A battle between a resident and Centre Wellington council over council representation allotted to Fergus took three days last week – with no decision.
Keith Fairfield has argued since about 2000 that Fergus is under-represented because the wards in his town have more people than other township wards. His prime example is Wards 3 and 4 in Fergus, which have 5,276 and 3,973 people respectively, compared to Ward 2, Elora, parts of Nichol and Pilkington townships, which had 1,544.
Fairfield came to council several times since 2000 in an attempt to get some changes, but until this year, council has opted for the status quo. When the council in 2005 said there would be no changes, Fairfield collected over 250 signatures on a petition and applied for a municipal board hearing.
Several councillors have been bitter over Fairfield’s persistence because it has cost the township a great deal of money, and very few people have indicated interest in changes by attending public meetings. The 2005 meeting had three people in attendance. At the latest public meeting this year, two members of the public and a handful of former politicians attended.
When a new council considered what Fairfield was advocating, it decided this year to make changes on its own. It came up with its own proposal for change. That system brings six wards closer in population, and also took into account growth projections for the next decade.
Fairfield had proposed to council his own idea of an ideal ward system – four wards, designated with letters. However, when the OMB hearing was held, he presented an entirely new proposal. It consisted of three representatives on council from Fergus, and three more from the townships.
The township’s proposed new boundaries are:
– Ward 1, 3,948 population, north of the river, would be bounded by the river, Gerrie Road, the Woolwich Township boundary line, and County Road 17;
– Ward 2, south of the river, population 1,719, would be bound by Woolwich town line, Sideroad 6 North (instead of County Road 7), with a small corner at the northwest side of ward 4, close to the Grand River and the ward 2 boundary, included in ward 2;
– Ward 3, north of the river, would shrink in area, with a population of 3,859, and the boundary would be County Road 17, Gerrie Road, the river, and Highway 6 except for a small portion near the river that would reach to Garafraxa Street and go north to Forfar Street;
– Ward 4, 3,801, would also shrink so its boundaries are Nichol Road 22, Sideroad 6 North, the river, and Jones Baseline and Scotland Street;
– Ward 5, north of the river would have 4,126 people, and have Highway 6 as its western boundary, the river, East and West Garafraxa Townline, and Sideroad 26 of West Garafraxa as its boundaries; and
Ward 6, with 2,602 people, and boundaries that including the River, East and West Garafraxa Townline, a portion of the Erin and Eramosa Townline, County Road 22, and Jones baseline and Scotland Street.
“It was a challenging experience – a trying experience,” Fairfield said of his time at the hearing.
He said his proposals were in line with a supreme court decision that stated that equal representation is the most important factor in effective representation.
Former councils argued they were providing effective representation, so there was no need to change the wards.
Fairfield said his plan is to give half of the people in Centre Wellington half the representation. “That’s equal representation, isn’t it? I think that’s something the people can understand.”
He added, “The Township of Centre Wellington opposed that. The mayor opposed it bitterly.”
Fairfield said he was frustrated because the hearing could only change the ward boundaries. Because of the way it works, the board was not permitted to make changes to the number of councillors, and only council had the right to do that – prior to the hearing. He said that was why he dropped his proposal for wards using a letter instead of a number, and his proposal to change the number of wards.
“I couldn’t take that to the OMB because the OMB couldn’t do it,” he said. “So, I took what I did to the OMB.”
All of the Centre Wellington councils over the past seven years had, until this year, argued the status quo was working well.
Ross-Zuj said in an interview that with several new councillors and she herself returning to local government after a term away, council decided to take a fresh look at the boundaries and came up with what it believed to be a fair solution. She said council looked at many possibilities before opting for the ward changes.
Ross-Zuj also noted Fairfield did not bother to attend the public meeting council set to hear comment on the proposed ward changes, and council was forced to notify all 252 people who had signed Fairfield’s petition.
Ross-Zuj was not particularly happy to find at the OMB hearing that Fairfield was presenting a completely new proposal.
When she testified, she noted that the Kitchen-Armstrong report that restructured Wellington County, deliberately ensured all the wards in Centre Wellington would have an urban and rural mix, to provide diversity.
“Unity is strength,” Ross-Zuj said of that strategy, citing the township’s motto.
“It brought us together – urban and rural – community of interests.”
Ross-Zuj of council’s considering the ward system, “At no time did anyone have an appetite for representation by population only.”
She even cited at the hearing the exercise between Fergus and Elora of ‘burying the hatchet,” something the longtime rivals actually did twice over the years. She said OMB vice chairman Jyoti Zuidema “found that amusing.”
She added, “To have three councillors from one area – that old hatchet is shaking in the ground.”
She said that if Fairfield wants to deal with issues based only on numbers, it took three days for the hearing with “substantial cost to tying up staff, the planner, lawyer, and myself. The taxpayer has a substantial bill for an issue with no public interest.”
She noted only three citizens, including Fairfield, attended the OMB hearing.
The results will not be available for several weeks.
