Council debates getting smaller

Ken Johnston

The Town of Rainy River will continue to be governed by six councillors, at least for now.
Two councillors, Brent Anderson and Ed Tymkin, introduced a motion that had the fur flying Monday night as each councillor expressed their views on the issue of reducing council from seven to five members.
Anderson said he would like to give the public a say in the size of their government. Tymkin echoed his sentiments saying, “We are way over governed for the size of our community. We are operating the same as Fort Frances who has 10,000 people.”
Councillor Larry Armstrong started debate against the motion which he felt would commit the taxpayers to reducing the size of government. He along with Councillors Deb Ewald, Gerry Marchuk and Dennis Ewald all questioned where the idea came from. “This is a private members bill as it is not coming from any committee, “said Larry Armstrong. “It is totally unfair to put the motion in front of council without committee of the whole discussion,” he added.
Anderson countered that the motion only starts the process of reducing council and that a bylaw to reduce the size of government would have be drafted and discussed in a public meeting. He said he would like to get the ball rolling so that if there is a change the next election is not missed.
Tymkin said that he feels that smaller government would be more effective.
However, Marchuk said that there have been many instances where committee meetings did not have enough members present to hold a meeting.
The motion was voted on with only Anderson, Tymkin and the Mayor supporting it. It was defeated. However, the debate did not end there. After the meeting council erupted into a shouting match between the two sides.
In other business, council appointed McKittricks Barristers to represent the town at a pretrial hearing involving the former Koeneman Lumber chattels which council was going to auction off but was stopped by a court injunction.
Council also passed an amended motion to authorize the same law firm to come to a resolution with MoE over the water plant charges. In the first motion they had said they would pay $10,000. The dollar amount was removed from the amended motion.
Council appointed Veronica Nordberg to the library board.
Council renewed its lease with the curling rink at a rate of $1/yr. for five years.