Grey County adds chairs to budget table at TBM's suggestion

Grey County council has agreed to expand the membership of its influential budget and finance committee.

At its meeting on Dec. 12, county council voted in favour of expanding the budget and finance committee’s complement of county councillors from four to a maximum of six.

After county’s council inaugural meeting on Dec. 3, one of the first acts of business for county council under the leadership of new Warden Andrea Matrosovs was to determine membership on committees, task forces and outside bodies for the coming year.

Most of the county committees had sufficient membership, but the budget and finance committee drew interest from six members of council for its four openings.

Councillors Brian Milne (Southgate), Scott Greig (Owen Sound), Dane Nielsen (Grey Highlands), Sue Carleton (Georgian Bluffs), Scott Mackey (Chatsworth) and Kevin Eccles (West Grey) expressed their desire to serve on the committee. With so much interest, an election was looming to determine who the four members would be for the committee.

However, The Blue Mountains Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon suggested the committee’s terms of reference be amended to appoint six members to the committee. Bordignon said six councillors on the committee along with the warden would not be a quorum issue (with 18 members of county council, a quorum is ten or more members of council being together).

Bordignon’s suggestion found support from Carleton.

“That’s a very important committee. To have more (councillors) on there would be of value,” said Carleton.

Clerk Tara Warder told council staff would defer the formal appointments to the committee and would bring an amendment to the terms of reference for the committee to county council in January. She said the amended terms of reference will say the committee can have up to six members, along with the warden, to maintain flexibility for the future.