After much debate on how to fill two vacant trustee seats at the Waterloo Region District School Board, a decision was made to create a three person ad hoc committee to make recommendations on the appointment process.
The motion, put forth by trustee Kathleen Woodcock during Monday's committee of the whole meeting, passed by a vote of 6-3.
The vacant trustee positions opened through the recent resignation of Marie Snyder and untimely death of Fred Meissner.
Initially the board had two choices to fill the seats, either through appointment or via a by-election.
A by-election would have cost $214,000 for Waterloo alone and would need to be paid for by the board, something trustee Scott Piatkowski says he couldn't vote in favour of.
“I think a by-election would be prohibitively expensive and we know were in a tight budget environment,” Piatkowski said.
“Extrapolating the Waterloo figure, I think we're looking at over half a million dollars to run two by-elections and certainly I can’t justify that.”
The other issue raised by Piatkowski was the timing of the potential elections that would likely take place in July or August.
He referenced the recent low voter turnout for the redone Waterloo Catholic District School Board election after an error left candidates off the ballot when just 5.7 per cent of eligible voters in Cambridge cast a vote.
Trustees Cindy Watson expressed concern over not knowing the process by which an appointment would be made.
“If I knew it was the next person on the ballot it would be easy for me to vote for this motion,” Watson said.
“We already know who went and put their name down and put the time in. I’m not for voting for this and then it turns out whoever has the best presentation or speech gets the position. I would rather go for a by-election than appoint someone and go through a process of interviewing and overriding the democratic process.”
Trustee Mike Ramsay also called the appointment process undemocratic.
Board chair Joanne Weston was to put out a call for the three person committee this week.
The committee will report back with recommendations at the May 29 board meeting.
