Ward 6 duties will be shared by adjacent councillors after last week’s resignation of Coun. Richard Pootmans.

Pootman’s resignation was reported to council during the Nov. 26 Regular Meeting of Council, citing personal and family reasons. Deputy City Clerk Jeremy Fraser informed councillors at the Dec. 3, 2024 Public Hearing Meeting of Council on how ward duties and budgets would be delegated, with council approval.  He said there would be no byelection called for the area.

Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott will be the employing councillor of the Ward 6 staff. Further, Coun. Walcott and Coun. Sonya Sharp will be splitting the representation of certain communities. (SEE MAP BELOW) They will also be authorized to make decisions about community event funding for the ward.

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner will be the liaison for constituent matters pertaining to the Tsuut’ina Nation.

Council was also told that the City Clerk’s Office would allocate the Ward 6 budget to Coun. Walcott to support community representation activities.

 Some councillors were concerned that the funding fell with one councillor as opposed to being distributed to the different councillors. Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said then when the last councillor resigned, the budget was redistributed to the respective councillors splitting the ward duties.

“There’s a whole bunch of other elements that are contained within the ward budget that could be utilized between the communities,” Chabot said.

“If it’s strictly dedicated to one councillor and not both, then some of those resources could be more focused around those communities that that Council represents, as opposed to be equally distributed amongst all the communities that are represented by the two councillors.”

Fraser said that the lion’s share of the budget would go to the employing councillor because much of it would be used to pay ward staff.

“We’re focused on making sure that the funds that have been allocated for serving the constituents of Ward six continue to be available to support the needs of constituents in Ward six, regardless of who is undertaking the representation,” he said.

Ensuring public representation

Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness asked about the budget allocations and questioned why this wasn’t sorted out and brought to a meeting in the future.

City solicitor Jill Floen said that the timing was important, particularly with Ward 6 land use items being discussed at the public hearing.

“It’s important that they know who is representing them,” she said.  

“This is to give them clarity as well as confidence that their interests are being represented, and that’s why it’s important to do this at the introduction of the public hearing.”

Couns. Walcott and Sharp both said that they recognize the need for Ward 6 residents to be represented well at city council. Walcott said at no point would any councillor be acting as a stage gate for another if the communities needed something.

“The biggest part of this is that this has been a discussion with the ward six team, who are the remaining experts of those communities, and what that support will actually look like,” he said.

“The discussions that we’re seeing around what would budget look like, what does the comms look like – I want to be clear that the expertise that we’ll be leaning on is the ward six representatives, the team itself.”

Coun. Sharp said the change was sudden and everyone’s been moving quickly to ensure the representation remains.

“Councillor Walcott and I, and Councillor Penner, are very happy to take on more constituents and represent these communities. Councillor Pootmans would have done it for any of us, so that’s what we have to remember,” she said.

“There are a lot of checks and balances. I don’t think anything is going to go off the wayside.”