Municipal election takes shape as Queens County councillors, others declare intentions

With less than three months to go before October’s municipal election, incumbents and former councillors in Queens County are declaring their intentions.

So far, three of the seven sitting councillors have said they won’t run again. Three others have declared they will run again. 

District 1 Coun. Kevin Muise could not be reached. And Mayor Darlene Norman hasn’t yet announced her plans.

The region’s electoral boundaries have also been redrawn since the last election. So some people will be running in areas that look different than they did in 2020. (You can see the descriptions and maps of the new electoral boundaries on the Region of Queens website.)

District 6 Coun. David Brown is one of the councillors who won’t be reoffering. District 2 Coun. Ralph Gidney and District 7 Coun. Carl Hawkes are the others. Gidney’s area will be changed to District 3. Former councillor Susan MacLeod, who placed second in the 2020 mayor’s race, will be running to replace Gidney. 

Brown told QCCR that he feels he’s done what he can for his constituents. He represents the areas around Port Medway, Mill Village, Greenfield and Labelle. A newcomer to municipal politics in the 2020 election, he beat Jason Croft by about 130 votes. 

“I feel like I’ve accomplished as much as I can accomplish in council and I’m not really happy with the process, so I’m looking at different avenues for moving on,” he said. “I just feel like we’re a municipal council, but we don’t govern like a municipal council. We still govern like a town council.

“It seems like everything we do is centred around Brooklyn, Liverpool and Milton and any time we try to get anything done outside of that core, it’s a struggle.”

He said he wasn’t criticizing his fellow councillors or municipal staff. And he didn’t want to provide examples of some of the struggles he’s had.

But he said he feels the Liverpool area is over-represented on council, with five councillors who have some part of their district in Liverpool, Milton or Brooklyn. With the redrawn boundaries, that’s down to four. 

“Whoever goes into council from rural areas is just going to have to fight harder to try to get their areas recognized. Maybe if councilors coming in from Liverpool, Brooklyn, Milton, realize that they’re not funding 100 per cent of the cost of what happens in Queens County, but they’re expecting 100 per cent of the expenditures that are happening in Queens County, it’s not a fair and equitable solution for anybody.”

Brown said he was also frustrated with some of the criticism he’s received online and in person since he became councillor. He said he welcomes feedback from constituents, but he said sometimes it goes too far.

“There’s a lot of anger with people, in the public. They seem to think that because you’re a public figure they can say whatever they want to you. And council is not a high-paid position to put up with the amount of hours and the abuse that we’ve been taking from some people. So I’m just not interested in doing another four years of that.”

But Brown is still proud of the work he’s done as councillor, especially helping to save the South Shore Regional Airport in Greenfield and finding more money to support the region’s volunteer fire departments.

“I’m happy with what I did. I think council has done the best job that they could for the most people. It’s just most of the work is done in the centre of town and that frustrates me.”

District 3 Coun. Maddie Charlton will be trying for a second term. She joins District 4 Coun. Vicki Amirault and District 5 Coun. Jack Fancy, who have announced they will seek re-election.

Because of the boundary changes, Charlton will be running in District 2 this time. But it’s essentially the same area as she represents now in District 3, with the addition of part of White Point Road. 

Amirault will still run in District 4, but her area now includes Danesville and East Port Medway. It also has less of Brooklyn. 

And Fancy, who represents the Milton area, has said he plans to run in District 7, which is where he grew up. That area includes much of north Queens, including Caledonia and Kejimkujik National Park.

In 2020, Charlton made history at age 29 as the youngest person elected to Region of Queens council.

She told QCCR that she’s enjoyed her past four years in municipal politics.

“Although it has certainly come with challenges,” she said.

“I have certainly learned a lot over these last four years and I really think that younger representation at the council table is important.”

Along with bringing a more youthful perspective, she says she’s proud she’s been able to advocate for better access to council meetings for the public. She pushed for a regular evening meeting to make it easier for people to attend, as well as the upgrades necessary to livestream meetings.

Charlton says she believes that council’s communication with the public has improved.

“That was one of things that as a resident before I ran was something that was really obvious there was a bit of a disconnect there. There certainly have been improvements. And those are some that I’m really proud of as well. Besides the standing evening council meetings, I championed audio and video upgrades because people couldn’t hear when they tuned into the meetings. And I think it’s really important that residents can do that and access those meetings and listen to those meetings if they can’t be in the room. So I would say that’s still not perfect. But I think it has gotten better.”

Charlton said that communication breakdowns were partially responsible for the controversies over a new library. 

“I would say that we need to slow down before we speed up. … We hit the gas too fast and different information was evolving over cost and I think if we would have just slowed down, we could have pieced things together in a more sensible way to then confidently make a plan that we could endorse going forward.”

David Brown says he regrets that council didn’t commit to a new library. They decided instead to move the library, at least temporarily, to the business development centre on White Point Road.

“I would have liked to have seen a library built. Having an actual brick and mortar standalone library built and not having that happen and the way the process worked out was one of my biggest frustrations in the last term.”

Charlton says that if she’s re-elected, she’d like to advocate for more youth programming and recreational opportunities. And she says she hopes other young women take a crack at council this time around.

Brown says he’s not sure what he’ll do next, but he’s going to enjoy his free time. His advice for people who want to run for council? Do your homework and be prepared to stick up for your district.

“Just to be prepared it’s not going to be the happy smiley place that you think it’s going to be,” he says.

“You’re in for a fight every day. If you want to get your area recognized and you want an equitable amount of expenditures for all areas of the county, it’s not going to go smoothly. There’s a fight involved with it. There’s a lot of argument. You have to do your research, know the policies, know what you want going in and know what your consittunts want going in because you’re representing those constituents, you’re not representing your own personal interests. … You have to know what all those constituents want so you can make the best decision for the most people.”

The municipal election is Oct. 19. This year, for the first time, Queens County voters will be able to vote in person or online. 

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com