my point, we are all in this
together. And yes, there were certain unfairnesses we cannot begin to overcome.
There's no question about it. And I feel the frustration in having grown up in
Coombs and seen all the fights for the regional district and against
the regional district over the years, I'm very conscious
of that. And I'd like to think that the members of this board who are
here because they are counselors or the mayor of the city
of Nanaimo have tried to exercise a consciousness
about the frustrations that are felt. And I'll be quite
candid, it's been expressed sometimes jocularly that we sometimes
have the view that Lansville has
complaints about the levels of taxation, but Lansville doesn't tax
in the way that we do in
Nanaimo, and we take a political hit
for that. And that is okay. We are a large, disparate, sometimes disagreeable family,
but all in all, we generally function fairly well
together. So where I'm going with this ramble, I am very attached to what Councillor
Brown, pardon me, Director Brown has proposed in terms of a solution in
a practical way, because I think overall, having 18 or 19 voices around this table
representing the various groups and the diversity that we do within
the regional district, we actually generally speaking
come up with some pretty good things and the historic record is that
on environmental issues, whether you believe in climate change or not, is separate. I see
some nods from where the expected sources, but having
said that, this particular regional district
has developed a significant reputation. And with the acquisition of Hamilton Marsh and
others, we're demonstrating, I think, the kind of leadership that's important.
So I'm the, forgive the sexist comment here,
cheerleaders can be of any gender, I suppose.
I'm a cheerleader for something sticking close to the status quo that tries
to keep us on this path together because overall, I think we're doing pretty well.
And that may set the hair on fire, not the members of
this board, but some of those who come as delegations from
time to time in the last year or so. But all in all, we should
be pretty pleased with what we're doing and
try and keep it going. Thank you. Thank you,
Dr. Croak. Dr. Brown, then Dr. Thorpe. Thanks, I think Director
Swain raises a good question and I appreciate that we have the opportunity to kind
of discuss this more freely. So I would just sort of start my comments
by saying as a former chair, a smaller board
has great appeal. But also, I just also say that as I have
no, I've been trying to think about this as
objectively as possible because there's no circumstance in which I'll be
sitting at this board come in the fall.
So I do think that if, I do think if
the number goes too low for Nanaimo, it would be a disservice for the board
for two reasons. The first
is that in order to achieve that, you have to, you know,
up the population thresholds per vote.
And what that will result in is like,
a reduction over time for all the other areas achieving additional weighted
votes through their population growth because that threshold will be easier every time for Nanaimo
to hit. And then the, I think a second
point to that is deviating too
far from that will start to, outside of the weighted vote, take away from representation
by population. But I also think there's,
I think if you totaled the vote, if you went
back and took a look at votes, the more
Nanaimo directors there are, that's seven or eight, often their votes counter each other,
five votes here, five votes
there, based on the vote. Someone kind of observed the board, not in the recent
term, but even before that when Nanaimo had
a much reduced number, I think there was a greater
temptation to vote as a block because
it only takes five people and four of you
might agree or there's less likely for difference in votes
when there's a smaller amount of people. That would actually, I think, carry more weight
at this board table than it has
heccered with the seven or more recently
the eight. I think if we, I think there's some
temptation there from numerous grounds, but I think taken as a whole,
it would actually probably be a negative, a net negative for
board equity when it comes to
decision making. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Dr. Thorpe, then Dr. Stanley. Thank you very much,
Chair. Just a couple of thoughts on this, an interesting
topic and complicated to me at least. I like Director Brown's suggestion
in the 6.7 for the same
reasons that Director Krog has mentioned. To me, it seems to strike a
balance with fairness and trying to maintain something
close to the status quo. I don't disagree with everything that
Councillor or Director Salter said, and I'm not convinced that
Nanaimo losing one director would be the end of the world,
but I would prefer that not to happen. But I will point out, building on
what Director Brown just said, when I first came
to this board, Nanaimo directors were expected and were told to
vote as a block and were given directions on how to vote
on each topic. And that was not healthy. And there was
one case where an Nanaimo director was actually
removed from the RDN for not following instructions. That has
changed. And now Nanaimo directors, I'm proud to say, come here and they vote independently
and they vote according to their own conscience and beliefs.
