Belleville Mayor Mitch Panciuk has issued a clarification to comments he made on CJBQ’s Lorne Brooker Show this week.
When addressing a decision not to award a vacant seat on Belleville Council to the next person in line and forming an ad hoc committee to help select a new councillor, Panciuk had told the show he had not received any input on that from four councillors, when in fact, he had.
Panciuk issued a statement clarifying that he did get input from councillors Paul Carr, Chris Malette, Garnet Thompson and Ryan Williams, but that none of them had put forward a name of a potential representative for that committee.
You can read the full statement here:
Good afternoon Colleagues,
I owe all of you an apology (and some more specifically) for a comment I made yesterday on the Lorne Brooker Show. I stated that I had requested input on the Ad Hoc Committee and received none from four Councillors whatsoever. This is incorrect in that I received input from all seven of you. I will communicate that error to Lorne Brooker later today.
Upon review I realize that statement was incorrect and I offer you all my unreserved apology for that.
As part of the process I spoke with all seven Councillors about the situation we could be in the event Tyler Allsopp was not chosen and that I wanted input in terms of a path forward. We all agreed that individual Councillors nominating people from the floor was problematic and would likely either result in a failing tie-vote or the successful candidate would not have the full support of Council and therefore was not a preferred option.
I proposed the establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee to review applicants and make a recommendation to Council. There were seven positions on the Committee and I asked each Councillor for suggestions of people to serve on the Committee. Councillors Carr, Malette, Thompson and Williams did not recommend any names to populate the Committee. I appreciate these facts were not communicated with my statement yesterday.
In the end the Councillors who made suggestions have their recommended candidates on the selection Committee. The quality of those community members is outstanding and I look forward to their recommendation for Council by January 15, 2021.
I hope this clarifies the matter and again, I apologize for not being more careful in my comments.
Best wishes,
Mayor Mitch Panciuk
