Image: The small pink area is Huntsville Ward 1, the blue area is Chaffey Ward 2, the large purple area is Stisted, Stephenson, and Port Sydney Wards 3, 4, and 5, and the yellow area is Brunel Ward 6. Click Here to zoom in on a larger version of this map.
With Chaffey Ward being one of the fastest-growing areas in the Town of Huntsville, at their November 29 General Committee meeting councillors agreed that how the ward is represented should be revisited.
“We’ve obviously had a whole bunch of growth in Chaffey Ward. We know it’s a huge area. It’s where our growth is happening. We haven’t…had a ward boundary review in a while and apparently if we ask our clerk to kick something like that off, she needs direction from council,” said Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock, adding that a lot of the work has already been done on how to make the wards more equitable in the Town of Huntsville.
Chaffey Ward Councillor Cory Clarke said he was glad to see the item on the agenda. “There’s no denying that Chaffey Ward has experienced considerable growth over the years and the ward is unique in that it has both rural and urban areas and most of the growth that’s happening in Chaffey Ward is in the urban areas right now. And most of the things that we see coming to this council are in the urban area and most of the new development that we’re going to see in the future come to this table are going to be in Chaffey Ward in the urban areas.” He said the issue of boundaries has been discussed by previous councils and a lot of work has been done in the past.
“I’ve read through a lot of those old reports so hopefully we won’t need to do a lot of new reports because there’s existing reports that have been done. I really do believe that this council needs to be proactive and be the council that makes the changes that are needed so that Chaffey Ward is better represented. It’d be my hope that this council can work towards that before the next election,” he said.
Councillor Dione Schumacher said that while the options will be discussed as they come forward in a staff report, “I definitely do not want to see an at-large versus a ward system.”
Municipal staff was asked to return with options to be presented at a later date.
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