Well, that was exciting.
Following a tumultuous council meeting March 12 that included an hour-long, in-camera session, Village of Clyde council voted unanimously to drop its Court of Queen’s Bench challenge to remove Coun. Doug Nyal from his seat after he missed a pair of meetings in December and January.
“Is this an apology?” asked Nyal, following the 4-0 vote.
“No, but it means you’re back on council,” responded mayor Nat Dvernichuk.
In doing so, councillors avoided not only a expensive legal battle, but most importantly, they’ve put aside their differences — for the time being — to focus on what they’ve been elected to do, which is govern the municipality.
We have no doubt that all five councillors ran for office because they care about Clyde. In fact that’s why the gallery was packed at last Monday’s meeting — the people of the village passionately care about their community.
And we hope following this incident that council realizes that there’s another 42 months left in this term and they’ll need to find a way to get along. While we previously reported that none of these shenanigans will impact the village’s viability via the province, Clyde can’t function if council is dysfunctional.
During the March 12 meeting, two agenda items — one discussing fire protection rates and a second involving snow removal — were deferred until the April meeting because of the charged atmosphere.
In the gallery, there were voices on both sides of the debate with some favouring keeping Nyal and others looking to remove him. But the mantra of “Check your ego” was a common refrain from all sides and we agree.
Public service is supposed to be a personal sacrifice for the betterment of one’s community, not a means to riches, self-gratification, or the settling of old scores.
Part of Dvernichuk’s motion to end the disqualification process is a call to ensure a future code of conduct bylaw that will address issues related to meeting attendance and councillor behaviour.
If that’s what’s needed to keep things civil, then so be it, because the people of Clyde didn’t vote for this.
