Heated Debate at Oxford County Council This Morning

Wednesday, 12 January 2022 11:56

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

Some fireworks at the Oxford County council meeting this morning.

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

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

Councillor Deb Tait says council's lack of transparency to the taxpayers is appalling.

"How does the Warden rule about the information, you don't know what the information is, so you are just going to rule there was no new information, have you talked to the City of Tillsonburg. I don't understand what is going on here, we are supposed to be here because we are elected by the rate payers, we are doing a terrible display of governance. You would think you would error on the side of caution and be in favour of the public hearing this information. There is new information, there is a reason sometimes why a motion cannot come forward and gets changed."

Councillor Marcus 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 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."

Councillor Tait says the County is doing a disservice to the taxpayer by not listening to these motions.

This is a developing story and we will provide more details in the coming days as we gather interviews with members of County council. You can watch the debate online here.