Port Moody council got itself out of a jam by using a lottery system to determine who would be acting mayor until the end of the year.
And while many — mostly in the media — made fun of the idea of picking names out of a glass for the rotation, a political science professor who has studied politics in conflict situations says it was a fair and democratic process.
In governance, sortition has been used since the early Greeks to select political officials by lot and is intended to make sure everyone has an equal chance of holding public office, said Stewart Prest.
On Tuesday night at a special council meeting, PoMo councillors put names in a container to determine that the first acting mayor would be Coun. Meghan Lahti, who will temporarily replace Mayor Rob Vagramov, currently on paid leave from his $111,883 a year job, followed by Couns. Hunter Madsen and Steve Milani.
“The history goes all the way to ancient Greece. It is a foundational method of assigning offices within the broad democratic tradition,” Prest told The Tri-City News in an interview this week.
He said such a random draw has been used more recently, too, as when a coin was used to determine the result of a tie vote in the Prince Edward Island legislature, and in Peachland, following the October, 2018 municipal election, the lot system was used to make Cindy Fortin mayor over Harry Gough.
In that municipal election for mayor of the District of Peachland, Fortin was chosen by lot to be mayor over Gough after both had earned 804 votes each.
“It is quite random, literally and figuratively, but it is fair and it allows council to move forward and make other plans, especially if it’s a divided council and [there is] not an obvious solution among members,” Prest.
In the case of Port Moody council, where there appears to be a split between three newer councillors, and three veteran councillors, drawing by lot seems to be fair.
But it could have been avoided if some agreement had been reached between Madsen and Coun. Diana Dilworth after the longer-serving councillor said she was only available in the summer and he said he had some flexibility.
Dilworth had also been left out of the rotation in a proposed schedule for acting mayors that had been presented in a motion by Vagramov at a meeting when he told council of his intention to step away from his job to resolve his legal issues.
That motion would have placed councillors Madsen, Amy Lubik and Milani as acting mayors for four-month stints through to the end of March, 2020. But that motion was deferred and never moved at Tuesday’s meeting.
Prest said having a rotating mayor poses some challenges because having someone in the spot full-time can bring some “coherence” to the agenda.
The way to move forward, he suggested, is for councillors to work on issues that they can agree on, build some trust, and then tackle some of the more contentious issues.
“We have two broad camps, if there is a working relationship there, a couple of could them get together, and decide what would a joint agenda look like, what are the things we can bring forward first?”
Coming at it with “fresh eyes,” and recognizing the landscape has changed, at least for the short-term, will help smooth things and ensure that council business can continue, Prest suggested.
“Don’t think of it as adversity but an opportunity for the council to find a new way forward.”
