This time the issue considers going from 12 councillors to 8, which seemed the more popular option
Welland city council is again tossing around the idea of reducing the number of councillors, from the current 12, mainly to save taxpayer money.
Options presented by city staff were 4, 6 or 8 councillors, plus the mayor, to which Councillor John Chiocchio pointed out the city is expected to grow by 100,000 in 20 years.
"Which is an increase in 40%... we're going to better serve the population of 100,000 in 20 years, if we reduce council to 6, yet there's going to be better governance to save people money. I don't buy that."
He adds ward sizes must change, and he'd only be open to 8 councillors.
Councillor Brian Green spoke to the importance of public input. "Maybe 70% of the public says 'it's working, keep it the way it is'. Maybe the public wants 10 wards. I'm not really sure what they want... and I would think something this significant, I would like to hear what the public has to say."
A staff report shows Welland has 12 councillors to almost 58,000 people, Clarington has four to over 100,000 people.
Council voted to gather some public input.
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