Well, we would normally have notes from Council but we think NewsNow sums up what happened with the Century Condo project past Monday evening pretty well.  We have added in some prefacing commentary as well…

With a very full house, the last seating of this term of Council began with Mr. John Ariens of the IBI Group, planner for the developer making his pitch for the downtown condo project to Council.  He was followed by Alderman-Elect Randy Vaine who said that the plan clearly needs to be worked on further to address major outstanding issues.

Where it was apparent that the project was going “off the rails” that night is when the next delegation, counsel for the developer, spoke about the “lame duck” provisions of the Municipal Act.  It was rather surprising to hear a Municipal lawyer misquote the Municipal Act (the area of his expertise) when he clearly stated that a “lame duck” Council results if less than “2/3” of Council was returning, which is incorrect.

From the Municipal Act:

“1. If the new council will have the same number of members as the outgoing council, the new council will include less than three-quarters of the members of the outgoing council.”

He then went on to hand out a proposed new motion to be voted on by Council for the project, which had never been publicly discussed or even vetted by Town Staff.  Council did not buy that “Hail Mary” move and we sincerely hope that due the lacklustre performance, the lawyer waives any charges to the developer for his appearance that evening.

The rest of what happened is excellently covered in the NewsNow article at the following link:  https://www.wn3.ca/2018/11/21/downtown-condo-dies-in-tie-vote

Before we finish up this post however, we must say that the last meeting of this term of Council was a very emotional meeting on both sides of Council table.  Under “New Business”, Council members spoke from the heart about their time on Council and everyone in attendance clearly appreciated their years of commitment and dedication to their work and the Town.

Mayor Bentley and the Aldermen congratulated the incoming Council and stated that they will remain to be there for the community.  It was a strong and noble finish.