So I think we're all here trying to do our best for
each issue and at the same time represent our
jurisdictions. The other comment I'd like to make, Chair, is, I think, related to that
because I'm hearing a little bit of back and forth jabber
between jurisdictions around this table, which is not,
I don't think productive and it's not out of line,
but I'm hearing there are several options in front of us that the ministry probably
would not accept because of the scalability of numbers. And I feel like they're
telling us, you submit an option, but if we don't like
it, then we won't accept it.
So maybe the ministry should be giving us two or three options. That they
think are fine, and we could choose the one that we think is best.
I guess I'm feeling a little frustrated that we're being guided down
this path, but with certain parameters that we're not allowed to go over. But having
said all that,
I think the proposal that's been put in front of us to think about
at least is a fair one and a good starting point.
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Thorpe. Very good comments.
I think a lot of us feel
the same way. Mr. Holmes, did you have something to add? Chair McLean, that was
in looking at the history that a couple of directors have brought up on this
topic, we were concerned with exactly that,
that the board would sit around, debate this heavily,
submit its wish to cabinet through staff,
and it would come back turned down. And so we started with that. We said,
what are the no-fly zones? And that conversation went on over a number of
months and over a number of conversations and culminated in that list that Ms.
Hill put up on the board earlier on and said,
these are the types of things that we want the
board to consider, debate, come to some conclusions on, et cetera. Some of the
things that I think are no-fly zones is a model
that I think that Director Thorpe has correctly observed,
something that's not scalable, they're not gonna entertain that. The representation by population is very
important, but at the end of the day, right now,
the current model is about to expire just by
virtue of numbers, and they're saying, so they're putting these questions
with these criteria in mind, how does the board wish to address this? And so
I think that if the board demonstrates it's
viewed those criteria, considered them, debated them,
and gone through a process that considers the individual
councils, has shared this with the community, has had this conversation with First
Nations. Then at the end of the day,
I think the staff will recommend something to
cabinet that approximates what's being concluded upon by the
board. Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I have Director Stanley,
then Director Salt. Thanks. So lots of good comments. I think that the reduction in
cost is appealing, but I'm actually gonna make a
point that is in support of more City of Nanaimo directors. And that
is because I do feel like that, as mentioned, as we see,
there are differing opinions. And I feel like that having that number
to represent the variety of different opinions that are present not
only in the city of Nanaimo, but across the region actually serves a functional purpose
of representation of different values and allowing us to debate
those different values. And so I find that the extent to which that occurs,
particularly with ones perhaps I'm more different, a great opportunity for us to make good
decisions and for us to learn from one another. So I feel that there's a
value in that, which is why I I
do want to suggest that having more City of Nanaimo folk,
there's a benefit to that. However, I guess it leads me
to a question which was related to the history conversation, is how
City of Nanaimo appoints their directors to this board? Is that in
policy? And is the independent of the directors votes? Is that
in policy at City of Nanaimo? Because I
feel like that piece and how you're all functioning now, leads to great functioning at
this table, but obviously you can see that it could go the other way and
it could be problematic. So that is my question to City of
Nanaimo, if you don't mind sharing, and I will say if it's
not in policy, be great if it was, but I also agree with the 6.7,
I think that's probably the best way to
go. Thanks. Thank you very much, Chair, the Mayor and the seven highest vote
getters. And the lowest vote getter is the alternate.
A policy? If it's not written in stone, I gotta tell you, it's been written
in practice so long, I can't,
I'm not aware of any ear, including going back to
George Anderson. So, Councillor Brown can give a firm answer maybe.
