Referendum rejected

Waterloo mayor Brenda Halloran’s motion for a referendum on light rail transit did not survive a crucial vote today.

570 News confirms that the motion was defeated 7-3.

Halloran, Millar and Cowan voted in favour

Lorentz, Wideman, Strickland, Mitchell, Haalboom, Armstrong, Kelterborn voted against

Zehr and Brewer were absent.

Craig, Deutchmann, Galloway and Seiling declared a conflict of interest

In calling for the referendum, Halloran had noted widespread opposition to a proposed $818-million system to connect Waterloo and Kitchener by light rail and Cambridge by rapid bus.

Halloran’s colleagues on council, however, remain convinced that the public has already been given ample opportunity to provide feedback on the plan.

Jane Mitchell, one of three Waterloo representatives on regional council, tells 570 News there has been “lots and lots” of feedback provided to date through more than 130 public meetings and countless e-mails and phone calls. Mitchell goes on to say that voting in favour of a referendum today would be a disservice to the 50 people who have registered as delegations to speak on the issue tonight. By moving forward with a referendum, Mitchell says there would be no point in hearing from tonight’s delegates because council would have already resolved to move the issue to a public vote.

That issue — buses or trains — is what regional council will hear delegations about tonight. It’s the second straight night of feedback from the public, after more than four dozen other people registered to have their say on the issue last night.

While he’s willing to state publicly that he will oppose today’s referendum motion, Strickland will not divulge which way he’s leaning on the final LRT vote scheduled for June 15th. In fact, he says public feedback such as that which council received last night and will hear again tonight is still being digested and will help shape council opinion in the weeks ahead.

“We have a real genuine interest in hearing what the public and the community has to say,” Strickland insists.

But on the referendum issue, Strickland remains firm. He cites the difficulty in creating a clear question, the time it takes to have that question approved by the ministry of municipal affairs and the fact that the referendum must achieve 50 per cent turnout to be considered binding.

Strickland says if Halloran wanted to have a referendum on the LRT issue, the time to do that was before the last municipal election, not now.

This is not the first controversial issue regional council has had to deal with but Strickland says it is unique in that it relates to a capital expenditure.

“You may remember the smoking bylaw; that was pretty contentious. We had the pesticide bylaw, we had lawn watering restrictions,” Strickland lists. “We’ve also had amalgamation discussions which were pretty contentious.”

As contentious as the idea of this referendum may be, Kitchener mayor Carl Zehr will be absent from today’s vote. Zehr has already spoken out against the idea of holding a referendum but will not register his opposition with a vote today. He’ll be in Halifax attending meetings in his role as Chair of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus.