Chatham-Kent’s council will officially be smaller after the next municipal election.
The current mayor and council met on Monday and approved lowering the number of representatives from 18 to 15 (mayor and 14 councillors). A bylaw which will make the change 100 per cent official will be brought back to council in March.
Councillors Anthony Ceccacci, Aaron Hall, Trevor Thompson, and Morena McDonald were the only ones to vote against the change.
The municipality will be split into eight wards.
Wards 1 to 4 will represent most rural communities.
Ward 1, which includes Tilbury and Wheatley, and Ward 2, which has places like Blenheim and Ridgetown, will each have two representatives.
Ward 3, which represents Bothwell and Thamesville, and Ward 4, which encompasses Dresden and Mitchell's Bay, will only have one representative. Mitchell's Bay was originally in Ward 5, however, a motion from Councillor Jamie McGrail to move it into Ward 4 was approved by council.
“I believe Mitchell’s Bay fits in the Dover community more than it fits in the Wallaceburg community,” said McGrail.
She did mention this will skew the numbers for Wards 4 and 5, but still believes this is the best solution.
As for Ward 5, it will include Wallaceburg and the surrounding rural communities.
Wards 6, 7, and 8 will each be in Chatham and include two representatives.
“Six councillors in one ward may have made sense at amalgamation, but it seems unfair to design a system in which some voters had the opportunity to elect and be represented by six councillors while others would only have one councillor,” said Sabine Matheson, a representative of StrategyCorp, the company hired to review the council’s current structure.
Councillor Marjorie Crew brought forward a motion to keep Chatham as one ward with six representatives, however, it was voted against by council.