Yeah, the official policy speaks
to experience and voter
confidence, which translates to votes. May I follow up and ask about the
independence of the vote? Sorry, say that again. Can I
also ask about the independence of the vote of the director's votes versus it
being a Nanaimo block? We have not sat
together on any occasion that I'm aware of, although there may have been some small
subgroups, I wasn't part of them, that has ever considered coming
here and voting as a corporate block, as Councillor Thorpe said,
used to be the practice in the old days. I can tell you
from experience, having heard it from her lips myself, my dear old friend Joy
Leach, who went to high school with
my sister, so we're giving a bit of history here, was appalled when she became
the mayor of Nanaimo to discover that in fact,
willy-nilly, those bloody Nanaimo directors came out here to the
regional district and voted according to their conscience, and she settled that quickly, and they
started voting as a corporate bloc. That practice disappeared over time.
So it doesn't sound like there's a policy in
any direction. Director Salter, go ahead. Thank you, Chair. And so a couple
of things I want to say first. Number one, I don't want this to be
us against them. I don't want this to be you and then Nanaimo or Nanaimo's,
but they've got too many people and they're all, that's not what, I don't think
that was the purpose of this. What I think the
purpose is, I could be wrong,
But what I think the purpose was is we're in trouble with the numbers.
When Nanaimo, when Sna-naimoc become,
if they do, become part of an Anamim voting population, you're going to be
in trouble at any rate because you don't have enough directors to
manage this anymore. You're going to need another
alternate when you only already have one, but you won't have any alternate when
we look at the numbers. And I think that's what we're doing here today.
It's not, I think Nanaimo's voting a block or I think,
no, I don't think that's anything of any part
of this and
shouldn't be any part of this conversation. I don't think today. I think
it's about how do we, what's the fix here? You're gonna have, you're gonna be
in a position where you're gonna have not enough numbers to manage what
you're supposed to be managing here. And so when we look at this, yes,
there's a savings. I like it. But there
is a savings, which is if you drop down
to whatever, I'm just going to throw this
out to people.
You drop down to directors.
You now have an alternate, which you have to have, and then maybe a
spare. I don't know. But at least it
gets, or at least you have, if you drop down to seven, then you
have an alternate and maybe an alternate alternate. Because quite often I have seen where
Nanaimo has had the one alternate, but you're still missing people at
the table because one alternate isn't cutting it.
You need more than that because there's more of you
and obviously more life things that happen. So for
the rest of us for the most part, especially those of us with only one
sitting here, there's only one thing happening to one person and then the alternate kind
of comes in. So it's a, I think a bigger
issue for Nanaimo because of your numbers. And so I think I want
to go there rather than we're being outvoted or we're being whatever your
blog vote, whatever it is. I don't want to talk about that stuff.
I just want to talk about what is the answer then
for you to have the numbers when your whole world changes because
you're about to get a population
increase that you never did count on until now. And so I think that's where
I want to go.
And the other thing I want to say is we're also
looking out 15 years ahead. So if you do drop by two counselors, Tare,
you know that in 15 years time, who knows what you're going
to do in 15 years time as far as population goes.
And then the other piece of it is, of course I like the
financial part, of course I would, but that's not
the reason for that we're here. And then the
last piece for me is that
I think for me,
I don't want to make a decision today.
I did talk to the chair and some others. I want time to percolate this
because I saw that new table that you put up. I have not had time
to look at that table. And I've heard a
lot of conversation around the table that I had not considered
until I heard it today. And so I would like time to, whatever we
come up, whatever we decide,
I'd like time to
take that away and think about
it and then come back like within a week or something, whatever, for us
to make a final decision that we could send into the ministry
and hopefully it'll be something that they will accept.
I guess we all in one way or another, there's going to be a change.
And then we just have to, we just have to accept that. That's it.
Thank you, Director Salter. Yes, that's one thing that's guaranteed is something has
to change. We, even if we make a recommendation today,
it's not a final decision. So if we do
get to that, great. It'll still come back to the
board. If we don't, we're still
going to come back to the board because we do have to do something.
Thank you, Director Calhoun. Look to Director Westbrook, then Vice-Chair Malatynski. Thanks,
Chair. I'm just following up on Director Salter. We need to
come up with some response, but maybe not
today. And I'm just curious whether the rest of the City
Council de Naimo agree with Tyler's that's some point
solution. I think as far as I'm concerned, not going to change anything for Falcon
Beach for a very long time. And it doesn't bother
me that Lance may have a third of population or,
or McLean's area has a third of population and we have
one vote each. That's all because we have the weighted vote to kind of
work that out, so. I'm easy on
this. I was disappointed that we didn't get this addressed when we had only five
members from the Naimo, one from Parks and lots of rumor on the table.
