Councillors in Chester mull over moving to Mayoral system

The Municipality of Chester will stick with a warden style council system for now. During their regular meeting this morning, Council discussed the idea of potentially moving to a mayoral system in advance of municipal elections in October. However, members decided to stick with the status quo and re-visit the issue following the upcoming elections. District 1 councillor Marshal Hector says a decision to move to a mayoral system at their meeting this morning would have been rushed. “Where we only have the three weeks from today to confirm our decision makes it rushed. I don’t think there is enough time for the general public to really stop and think about it and understand the difference between a wardens system and a mayoral system,” District 3 councillor Brad Armstrong agreed. He says he’s not opposed to introducing a mayoral system down the road if resident want to make the switch. “I don’t want to make a quick snap decision – this council is functioning quite well and if it isn’t broke….why fix it? But, there’s no reason, I believe, that after the next election that if it becomes and issue or if the public states they want us to look at it then I think we should look at it,” Wardens are chosen by their peers, needing a majority vote via secret ballot, while mayors are elected by residents in a separate election. Council needed to make a decision today on the issue in order to meet an imposed mid-February deadline.