Belleville Council has filled a pair of vacancies on the city’s library and transit committees, but not without some debate and discussion around the process.
Back in April, Mayor Mitch Panciuk had suggested naming Jennifer May-Anderson to the library board and Michael Harris to the transit committee, but councillors voted down the idea and decided instead to post the vacancies again so more members of the public could apply.
The application window was open between April 28 and May 15 and a total of 19 people applied, but the same two candidates were brought forward again, at council’s regular meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
That led Councillor Paul Carr to suggest that all of the other applicants may not have been properly considered, especially since Mayor Panciuk had noted at the original meeting that the same two names would likely be brought back, even after the public application period.
“We had basically a hand-picked recommendation, top-down as per usual and then after we opened it up to actually have people apply, the same two names came forward. If I was one of those other 19 individuals, I would say did my application even get a consideration?”
Councillor Carr tells Quinte News his objection to the appointments had nothing to do with the two candidates in this case, as much as the optics of how they were selected.
Mayor Panciuk defended his position during the meeting, once again stressing that these two candidates were the best for the job.
“I said two weeks ago that it was likely those names would come back, because of the strength of these two individual candidates. I went through and I read all of the resumes, I went through them and considered all of the candidates. I can tell you that if someone had come that I felt was better than those two, I would have made that recommendation.”
Panciuk also told Quinte News following the meeting that he felt some of the arguments being made on Tuesday afternoon amounted to “posturing” ahead of the next election and that those types of debates aren’t productive.
Carr says he wasn’t grandstanding but was just standing up for democracy and fair process.
There was also some debate about whether these types of decisions should be made in public session or behind closed doors, since discussing the merits of specific citizens openly could be awkward at times, but the appointments ended up passing by a 6-3 recorded vote.
Councillors Carr, Thompson and Malette voted against.
