BREAKING: Councillor Jérôme Courchesne Resigns

Lavigne councillor notified council and staff that he is resigning immediately.

Last night, in an email to West Nipissing council and senior staff, Lavigne councillor Jérôme Courchesne officially announced his resignation as councillor for ward 8. Less than 18 months into his four-year term Courchesne announced that he is stepping down immediately.

Courchesne was acclaimed during the last elections being the sole candidate for Lavigne (ward 8).

In his role as councillor, Courchesne also chaired the Economic Development Committee and sat on the Au Château Board of Management.

Dejavu for West Nipissing

The sudden vacancy will appear like dejavu for West Nipissing residents who went through this same ordeal four years ago when Verner councillor Jeremy Seguin abruptly resigned. Seguin blamed a “toxic and dysfunctional council” for resigning less than two years after being elected.

The resignation led to a two year vacancy on council and 4-4 ties on many issues. At the time, council could not agree on how to fill the vacant seat. Eventually the Ministry of Municipal Affairs had to step in and force council to choose someone shortly before the 2022 elections.

New Policy for Filling Vacancies

Luckily council established a new policy for dealing with council vacancies last year. In May 2023, council approved the new “Council Vacancy Appointment Policy” (page 153-157).

The new policy states that at the first meeting after being aware of the resignation, council must declare the seat vacant. Then within 60 days, council is to approve a bylaw to appoint an eligible candidate. Staff are to advertise the council vacancy for a period of two weeks to solicit potential candidates.

These candidates will then be presented to council and a meeting will be held to interview them. Each candidate will be afforded 10 minutes to address council. Afterwards, each member of council will be allowed no more than one question for each candidate. Candidates will have a maximum of 2 minutes to answer each question.

Council will then proceed to vote in a ranked voting process.

The ranked voting process means that a candidate must receive at least 50% of the votes to be appointed. So if the candidate with the most votes does not get at least four votes in the first round, council will then conduct a second round and remove the candidate with the least amount of votes.

The process will continue until one candidate has at least 50% of the votes.

If a scenario occurs where a vote results in a 4-4 tie, then a candidate will be selected by drawing a name.

Council’s next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 16th.

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