Special meeting forced to discuss Orillia mayor’s use of strong mayor powers

Orillia’s Mayor was under scrutiny by councillors for being granted strong mayor powers, now the province is making those powers permanent.

Six city councillors in the City of Orillia have successfully petitioned for a special meeting to take place, to discuss the controversial use of the city’s newly granted strong mayor powers.

According to the petition, the discussion will allow councillors to ask questions around the means in which the mayor may have requested and received his powers, the mayor’s “refusal to release details of this request,” and the appropriateness of its use to date.

On April 7, Mayor Don McIsaac used his powers to effectively fire the city’s new incoming CAO, Trevor Lee, and promote its deputy CAO to the position instead.

Councillors Jay Fallis, Janet-Lynne Durnford, Tim Lauer, Jeff Czetwerzuk, Luke Leatherdale and David Campbell signed the petition.

“We ourselves have asked that this entire matter be reconsidered,” said Councillor Fallis on Monday. “There are so many questions around what has happened and around what does this look like going forward.”

Council voted 7-2 in favour of calling on the province to immediately rescind the mayor’s powers at its last council meeting. However, last week, the province opted to make the powers permanent. Mayor McIsaac was initially granted the powers on a temporary basis, under the guise of Orillia’s state of emergency.

“To continue to support municipalities build more homes and get shovels in the ground for critical infrastructure projects, our government is expanding strong mayor powers to 169 municipalities, including the City of Orillia, on May 1,” said the Ford government in a statement to CTV News. “We’ve seen Mayors across the province use this transformative change to drive growth in their communities, and we trust these additional municipalities will take similar steps to accelerate progress and better meet the needs of the regions they serve.”

Mayor Don McIsaac told CTV News on Monday that he would not be commenting further.

Last week, he said he could not go into detail on the decision to replace Lee but said that Orillia was at a critical point in time and expressed the importance of continuity.

Orillia’s special council meeting will take place on Tuesday in council chambers, starting at 4 p.m. The public is invited to attend.