Mountain View County council has decided to hold a Division 4 by-election as expediently as possible.
Division 4 councillor Gord Krebs tendered his resignation on August 13th. On August 16th, Krebs provided mymountainviewnow.com with a statement. It read “with the current council and administration, I just don’t feel that I’m able to represent the ratepayers of Mountain View County the way they deserve to be represented.”
Krebs was in the midst of his first term with Mountain View County council. He was elected in October of 2021.
At yesterday’s regular council meeting, administration was directed to establish the date for the Division 4 by-election as October 16th – if possible.
Reeve Angela Aalbers says they would then have Notice of Nomination Day on September 3rd and again on the 10th, with the Official Nomination Day then on the 18th of September.
Every elected official under the Municipal Government Act does represent the entire municipality but having said that, she adds, council felt it was very important to have an actual elected official representing Division 4. She says “we also thought it was very important to expedite the process as quickly as we could so that person, who would be elected, would have the maximum amount of time to be in office. We also do have a council organizational day meeting on the 23rd of October and with this time schedule we will actually have that elected official – hopefully – confirmed and then be able to participate in the organization meeting.”
She had this message for anyone interested in running in the Division 4 by-election. Aalbers says “I think that it is important that if anyone in Division 4 does have a desire to potentially throw their hat in to be the elected official, they can reach out to any of the existing elected officials or administration to get more information on exactly what that entails, what the work load would be, and maybe just give them some background and some ideas of what it means to be an elected official.”
Administration estimates the rough budget for the by-election with two advanced polls and two polling locations on election day will be about $10,000 dollars.
The next general election is slated for October of 2025.
Division 4 serves Elkton/Rugby, Westcott, parts of Fallentimber, Bergen, Harmattan and Westerdale.