After some reconsideration, council has decided to have a third-party consultant come in to prepare a report reviewing the municipality’s ward boundaries and council composition.
A successful motion was made at Monday’s Chatham-Kent council meeting to hire Strategy Corp., at a cost of just over $68,000, to prepare a report regarding council composition and a ward boundary review.
This past February, council voted in favour of a ward boundary and council composition review. However, when council went to approve the tender to hire Strategy Corp. to conduct the review last month, council had a change of mind and didn’t approve the tender.
Councillor Marjorie Crew brought in the motion to reconsider taking a look at ward boundaries and recommend the composition of council to best serve those new boundaries.
Councillor Carmen McGregor amended the motion to have Chatham-Kent administration prepare a report every term of council on how ward boundaries might change based on population by ward. Councillor Aaron Hall said looking at political boundaries is something that the federal government does regularly and it’s a good practice for Chatham-Kent to follow.
Ward boundaries have remained unchanged in Chatham-Kent since 1998’s amalgamation. Consultants have reviewed the ward boundaries at least a couple of times in the past 15 years and made recommendations to revise them, but the council of the day decided to stay with the status quo rather than make changes.