After the Election – What’s Next?

After many months of planning for municipal staff, and nearly as many months of campaigning for the candidates, the 2022 municipal and school board elections finally happened on Monday, October 24. We received nearly 4000 votes, and a Council of Mayor Kentner, Deputy Mayor Keaveney, and Councillors Bartley, Bell, Forder, Greenfield and Uhrig were elected. Full results are available at www.meafordvotes.ca.

With the election over, we thought it would be useful to put together a quick blog post about what happens next.

For many elections, like the federal and provincial ones, the winning candidates and parties take over their new roles immediately. For municipalities in Ontario, it’s a bit different, and works more like the way that President’s are elected in the United States.

The current Council remains in office until November 15, and actually has another meeting before the end of the term. Council will meet on November 7, 2022 for both a regular meeting and a planning public meeting. Generally, the only items on the last meeting for the existing Council will be urgent ones, or information-based reports.

The new Council officially takes office on November 15, 2022 but will only be sworn in at a special, inaugural Council meeting on November 21, 2022. That’s because our procedural by-law says that the inaugural meeting always takes place on the first Monday after November 15. At that meeting, each member of Council will be asked to swear a declaration of office, and affirm that they will abide by the Council Code of Conduct. Each person will also have an opportunity to speak for a minute or two.

The declaration of office is given to us by the Province, and requires that members of Council solemnly promise that:

• They will truly, faithfully and impartially exercise this office to the best of their knowledge and ability;
• They have not received and will not receive any payment or reward, or promise thereof, for the exercise of the office in a biased, corrupt or in any other improper manner;
• They will disclose any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in accordance with the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act; and
• They will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty, King Charles the Third.

The inaugural meeting will be at Meaford Hall, at 1 p.m. on November 21, 2022 and is open to the public.

After that, it’s pretty much straight down to business for the new Council. The first regular meeting is on November 28, 2022 and they’ll get the first look at the 2023 budget on December 12, 2022. Both new and existing members will get the opportunity to attend two days of orientation at Grey County, and municipal staff will be putting together information packages and presentations to get our new Councillors up to speed as quickly as possible.

We’ve also had a couple of questions about how to apply for positions on Advisory Committees. At their first meeting on November 28, 2022 there will be several reports in the Committee of the Whole section of the agenda about committees and appointments, and Council will discuss what committees they would like to establish for the next four years. They’ll make a final decision on that at the December 12 meeting, and then we will start the recruitment process. There will be information on our website, in the local paper, and I’ll do a blog post at the time to let everyone know what positions are available.

There’s lots more information coming on the blog and podcast over the next couple of months, including some more terminology blogs (confused about what Committee of the Whole is and how it’s different to Council? I’ll try to explain in my next post!). Keep your eyes open for new posts, or sign up for LocalMotive notifications!