District of Lantzville councillors will not be debating the Lantzville-Nanaimo water agreement this month because an upcoming council meeting has been cancelled.
The regularly scheduled council meeting was expected to take place on May 28 at Lantzville’s District Hall. The meeting would have included a motion that called for councillors to trigger the water agreement, which was signed by the two municipalities back in 2014. A public hearing regarding a zoning amendment for a proposed children’s health centre on 7170 Lantzville Rd. had also been scheduled for May 28 the meeting.
Both items will now be on the next scheduled council meeting, which has been set for June 11.
Ronald Campbell, the district’s chief administrative officer, said the cancellation is because four councillors cannot make the May 28 meeting, resulting in a lack of quorum, the minimum number of council members required to hold a meeting.
“If you know that there is going to be no quorum coming into the meeting, you don’t want to have a whole bunch of people coming out to a public hearing that we know is not going to happen,” Campbell said.
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Lantzville Mayor Colin Haime said although there have been previous times where council meetings have been cancelled due to a lack of quorum, it’s usually been on a short notice, such as the day of the meeting. Haime said it’s disappointing that the meeting was cancelled, but was glad that notice was given to other councillors well in advance.
“To lose quorum this far advance on a regularly scheduled meeting is unusual,” he said.
Coun. Will Geselbracht said while there will be no meeting on May 28, he was looking forward to discussing the motion dealing with the Lantzville-Nanaimo water agreement at the next scheduled meeting.
nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com
