Murray Wood: Carney's Liberal majority will come because of floor crossers, not votes
Thanks to floor crossings, the Liberals only need to hold safe seats in Monday's byelections to get to majority status. ...
The Saskatchewan government said experience was an important consideration, in appointing an interim reeve and three councillors to fill vacancies to the Rural Municipality (RM) of Sherwood council.
Ray Orb, who previously served both as reeve of the RM of Cupar and as president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), will fill the role of reeve.
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The council positions are being filled by Mitch Huber, Donna Strudwick, and Judy Harwood. Huber is a former reeve of the RM of Edenwold, while Harwood was reeve in the RM of Corman Park.
The three will serve at large to represent the three vacant divisions.
Reeve Susan Oakley-Paul, Division 2 Councillor Trent Reiger, Division 3 Councillor John Wilke and Division 6 Councillor Grant Paul submitted their resignations in March, leaving council one member short of a quorum.
Ray Orb, former SARM president, has been appointed interim reeve of the RM of Sherwood. (980 CJME file photo)
No explanation has yet been given for the resignations. But Government Relations Minister Eric Schmalz said appointments to fill vacant positions are fairly common.
“This happens from time to time, councils lose quorum due to everything from personal circumstances to illness to whatever, or just a lack of interest in continuing to serve on that council,” Schmalz explained.
“What we need to do is to pivot to support that community and, in doing that, we look to people who have had municipal experience before so that there’s not a long onboarding process.
“We’ve appointed a very good team of people to to help carry the RM of Sherwood into the coming months until they can hold an election.”
Schmalz said he’s not concerned about appointed council members, who live outside the RM, making important decisions around such things as the proposed AI data centre.
“These are meant to be decisions for that community,” he said. “Obviously, they’ll be taking input from that community. They’re going to be made available to the community members and there’s going to be plenty of meetings coming up where community members can voice their opinions on any number of subjects, including the new data center.”
The byelection will be held Nov. 9.
