Yesterday at the first meeting of the new North Saanich council there was an upset, the council voted for Ted Daly as the CRD rep and not the Alice Finall who is the mayor. Full details of the meeting in the Peninsula News Review. Alice Finall is not even the alternate, that person in Dunstan Browne.
Looking at the vote, there seems to be clear 4-3 split on North Saanich council. One side there is Ted Daly, Craig Mearns, Dunstan Browne and Connie McBride, on the other side Alice Finall, Celia Stock and Elise McMurphy. Daly, Mearns, Browne and McBride ran as an informal slate referred to as Team North Saanich.
What will be interesting will be how far the authority of the mayor goes when the majority of the council is not on her side. There are specific roles the mayor has but in general it will be very hard for to govern if she is at odds with the majority on the council. At the end of the day she is only one vote of seven on council. From reading the article in the TC and in the Peninsula News Review, she does not seem to taking having her authority challenged.
What this brings home to me is the need to do away with elected mayors and only elect the council and then have the council choose the mayor from their midst.
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