Minister rejects council's plan to leave Skelly's seat empty, sparking Ward 7 scramble

A last-minute motion by Ward 8 Councillor Terry Whitehead calls for Hamilton city council to appoint former Alderman Terry Anderson to temporarily fill the Ward 7 seat left vacant by Donna Skelly until the municipal election in October.

The motion comes ahead of a council meeting planned for 9:30 a.m. Friday morning — council's last meeting before Aug. 25, the 60-day deadline to fill the position.

• Hamilton council votes to leave Donna Skelly's old Ward 7 council seat vacant

• City council 'gutless' for not putting out a public call to replace Skelly: councillor

Provincial legislation dictates the seat, left empty when Skelly won an election this year to be the PC MPP for the new ward of Flamborough-Glanbrook, be filled within 60 days.

At the end of June, councillors voted 11-2 in favour of writing to Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs, to ask for permission to let Tom Jackson and Whitehead, councillors for Wards 6 and 8, cover the central Mountain ward until a newly elected council starts in December.

But a letter from Clark, dated July 19 and included as an agenda item for council's consideration ahead of the meeting, says council's solution isn't possible.

"There is no provision in the legislation for me to grant an exemption from the rules set out in the legislation that require municipalities to fill council vacancies," the minister writes, adding that although he appreciates the situation council is in, providing an exemption would mean changing the act.

Whitehead's motion references the Municipal Act and asks council to enact a bylaw confirming Anderson as the councillor for the remainder of the term.

But there's at least one other option. A letter to council from John-Paul Danko, who states he was runner up to Skelly in the Ward 7 election by just 92 votes and suggests that despite the fact he's currently running for the Ward 8 seat, he would still be the most "democratic" option for the role.

"To date there has been no public consultation to seek qualified candidates, no published list of candidates currently under consideration and no engagement of public opinion as to who should be considered to fill the role," Danko writes.

"Therefore, I will re-iterate my opinion that the most democratic and transparent option available to Council is to simply appoint the runner-up in the 2016 by-election to fill the seat for the remainder of the term."