Because I believe that the voting strength makes that up. And I also never,
and I've been around almost 30 years, I don't
think the city of Nanaimo ever forced their way through
because they have the 54% on the vote when it
comes to a weighted vote. So I think I'm good with either way. But I
think we need to wrap this up today and say, okay, we'll come
back. I could talk to my fellow counselors, others could
too, and just have a conversation, but we need to close
it off or we're going to be going in circles. And I would
like to somehow suggest that we come back and somebody can make a notice of
motion. I would encourage Tyler to make a notice of motion that we
can discuss at the next meeting. Thank you.
Thank you, Director Westbrook. Before I go to Vice-Chairman Launson, just on the process,
Ms. Hill, we're going to potentially make a recommendation today
or not. Either way, it'll come back to
an upcoming board meeting in the very near future,
perhaps next week. And after the board makes
a decision, we'll refer that to our neighboring First
Nations and our resident municipalities. Is that correct? And we'll put it out to the
public for their information as well. Yes, Chair, also just to let you know,
given that the committee, the whole report was published,
the get involved page is open. It's just high level information for the
public and allowing them to know the conversation
and when the upcoming board meeting and this committee, the whole
meeting would be. Thank you. Okay, thank you.
Vice-Chairman Lanson and then Director
Rogers. Thank you, Chair. I just first wanted to say that over the last
couple of years, I've had the privilege of
working with most of the City of Nanaimo counselors
on a collaborative basis, and it's never been my experience that
they have been anything other than gracious in sharing their experience and knowledge and working
collaboratively with me. And ditto for
the other southern electoral areas in the city or the village
of Lansville. It's been nothing but a
pleasure to work with my colleagues in those areas. So I
feel fortunate that that's not been.
Or that that's been the case in in my term.
I just want to briefly talk about the weighted to vote minimum. While representation by
population, I think we can all safely assume is very important to all of us,
I want to briefly talk about
one of the challenges that
we face as electoral area directors, where we feel
the need to represent our populations, but we're also the stewards of the
largest portion of the regional district by land mass, and particularly for area
C, which has the the smallest population
and the largest geographic landmass, we often feel the need to do more
with less as far as a tax base. We're protecting watersheds and mountains and forested
areas that are much larger than any of the other
areas with less money and also with less voting strength.
So it forces us to be collaborative oftentimes in situations where we don't necessarily- the
segments were completely random. Strangely pleasant in the
way the Helens gently expressed their opinions.
As for which one? Thank you. Thank you, whoever that was.
Is that you, Director Wood? Yeah. So I feel
like we're often forced to work with our neighbors in
this area, and rightly so, because we're the
resources and the playground and the
water for other areas. So it forces us to work with our neighbors. But if
we water down that weighted strength even more, I feel like we lose
that piece of stewardship to a certain extent. So my preference would be to look
at a formula that maintains
that to vote minimum. That being said,
if director brand feels confident in moving his motion,
he would have my support because I think that's
the fairest way to move forward. So I look forward to
that conversation. Thank you very much. I have Director Rogers, then Director Krog.
Thanks, Chair. And through you, just a couple of comments that I
might, with respect to, and I
guess in conjunction with Director Thorpe and Director,
Hm? Nino. I've been around
here a while and I don't think that I've ever felt
that the city of Naino has
voted as a block. And I don't ever think that
the directors from the Naino have voted other than with their conscience.
So, but I do believe strongly right across this whole country,
in our representation based
on population. So looking at
the number of directors that Nanaimo has, I also agree
with trying to maintain the status quo and taking a look seriously at that option.
