Portfolio shuffle a punishment for amalgamation vote, says Georgetown councillor
Cody MacKay | CBC News | Posted: October 18, 2017 5:13 PM | Last Updated: October 23, 2017
'I don't know how this can be better for the town'
Four Georgetown, P.E.I., councillors had their portfolios shuffled on Monday's council meeting — one citing it as "punishment" for voting to pull the town out of amalgamation talks.
Four of Georgetown's six town councillors — Phil Hebert, Cody Jenkins, Faye McQuillan and Cindy MacLean — voted in September to remove Georgetown from the amalgamation process.
- 'It's not for us': Georgetown pulls out of amalgamation talks
- 'Kept so quiet': Details of amalgamation kept under wraps, say some residents
This meant the end of the town's involvement in the two-year process to amalgamate seven communities in eastern P.E.I.
It also meant the end of Georgetown Mayor Lewis Lavandier's role as chair of the group working on amalgamation.
"With no prior warning or talk of this coming, the mayor, at the end of the meeting, decided to shuffle the four councillors that had voted to leave [amalgamation] based on what he called 'inexperience,'" said Georgetown Coun. Phil Hebert.
'It shouldn't be considered a personal attack'
Because Lavandier switched the portfolios of the four councillors who voted against amalgamation, and not the two councillors who voted for it, Hebert is questioning the mayor's motives.
"I don't know how this can be better for the town," Hebert said.
"Anything that we were doing well at, or showed an interest in, we [now] have absolutely no part of. He changed the way he does things and to me that's proof that it's a punishment."
Hebert believes the shuffle is a personal move because of the mayor's stake in the amalgamation process.
"It shouldn't be considered a personal attack on the mayor for us leaving amalgamation because it's not about the mayor. It's about the community."
Georgetown Mayor's response
Talks around the portfolio switch having something to do with amalgamation is "blown out of proportion," Lavandier said.
It's too bad that the councillors feel that way, but I think they'll get over it. — Lewis Lavandier
"These decisions are made quite regular when you're going to a term," he said.
"This is to give them experience. I've been here for 17 years, and I've worked on all the different portfolios — it's too bad that the councillors feel that way, but I think they'll get over it."
While he said the portfolio change was about experience, Lavandier did say council's decision to abandon amalgamation in September was premature.
"I felt strongly that we should have concluded the process and really got the information to our residents," he said.
"Our residents deserve to know what this means to their community."
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