It was New Year’s Day and it had been a while since I’d tapped a keyboard. I was getting the itch writers can get when they’ve been disconnected for too long. 

The topic was County Council and the social media platform was Facebook. The position was that “this current Council was the worst County Council of all time.” 

In other words, irresistible.

Having heard this old chestnut before, I offered that this seems to be a common fallback position. The downhill slide started in 2002, the days of Mayor Jim Taylor and the first amalgamated council.

I mused about beauty and how it can be in the eye of the beholder. I threw in a bit about buyer’s remorse for good measure. But the prevailing attitude out in the ether is that something is seriously wrong at Shire Hall. 

They might not be wrong, but I lean more to the side of familiarity breeds contempt. Half of the current council and the mayor have been unchanged since at least 2018, while two more served on councils that predate those of the last two terms.

If the problem is merely the particular collection of councillors, we have a solution. Regular elections, and four-year terms.

But what if the problem goes deeper than that? What if it is structural? Meaning even ideal candidates for the job are thwarted by the way in which Council is put together?

Perhaps Council needs a trim. 

Amalgamation brought about a system designed to protect a patchwork of small wards and hamlets from the overbearing “urban centres” of Picton and Wellington. Keep everyone honest and dispel fears the little guys from South or North Marysburgh were going to get lost in the shuffle in the brave new world of a unified County.

Don’t get me wrong. I live in the sentimentality district of Prince Edward County. During the first great “Composition of Council” debate of 2008, I was publicly neutral but fretted privately about what might become of my beloved Athol if the County was dissected into wards of electoral convenience. Without reinforcement of the historic township monikers, the sands of time would surely erase memories of people like longtime Athol Township Reeve C.B. Fennell. He was one of those Township Reeves whose steady hand helped create the bucolic burgh.

But ask yourself this: in the last term and a half or more, have residents been well served by the machinery in place at Shire Hall? Are you satisfied with the decisions taken at the horseshoe?

If the players are at loggerheads, the right hand is not connecting with the left, and rival teams are fracturing debates, making for a positive parade of unfortunate decisions, maybe it’s time to reconsider the rules of the game.

In 2013, the Prince Edward County Citizen’s Assembly picked up where the Composition of Council Committee had left off five years earlier. Selected randomly using a civic lottery system, 23 County residents conversed with municipal staff, councillors, friends, and neighbours. They deliberated together and arrived at what facilitator Dr. Jonathan Rose, an associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University, described as a “principles-based” recommendation to the Council of the day.

The Assembly landed on 10 councillors plus one mayor. They further decided that these councillors should be equally distributed across a number of wards. While redistribution was beyond the Assembly’s mandate, new lines would be drawn. The new system would run on the gold standard of democratic governance: representation by population.

“The needs of the County should take precedence over the needs of each ward. There should be a balance between: the needs of business and labour; permanent and non-permanent residents; urban and rural; north and south. All wards should have urban and rural elements wherever possible.”

Under a six or eight councillor system, the Assembly reasoned, the needs of smaller communities could become lost in the workload of few councillors. 12 or 14 councillors and effectiveness would be strained. Ten members with a mayor to break ties also alleviates the concern of motions lost to stalemates.

“A smaller Council is necessary achieve the goal of governing. If Council focuses on governing, councillors will be less inclined to manage the implementation of policy, leaving that for County staff.”

Interesting take.

Let’s face it. The current Council is 14-headed monster designed not for effective governance, but to soothe the injuries of amalgamation. The time for re-thinking has come. 

The Citizen’s Assembly did good work and made excellent arguments on a new way forward at Shire Hall. Its recommendations  should be revisited by Council. We need a leaner operation prior to the 2026 municipal election.

With something like 8 members and a mayor, competition for seats will be enhanced, and representation more equitable. We could quit pretending these positions are part-time, and pay a living wage. Improving the $26,000 annual salary would encourage more various — and far more representative — candidates to put their names on the ballot. That alone would shake things up at Shire Hall.

In the time of New Year’s resolutions, we resolve to help start a constructive conversation about Council. There has got to be a better way to deal with the complex issues we face as a community than the current sorry parade of closed sessions and conflicted, mutually contradictory decisions.