‘Lively debate’ on Vernon Council appointments

A bid by Vernon city Councillor Kari Gares to place time limits on how long council members can sit on committees was narrowly defeated following a spirited debate.

Gares was looking for a new appointment framework noting there is a perceived bias with the mayor making the appointments, especially on high profile committees like the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee (GVAC) and Regional District of North Okanagan (RDNO).

“What I have seen in the past is that no one leaves,” Gares said. “It does a disservice to our council, when you don’t see movement out of theses committees, there is no opportunity to grow. This is the third year in a row with very little movement. There should be a succession plan.”

“You are not happy that you didn’t get a turn,” Coun. Brian Quiring said. “I believe we do have succession planning, it’s built into the system, it happens every four years, so that’s it, you are either in or you’re out. The biggest issue with this (motion) is limiting the length of time, I look at Councillor (Akbal) Mund, we are lucky to have an ex-mayor and councillor on our team, and as far I’m concerned Councillor Mund is the most effective at the regional district. He is doing an amazing job and I would hate that if he got re-elected that he wouldn’t be able to serve on that board again, based on policy we have drafted.”

“I believe 100 per cent that the mayor has that right to dictate initially who should be on that team, my concern is, and it’s not about this particular council, it’s about councils in the past that have not shown fairness, there have been systemic problems,” Gares said. “I’m not saying that they exist now, and I want to make that very clear to the media, that’s not what this is about, this is about taking a leadership role and recognizing the faults that we have, they’re natural faults, and how do we fix them, that’s where this is coming from. You have to ask yourself, are we building the best team, or are we building a team that matches our viewpoints? To me that’s not the best team, that is a team that is potentially complacent.”

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“I’ve read the community charter, I looked at the role when I first got started and consulted with two other former mayors, on how to do this and there is a spectrum of ways,” Mayor Victor Cumming said. “The role is to present a team, and it’s about that group, and in that particular case, I made recommendations. It’s not so much based on this or that or that or this, it’s a combination of all those factors, which created both at GVAC and RDNO, over that last two and half years, some of the issues have been addressed, I would suggest successfully, these have been long standing issues, that we weren’t getting movement on, and for whatever reason it has jelled, it’s jelled for who is there.”

“I see this as a failure of leadership, I won’t pull any punches on this, over the past two years. I have been here six years, approaching seven years. I understand the dynamics of the council last term, I understand the dynamics of the council this term and I don’t think the majority of council thinks there is a reason to exclude the two councillors that have been excluded,” Coun. Scott Anderson said. “Team-building is a prime function of this type of leadership and excluding people for ideological reasons, which is the only thing I can think of, is not team building, it just isn’t. Next term if there is a right-leaning mayor, instead of a left-leaning mayor, the left-leaning people on council won’t be excluded because they can’t be.”

“I don’t know why we all voted in favour of the appointments, it was unanimous, so we need to communicate back to our CEO which is him (Mayor Cumming). Maybe then the next time there will be more dialogue, and more transparency,” Quiring said.

Mayor Cumming and Councillors Kelly Fehr, Mund and Quiring voted against the resolution. Councillor Gares, Dalvir Nahal and Anderson voted in favour.