Sparks Fly at Oxford County Council Meeting

Oxford County Council debated a motion of reconsideration for the procedural by-law to allow councillors to bring forward additional motions for the 2022 Budget and Business Plans.

OXFORD COUNTY - Things got heated at the last Oxford County Council meeting.

The fireworks started over a motion of reconsideration for the procedural by-law to allow councillors to bring forward additional motions for the 2022 Budget and Business Plans. 

Council Deb Tait asked for a recorded vote on the motion and council voted 6-4 to not allow new motions for the 2022 Budget and Business Plans. The four votes in favour came from Councillor Trevor Birtch, Councillor Deb Tait, Councillor Ted Comiskey and Councillor Stephen Molnar. 

Warden Larry Martin says the by-law has been in place for a reason. 

"If I were to stand up at a meeting and say that I want to take out the item STE-10, nobody knows what that is except council and to my way of thinking, that isn't transparency, but if that is in the agenda, the notice of motion, then myself, staff, council or whoever wants to, can sit down and go through that budget package and see what they are talking about and follow the discussion a lot easier and a lot cleared and it more than likely would make a lot more sense to them."

Martin says he embraces the current way council does things.

"I think it is one of the best I have seen, because everything is in writing and everyone has an opportunity to look at that and knows exactly what they are debating why they are debating it. You have to remember that our budget package is a 342 page document and I don't expect every council member to have every page memorized, so they know where each issue is on each page, but when you get those notices of motion, it's great, you can just back to your budget, leaf through the pages, you find it, you read it and now I know what they are talking about." 

Things got heated during the debate when Councillor Deb Tait said council's lack of transparency to the taxpayers is appalling. She says council refused to listen to important motions. 

"I think it is very important that you always error on the side of the taxpayer in terms of transparency. So if there is new information and it effects this budget, which is a very large budget, we added 26 full time staff and there was no further discussion, so it looks to the public like this is prepackaged, it is done and here it is."

Tait says at the City level, any extras council has to make a motion to put those in. At the County, everything is already packaged in the budget and you have to make a motion to take it out. Councillor Tait has put forward a motion to change the by-law. 

"I have already sent in a notice of motion to change that procedural by-law so that councillors in the future are allowed to bring a motion so they can have discussion the day the final budget comes. I will also bring another motion that staff be directed that any extras to the budget be separate and have to be added in. I think that is only fair to the public, because they don't know all these extras that are thrown into the budget that is not from the base budget." 

Tait explains why she used the term appalling during the council meeting.

"We are not there for ourselves, we are not there for our fellow councillors, we are not there for staff. I don't know where the direction was coming from, because this has never happened before. I find it appalling that as an elected official, we have new information that has come forward, this is a $65-million budget, there is new information, why would you not listen to it." 

The most heated exchange in the meeting happened between Councillor Marcus Ryan and Councillor Birtch. 

Councillor Ryan agreed it was appalling, however he said it was appalling that some on council didn't want to follow their own by-laws.

"I couldn't agree with councillor Tait and Birtch more that this is appalling and disrespectful to taxpayers. We set aside several meetings of council, including special meetings of council that are set a full year in advance. Our staff went above and beyond to remind us of our own procedural bylaw and submitted notices of motion in advance, so they would be absolutely transparent to other members of council and residents.

Ryan says he wanted to hear the information and have these debates but how can we expect our residents to follow by-laws that we enforce, when we don't even follow our by-laws. 

Woodstock Mayor and County Councillor Trevor Birtch took exception to Ryan's remarks saying council has been doing this for years and sarcastically apologized for previous budgets.

"So I guess all of the previous budgets that we approved and all the previous discussions where there was amendments on the floor, that was appalling to all the rate payers, every year gone before and since the last update of that section since 2018." 

Speaking with the Warden after the meeting, he felt the whole exchange went beyond a spirited debate and was embarrassing. 

"I have seen very spirited debate, very passionate debate and I am all for that, this is just absolutely wonderful, because the longer the debate, the more you debate, the better the discussion and decision will be but you also have to be considerate of all members and I don't recall seeing anything like that, that we had to witness yesterday. It is really embarrassing from my point."

Martin says, looking back, he wishes he had declared a 10 minute break, to let things cool down.