But I think that we need to give this some real theory
of thought. We have to make sure that
our electorate have a chance to get feedback to
us on this. I know every resident in the news does not look
at the agendas on a daily basis or on a regular basis. They may look
at it fairly frequently, but not every resident has
a chance or the inclination to do that. I think
this is one of the more serious things that we've done as
a as
a board is to review the number of directors that we have and the representation
by each jurisdiction. So I wouldn't want to make a
recommendation today. I would want to take this away
and think about it some more. I noticed on one of
the slides had an option in there with respect to a workshop
type approach for it. That may not be necessary if people are all if if
the majority of us are thinking
about trying to maintain the status quo, we get one of the concerns, you know,
different directors have at different times is with respect to
when we look at the financial plan and the fact that, oh heck, what does
it matter? And Nanaimo's got
a weighted vote and they're going to approve whatever financial
plan they want. I don't think that's quite the case. They may, on paper and
on numbers, they may have that ability, but it doesn't always
work out that way.
So when we look at this thing here, we pay
for in all the services that we have, 115 services. So each one of those
services within our financial plan, we're told what the participation and what the formula
is for that. We know what that is because
we've set those things up. We know what the participation is and then
we know whether you're paying 100% by assessment or
if you're paying by population and assessment. So we know all those
things and we have the flexibility to change those. And there have
been some cases where that has been demonstrated. We know there's a difference between
transit south and transit north. So and we're still able to work through some of
those things. So I don't think it's so much the makeup of
the board, because that is up to the electorate, when the electorate, when they
decide who they want to have on those, representing them, either as directors individually for
the electoral areas, or whether it's for counselors for Qualicum
Beach, for Langford, for Parksville,
and Nanaimo. Those are choices that the residents make and I wouldn't want to be
in a system where we have anything but that choice.
So going forward, I want some time to think about this thing. I wouldn't want
to have us see us just next Tuesday make a
recommendation to the province and this is
what we want. But I appreciate that we don't want to leave it.
For too long a time.
I think we do have lots of flexibility
and we have a chance
to talk about things
as individuals and amongst ourselves. But I don't
think that I've ever felt that the Nanaimo Board or members of the Nanaimo Board
have got together and said, okay, we're going to this is how
we're going to vote and this is how
we have to vote. I've worked with,
as a school trustee, I've worked with Joy
Leach, who Leonard referenced.
And there may have been a different approach at that school
district when Joy was chair of that. But that's bygone history, I think.
And I haven't felt that we've been going through
that for the last number of years.
So I'll just leave it at that,
but I would like some time to be able to think about this and hope
that we have a chance to not rush into this
decision, because it does have an impact on the makeup of the
board. And it's something that we
want to do before October when we come up
for the local elections this fall. Thank you. Thank you,
Director Rogers. Director Krog, then Director Westbroek. Thank you very much,
Chair. And I just want to be clear through
you to Director Salter, I think she expressed some concern about the addition
of the Sinixt territories into the City of Nanaimo in terms
of voting. And I'm sure the consultant will
correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking about an addition of less than
800 voters, and if they vote with the same awful turnout as everybody else who's
already in the city of the now, that means about 200 votes.
So it's not going to be a substantive change. To come back to,
though, to what Director Rogers, Director Salter, and others have said,
notwithstanding it is a cow meeting and it's not the final decision, I'm quite happy
to see consideration of
this delayed without considering a motion. I must say
my personal view is at this stage,
I would happily support what Councillor Brown has proposed for
all the reasons that many have articulated one way or another today. But in deference
to the electoral area directors, if there is even How shall I say,
and there appears to be a reasonable minority of them who would prefer some time
to consider this, then I think it is worth doing
that and also giving them a time to consult their constituents. As I've pointed
out many times, virtually no one comes to me ever as a regional director
with a regional district of Nanaimo issue. They, on the other hand,
are dressed in the coffee shops and the
gas stations and the barbershops shops just
like I am on city issues, but they're addressed on already
an issue. So for what it's worth, I say give them time.
Thank you, director Krog, director Westbrook. Thank you, chair. After being, I thought
I was convinced that and I would never vote as a block, but then director
sorb said that when he got in, he was told to vote as a block.
