(rdnewsNOW file photo)

By Alessia Proietti

No municipal census

Red Deer municipal byelection to be held on April 22, 2024

Jan 22, 2024 | 6:01 PM

At their meeting on Monday, Red Deer city council confirmed that a municipal by-election will be held on April 22 this year, to fill the spot of late-councillor Michael Dawe.

“The City is incredibly saddened by the loss of Councillor Michael Dawe. This has unfortunately created a vacancy on Council that we are required to fill within 120 days,” said Jessica Robinson, Returning Officer for the City . “The Municipal Government Act (MGA) requires us to fill that vacancy because we are more than 18 months away from the next municipal election.”

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Nominations will be accepted starting January 23, 2024 and the nomination period will close at noon on nomination day, March 25, 2024. Candidate information packages will be available at elections.reddeer.ca starting Wednesday, January 24, 2024 and candidate names will be posted on March 27, 2024.

The City says that starting from the date of Dawe’s passing when the position became vacant, they are 22 months away from the next municipal election.

They added that the by-election will cost $450,000, roughly the same as a general election, due to the expenses for staff, communications, and various advanced and regular polling stations.

To save costs and reduce the burden on staff, council also passed a resolution to cancel the municipal census that was being planned for 2024. Council will consider during budget deliberations this week reallocating $209,800 originally for the census to the by-election instead.

Several councillors questioned if holding a by-election would be worth their while as they are close to the 18-month cutoff to the next election.

“How often does council actually sit and have a tie vote when there’s an even number of councillors here?” asked Councillor Lawrence Lee. “The fiscal reality of where you have to give up something else to do this is a balancing act and the amount of $450,000, to me, that’s about a 0.3 per cent tax increase. I know this is one time, I know it won’t affect the tax rate as such, but it would deplete reserves.”

Councillor Vesna Higham added that it may take the new councillor the entire length of their term to understand the lay of the land of the position, as it did for most councillors.

Other councillors, however, voiced that not allowing residents to vote for a new councillor would be undemocratic.

The City said if council does not hold an election, the Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver may waive the requirement; however, he may also direct council to hold an election either way. Council cannot request for an exemption.

“The role of the councillor is not just to bust a tie and make it 5-4. There’s committee work, community work, there is the ability for the capacity of the group to be impacted by a vacancy,” said Mayor Ken Johnston.

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