Woodlands County councillors elected Division 2 councillor John Burrows, who had served as mayor prior to the Oct. 18 election, to serve in the position for another one-year term during the Oct. 26 organizational meeting.
Burrows, who was first elected to council in 2017, was nominated by Division 4 councillor Jeremy Wilhelm. There were no further nominations.
After being sworn in, Burrows thanked the other members of council for entrusting him with the position.
“I want everyone to know that I’m speaking with the voice of this council,” he added.
Based on the conversations he had with the other councillors, Burrows said that he knew everyone present was looking to the best interests of the municipality.
“I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to serve you all,” he said.
Alan Deane was also appointed as the first deputy mayor after council opted to follow the old practice of rotating councillors through the position.
Deane was picked simply because the rotation follows an alphabetical order. He will serve in the position for an eight-month term.
There was a very brief discussion about whether council wanted to follow the old practice of a rotating deputy mayor or switch to having someone in the position for an entire year.
Deane himself noted the position is mostly symbolic, though it does become important if there is an emergency and the mayor is unavailable to act.
“I think all of council should participate in that,” he said.
Ultimately council passed a motion made by Division 1 councillor Dave Kusch to appoint each member as deputy mayor for an eight-month rotation according to alphabetical order.
New meeting days
Councillors also opted to make the first change to their meeting schedules in two decades by deciding to hold meetings every two weeks starting Nov. 10.
Previously, Woodlands County council would meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 9:30 am., though the times of the meetings have changed over the years.
Division 7 councillor Devin Williams suggested moving the meetings to a Wednesday to eliminate the problems that would arise from having meetings directly following a long weekend.
Coun. Dave Kusch spoke in favour of continuing to have meetings at 9:30 a.m. to avoid the issues of staff (and councillors) travelling late at night during the winter, as well as having to pay staff overtime.
Deane argued that council should consider having evening meetings to allow people who couldn’t come during the day to attend public hearings.
He stressed the importance of allowing residents to listen in on council meetings if they wish to, noting that although council did stream the meetings over Youtube, not everyone has good access to the Internet or a device that would allow them to watch the livestream.
Burrows pointed out that while there may be issues with internet access, the meetings were still recorded and would be available on Youtube for some time.
There was also a brief discussion about whether to hold meetings at Fort Assiniboine or Whitecourt, though that was resolved when Wilhelm suggested that meetings be held regularly in Whitecourt but every fourth meeting be shifted to Fort Assiniboine.
Division 6 councillor Peter Kuelken noted that they could also consider holding meetings in Fort Assiniboine whenever there was a presentation going to be held there or if council was dealing with an issue that affected the area in some considerable way.
Ultimately, council passed a motion to begin holding regularly scheduled council meetings on Nov. 10 and every two weeks thereafter. They then followed up with another motion to hold the meetings at Whitecourt starting at 9:30 a.m.
Council will also be dealing with an amendment to its procedural bylaw on Nov. 10 that will outline when special meetings will be held in Fort Assiniboine.
On a final note, council will be holding a special meeting on Nov. 2 just to deal with appointments of members-at-large to committees and boards.
