Peggy Revell
There will be one less trustee seat for Fort Frances on the Northwest Catholic District School Board starting this fall.
The change follows a vote by the board at its monthly meeting last Tuesday evening on the determination and distribution of its eight trustees for the upcoming four-year term.
The vote meant the three seats currently representing Fort Frances (as well as Alberton, La Vallee, and the surrounding unincorporated areas) were reduced to two.
Sioux Lookout, meanwhile, will see a second trustee allocated for its region.
Dryden will remain with two trustees, with Stratton and Atikokan to be represented by one trustee each.
Despite fewer seats, Fort Frances trustee and board chair Anne-Marie Fitzgerald assured the town and its surrounding areas still will be represented.
“As a board, we always try to make our decisions for the good of the whole board,” she remarked.
“I have no reason to think that just because we’ve lost a trustee, that if there was a decision pertaining to Fort Frances, that the board, as whole, wouldn’t still make the right decision for the good of the schools in Fort Frances.”
Harold Huntley and Paul Cousineau also represent the Fort Frances area on the current board—meaning the upcoming election will be “interesting,” Fitzgerald admitted.
“[But] we will have to wait and see what will happen in October!” she said.
“The board studied the ‘Population of Electoral Group’ report and because of our past practice that every school community has trustee support, we designated the area Emo and west to be a low population area to ensure representation at our school in Stratton,” Fitzgerald noted, explaining the process which led to the board’s decision last week.
“When we did this, there was a slight shift in the electoral quotient.
“It was the decision of the board to redistribute the trustees, which means that one more trustee will be elected in Sioux Lookout and one less in Fort Frances in October,” she added.
Voting in favour of the shift were Cathy Bowen (Sioux Lookout), John Borst (Dryden), Robert van Oort (Dryden), and Cosuineau.
Fitzgerald, Huntley, and Mark Chojko-Bolec (Stratton) voted to keep the trustee distribution as is.
This fall also will see an additional trustee sitting on the local Catholic board following the amalgamation with the Atikokan Roman Catholic Separate School Board.
“We had requested an extra trustee from the Ministry of Education when the amalgamation with Atikokan took place and the ministry agreed,” said Fitzgerald.
“So as of the municipal elections in October, all of our school communities will have official trustee representation.”
Currently when it comes to St. Patrick’s School in Atikokan, board trustees have had the assistance of John McInnis, who is serving as a trustee advisor.
McInnis was the chair of the former Atikokan board.
A ninth trustee seat on the Catholic board is filled by the local First Nations.
