Reducing Council from 7 to 4 Wards

Yesterday's Committee of the Whole meeting had many important items on it's agenda.  Among them:

1. How much of an "infrastructure levy" will Newmarket residents be seeing on their 2015 tax bill?
2. Will Council endorse a request to extend the terms of two Newmarket Tay Hydro board members who have already reached their term limits?
3. Staff asked for clarification of what Council's priorities are for the 2014-18 term.  

And in consideration of the third point, how ironic is it for Staff to be asking via yesterday's agenda about reducing the number of Council members from 7 to 4 on a day when Regional Councillor John Taylor and Councillors Hempen and Twinney didn't bother to show up at the meeting?

Clearly these absent Councillors are giving Newmarket a message that we can proceed with reducing the number of council members.  To borrow from Ted Cruz's speech, "Imagine" a council that didn't include Taylor, Twinney and Hempen.  I think that would be real progress indeed.

So thank you to the absentee councillors who felt their constituents didn't need representation yesterday.  Issues like the budget and taxes, management of Newmarket Tay Hydro and our ever increasing utility bills, and setting priorities for our town can just carry on without them.