Saint John Council To Elect Deputy Mayor

Saint John councillors will meet Monday evening to elect the city’s deputy mayor for the next four years.

David Hickey, John MacKenzie and Greg Norton put their names forward during last Monday’s meeting.

Councillors will select their top candidate through a balloting process in Committee of the Whole.

“Should a tie occur, the candidate with the lowest vote count would be removed from the ballot and additional rounds of voting would occur until one candidate has received the majority of votes,” said a staff report.

The committee will recommend appointing the successful candidate and council will vote to elect them as deputy mayor.

Before now, council had a custom of electing the councillor who received the most votes in the municipal election as deputy mayor.

But the previous council voted in March to change the process as the old method tended to favour councillors-at-large, who receive votes from all four wards, as opposed to the other eight councillors who were only on the ballots in one ward each.