By Craig Westcott
First time councillor Nicole Kieley is Mount Pearl's new deputy mayor.
Her election to the role was the chief item of business Tuesday, after all seven members of council were sworn-in at a ceremony at the Reid Community Centre before the family members and special guests of council, including Municipal Affairs Minister Krista Lynn Howell.
Though it's been only a week since the election, the four incumbents who were re-elected and the three newcomers have been busy getting acquainted.
"We did a meet and greet last Wednesday, the day after the election, with the seven members of council and our CAO," said Mayor Dave Aker. "It was a chance to relax for an hour or so down in our chamber over a cup of coffee and a few biscuits. We had a healthy conversation getting to know each other, because there are three new members now in the council room."
Aker and his colleagues were quick to name Kieley as deputy mayor and to strike the members of council's various committees.
"It is a vote of council," Aker said of Kieley's appointment. "Councils in Mount Pearl in my time anyway have always respected that whoever got the highest number of votes among the members of council elected typically is appointed as the deputy mayor."
As for the committees that are tasked with working with senior staff to examine issues and report back to council with recommendations, the corporate services, marketing and economic development committee will be composed of Deputy Mayor Kieley and councillor Jim Locke; the infrastructure and public works committee will be led by councillors Mark Rice and Isabelle Fry; and the community development committee will be composed of councillors Bill Antle and Chelsea Lane.
"Committee work begins this week as does orientation for the new members of council," said the mayor.
The incumbents will no doubt be glad to see the chamber back to a full slate to share the load. Part of the fallout from the incident involving former CAO Kent was the related dismissal of two councillors, who were accused of sharing confidential information with him after he left the City's employment. A third hand was also lost to the chamber when long time councillor Lucy Stoyles left to run provincially this past winter in a successful campaign that saw her elected to the provincial legislature. That left only four councillors, including the mayor, sharing the committee work. Aker himself ended up serving on the public works committee with then Deputy Mayor Locke.
"In my experience, every member of council that I have ever worked with has been very, very dedicated,” said Aker. "Everybody is equal in terms of the contribution to council and I know the commitment and effort is there. So yes, it will lighten the load a little bit for the four returning members of council, but we're looking forward to working together and making a very positive experience for us as well as our residents going forward... The agenda between now and Christmas will be to focus council on their orientation as well as creating a budget for 2022 and then shortly into the new year this council will get together and formulate a strategic plan for the next four years. It's a big challenge getting three new members of council up to speed on the operation of the city and their roles as councillors and also get engrossed in a budget that will probably take five or six committee of the whole meetings to ultimately finetune and get to the point where we have enough consensus to bring it to the public probably around the middle of December... We've hit the ground running here and the relationship among council seems to be very strong and I'm very optimistic that we're going to have a great term."
