The “filling the vacant seat on Belleville city council” story is moving fast.
Just Wednesday afternoon at a special meeting, council, by a vote of 5 to 3, did not accept a report recommending the appointment of Jennifer McTavish to the seat left vacant by the late Councillor Pat Culhane.
The three votes in favour of accepting the report were from Mayor Panciuk and Councillors Bill Sandison and Kelly McCaw.
Councillors Ryan Williams, Chris Malette, Garnet Thompson, Paul Carr, and Sean Kelly voted against.
The issue now moves to Monday’s council meeting where Councillor Thompson will make a motion to reconsider appointing Tyler Allsopp.
Allsopp, a Belleville businessman, was the candidate who finished just out of the running in the last local election.
Thompson’s motion will need six votes to be open for reconsideration.
Thursday morning Councillor Sandison told Quinte News that he will not only vote for reconsideration, but that he will further vote to appoint Allsopp to council.
If the voting pattern from Wednesday holds and with the addition of Sandison’s vote, Allsopp would be offered the council seat, an offer that Allsopp has said he would accept.
Sandison says he’s received a lot of feedback from the public on the issue since the decision to form an appointment committee was made and it’s “been very clear that the people want council to appoint the person next in line on the ballot to fill the vacancy, each and every time a vacancy situation comes up. People want their vote to count and they want their participation in elections respected. When the issue first came up, I thought it important we have a woman fill Pat’s seat, that we needed more balance on council.”
