Westlock County Coun. Jim Wiese has said whether a petition is considered legal or not, he will honour the wishes of residents of his division.
He made the announcement at the Oct. 28 Westlock County council meeting, and referred to discussion in the community about a possible recall petition, saying he wouldn’t want to represent residents of his division if they didn’t want him to.
“If the people in Division 3 want to recall me with 50 or 60 names on a piece of paper, it doesn’t have to be legal or anything, I would respect those wishes and I would resign the very next day,” he said.
Former Reeve Ken Mead, who served on council from 2004-2007, recently told the Westlock News he was looking into options under the Municipal Government Act to petition for a recall of the current county council, saying he felt they had overstepped their responsibilities as laid out in the act.
Wiese said he would also be willing to pay for a byelection in his division out of his own pocket, if residents of his division did ask him to resign, and he said he would be willing to work with whoever the new councillor was to bring them up to speed.
“I know when they sat around the council table like I do, and they listen to all the information and get all the facts as opposed to just the sensationalized news story or coffee talk, they would vote exactly the same way I vote so it would be easy to support them,” he said.
Reeve Bud Massey said while he agrees he wouldn’t want to represent people if they didn’t want him to, councillors were elected to four-year terms in accordance with the MGA and are often required to make unpopular decisions.
“It’s our job to be long-range thinkers; it’s our job to listen to people and make tough decisions,” he said. “There are several things we have to decide on occasion that may not be the most popular thing in the world.”
He cited two examples of things that may not have come to pass without council making tough decisions — the new ski chalet at Tawatinaw Valley and the new fire truck recently delivered to the Busby Fire Department.
“We’re called upon as elected officials to make those decisions and they’re not always popular,” Massey said. “I don’t want to be here if people don’t want us to be here either, but they’re going to have an opportunity in four years to make that decision very loud.”
In an interview after the meeting Massey acknowledged that the ski chalet and the new fire truck were purchases made by the previous council, and that this council had made some cuts to those two departments in favour of more infrastructure spending, saying these were the kinds of tough decisions councillors had to make.
“I said that, and today I believe that residents clearly indicated when I was knocking on doors that the No. 1 priority is infrastructure,” he said. “But life on municipal council is not either/or. It’s finding balance on the priorities.”
Massey also clarified that Wiese’s offer was a personal one, and does not reflect the position of council as a whole.
“The MGA is very clear. We got elected and we took an oath saying we would work under the MGA and that our roles, rules and responsibilities are defined,” he said. “There is a petition section within the MGA. It’s not up to us to make new rules.”