And maybe if I was naive, I thought they wouldn't
do that. But anyway, I would say if it's appropriate,
we could make a motion to defer this to the next board meeting and perhaps
someone could, as I suggested, I like Tyler Brown's or Director Brown's
suggestion as well with the decimal point
in it. And hopefully we can then make a decision because we've got
to make a decision at some point. And to me, it's not a big deal.
I think the voting strength is what makes the difference. And we need to move
forward. So I don't really think there's much more to be said. I think we
had a good discussion. So if it's appropriate, Chair, I would move
that we defer this to the next board
meeting. I'm not sure that's
necessary. I will be on a board meeting agenda, but Mr. Holmes, you did just
have your hand up. Chair McLean, as you and I talked about
earlier on, our intention is to bring it to the March 10th board meeting just
as a matter of course. To keep
the conversation going until the board comes to some conclusion. So that'll happen
in any event. Well, in that case, I move that we adjourn.
Well, I see Director O'Brien as his hand up, so I'll go to him.
Thank you, though. Thank you, Chair. And in consideration of the fact we are a
community as a whole, is it possible sometimes,
and I totally understand the fact that
some directors want to, take a step back and consider what we've heard today.
And that's great and we'd like to do that. But I've
also heard from a number of
directors here today that they're looking for a status quo
and a lot, I would suspect, supporting of Director Brown,
so 6.7, myself included. But at the same time,
I would find it helpful if I was to to take a moment
to reconsider. If I could know of those people that aren't convinced that 6.7 is
just a go-to that if they could advise, like they're looking
for, we were presented for so many options. If we could, is it possible,
since we're in Cal to actually get a consensus of what
some of the other directors are thinking
that they, they're favoring this, but we want to we
want to think about it more. And then at that time that we can go
back to our packages that we've been given,
say, okay, well, what does option 3A look like? If this person thinks that it's
a good thing, then I want to consider that. Maybe I'm missing something here.
But is there any way we can come to some consensus of what the 19
members are thinking right at this time? Chair, I'm just trying
to make sure I consider all opinions and the respect
respectfully make a decision? Yes, thank you, Director O'Brien. I do hear a lot of
agreement, but there's some hesitation on making a decision.
So I still have other people who would like to speak,
and I would like to
hear from them. That's the whole point of this forum
today is just to have a good dialogue
and discussion, ask questions, and and not
necessarily formulate a recommendation. So I will go to
Director Craig, then Director Thorpe. Thank you.
And I put those numbers into the handy dandy
spreadsheet and it looks pretty good to me. Very close to status quo. Thinking of
status quo, looking at the other options as 1B is no longer viable
when there's changes to B, with the
7 divisor also has a board size of 19.
So I do think that
the solution that was offered with the 6.7 actually ends up with a
more similar composition and voting strength to what we have now,
but 2B also would attain if
the board wants to maintain its current composition would
also attain that. So I know one of the
suggestions is that we could even potentially identify one or more, but I just throw
that out there for a closer look if people were interested.
But I do think that the 6.7 looks like a
good solution. Thank you, Director Craig. I think it
would be best if we can settle on one option to present to the ministry.
That would be the most effective. With that being
said, I have Director Thorpe, then Director Brown, then Director Geselbracht. Thank you very much,
Chair, very quickly, because I'm just going backwards for a
little bit. I did want to respond briefly to Director Westbrook,
whose expertise and experience I
greatly admire. During the 1914-1918 term, I'm not casting
aspersions on any four former mayor of Nanaimo who
was in a very difficult position in those days. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Not going
back that far. Yeah, I'm doing pretty well for my age. We had a
city manager, I will tell you this, that delegated
a staff person to review the
RDN agenda prior to each meeting and then give a briefing
to to Nanaimo delegates as to
how they should vote. So I am not again criticizing and I
passed mayor, the blame if you wish to put blame lies elsewhere,
but that practice no longer occurs, I'm very pleased
to say. Thanks chair for indulging
me. No problem, thank you Director Thorpe. Director Brown and
then Dr. Gesselbracht. I'm happy to defer to Director Geselbracht, I think,
is the first time speaker, so. Certainly. Okay.
