Brockton Council unanimously voted last night to hold open applications to fill their vacant council seat.
Mayor Chris Peabody said council felt this was the best way forward to fill the vacant seat of Chris Oberle, who resigned recently to become a prosecutor in another area.
"It's the best route because it will allow a wide number of people to apply, it will allow people from different sectors of the community to apply and then we can develop a broad pool of people that are interested in serving on council," he said.
Mayor Peabody said the other option of hosting a by-election wasn’t feasible, as it would have cost upwards of $35,000 to mail out all the online ballots and run the election.
"We would have had to mail out all of the internet ballots once again, huge cost with the internet voting, so we decided based on the costs, that it would be better for council to interview applicants and then have a selection process," he said.
Council hope to have someone selected by early January, so the new councilor gets their orientation done in time for final budget meetings in February. Brockton will be advertising the open application for the vacant council seat on their website, social media and local papers and bulletins. Residents interested can apply here: Brockton.ca/CouncilVacancy.
