he agrees with fiscal responsibility but also thinks the municipality needs to attend these conferences, and added this motion was more about control.
“For me, I think they just want to control who goes and who doesn’t go, it’s not about being fiscal responsible,” he added.