Director Geselbracht. Great. Thanks. And I appreciate all the conversation. And thank
you to Director Craig for putting that, all those numbers into the spreadsheet.
That was impressive. But it did
lay it out clearly. Yeah, I I I was
looking at, um, 1B and 2B, um, the ones
that drop, uh, the city down to. Seven.
And I think Parksville gets dropped down to
one. And then they're scalable to 20 41. And then
with the Advent of being able to look at using 6.7
and kind of thread the needle in there and which allows Parksville to, I think,
keep a director and still scalable, I think that option threads the needle best and
it sort of allows for us
to be scalable and address the population growth while maintaining close
enough to status quo, which I believe, you know, we've been quite functional as
a board with the number of directors that we do have.
And so we don't have to mess around too much with
that. So I'm in full support of going ahead
with Director Brown's suggestion of the 6.7% increase.
Sort of number juggling there that will allow us to address the population
issue and scale. So, you know, I'm happy to have that go forward as a
recommendation. Now, it seems that there seems to be quite broad consensus on that,
but, you know, if there's no time
urgency to slow things down a little bit, but I get a sense that
most people are on board with going ahead with that. Thank you.
Thank you, Director Gesselbracht. I have
Director Brown, then Director Craig, then Director Manley. Chair,
just a question through the staff. I can appreciate, I really appreciate wanting
to take time with this, especially when you have to go out to 2041 trying
to find a solution and the nature of the
topic. I 100% agree with Director Rogers, probably one of the more,
might not seem like it, but one of the most important decisions we're
making. There's been a lot of talk of the six-point divisor, but there's also,
I think, some other details in there with respect to
the unit, the amount of units per vote. And I'm just wondering if we are
to revisit it at the board meeting, is it possible
just to have that spelled out a little bit more so the board's
kind of got in front
of him and we know exactly what we're talking about? I think maybe it would
be helpful to put it up now. And Ms. Hill, I think we can include
that in the in a word
agenda package. Great. Thank you. Thank you.
Were you asking for it to be put up on the screen
now, Chair? Yes, Ms. Homer, if you can do that for
us, that would be great. Thank you. Yes. Can you
see that okay? Yes, we can.
Perfect. And I'll go to Dr. Craig, you're good? Okay,
that was a holdover. Director Manley. Thanks.
Yeah, I was just going to say that I think Director Brown's solution
here works, but I'm also happy to defer this so that
we don't make a decision today necessarily,
but that we all walk away with this idea and then people
can mull it over on their own and we can come back and make a
solid decision at the next board meeting. Thanks. Thank you, Director Manley. Director Gesselbracht,
is that a holdover on your hand? Yeah, okay.
Director Stanley, go ahead. Thanks. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify if these numbers included
the expected changes as a result of the boundary changes
or not,
and if they don't,
Could we get that at some point in
time? Just because I think that's what I'm looking
for. Okay, because I'm pretty, I think that's likely
to happen. So I think this, what's up now is the
likely outcome. It seems likely, but you know, nothing's guaranteed. And I think
we can get both of these scenarios on the report. Yes. Okay. Thank you,
Michelle. Any other questions or
discussion? Well, I'm not seeing
any and I don't see any new hands popping up on Zoom. So I think-
Motion to adjourn. Okay. That's a motion to adjourn by Director Westbrook and seconded
by Director Wood. Is there other
business? I think there's a- New
business, but I'm not aware
of any. There's a series of motions under report.
Yeah, those are recommendations that we could bring to the board,
but this, as mentioned before, this is going to come back to the
board anyway. So it sounded like directors would like some time with
that. And so I'm happy that we can adjourn
today and that we'll just be coming
back to the board for further consideration and decision at that point.
Because anything we do today will come back to the board anyway
for a final decision. So the motion to adjourn was moved by Director Westbrook and
seconded by Director Wood. Any discussion on the motion to adjourn? Seeing none, I'll call
the question and all those in favor. And any
opposed? I see none opposed.
Well, thank you everyone. That was a good discussion and lots of
good questions. And I'll look forward to us
coming to a
conclusion at our next board meeting. Thanks,