The new-look Delta council will be sworn in tomorrow night (Nov. 7) at municipal hall in Ladner.
The inaugural Nov. 7 meeting, to begin at 7 p.m., will highlight a big turnover as former councillors Lois Jackson, Bruce McDonald, Jeannie Kanakos and Dan Copeland opted not to seek re-election in the recent municipal election.
Incumbent Mayor George Harvie, entering his second term as mayor, and councillors Dylan Kruger and Alicia Guichon, also entering their second terms, will be joined by newcomers Rod Binder, Daniel Boisvert, Jennifer Johal and Jessie Dosanjh.
They all won their seats by a wide margin in the Oct. 15 election.
Significant turnovers have been few and far between at the Delta council table over the past couple of decades, the biggest happening in the 1999 and 2018 elections.
Meanwhile, Delta is the only municipality of its size or larger still employing a mayor and six councillors.
Previous reports from city staff noted that it's normal practice for municipalities with populations over 50,000 to have eight councillors. Some B.C. cities with smaller populations than Delta, such as Kamloops and Nanaimo, have eight as well.
It’s been pretty much a non-issue in recent years, even though a 2006 staff report noted that employing the lesser number of council members in Delta translates into additional workload per individual, as work items such as committees need to be distributed among fewer members.
In the 1972 election, the city put forward a proposal to the electorate in a referendum, asking voters if they wanted to increase the number of councillors from six to eight.
At that time, Alderman Lorne Carmichael said when a municipality reaches a population of 50,000, it is entitled to eight aldermen. Carmichael said, "Council has a tremendous workload and we could use some help on council."
Delta's population in that period was just over 45,000, but it was the fastest growing municipality in Canada.
Mayor Dugald Morrison at the time wasn't keen on increasing the number of politicians, saying he felt "no alderman is overworked for the amount of money he gets."
The referendum was soundly defeated.
A 1979 bylaw reaffirmed that any increase must go to community consultation and the electorate.
