Whirlwind schedule begins Friday for new Saskatoon city councillors

Campaigning and winning the election may have been the “easy” part for six new Saskatoon city councillors, because there’s going to be a lot on their plates over the next six weeks.

Only four of 10 councillors kept their seats after Wednesday’s election, including Zach Jeffries (Ward 10), Bev Dubois (Ward 9), Randy Donauer (Ward 5), and Troy Davies (Ward 4). Some incumbents were defeated, while others chose not to run again.

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The rest are rookies, including Kathryn MacDonald (Ward 1), Senos Timon (Ward 2),  Robert Pearce (Ward 3), Jasmin Parker (Ward 6), Holly Kelleher (Ward 7), and Scott Ford (Ward 8).

Today, they’ll be at city hall picking up a variety of supplies they’ll need for their new jobs. And according to city clerk Adam Tittemore, they’ll have a lot of new information to digest, starting next week.

“We go straight into two days of orientation on November 18th and 19th. Should be very full days where we’ll review overviews of city operations. We’ll talk about council governance structure, meeting procedures and things like that,” he explained.

The inaugural meeting and council’s swearing-in ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. on Wednesday in the council chambers, complete with a piper and honour guards.

“Then we’ll make some very initial appointments of members of council at that point for positions like deputy mayor and standing policy committee memberships only up to the end of 2024,” Tittemore added.

From there, the normal council and committee schedule begins, with the governance and priorities committee meeting on Nov. 26 and the first regular council meeting Nov. 27. That will be followed by budget meetings scheduled for Dec. 2-4, and then finally committee and hearing meetings later in the month.

Tittemore said after that, councillors will finally be able to “take a breath” and enjoy the holidays until early January.

Administration’s goal is to set the six new councillors up for success.

“It’s definitely something where we want to make sure, administratively, that we provide all tools that we can,” he said.

Training so many new faces all at once is something that hasn’t happened in Saskatoon for quite some time.

“The (city) archivist went back through – some time ago – when he determined that this is definitely the most changeover in many, many decades. So this is a unique time for the city,” said Tittemore.

His advice for anyone feeling overwhelmed with all of the new information is to just take a step back.

“Recognize that this is the same for any new member of council and that we have lots of tools and resources available to help them as they go through the process,” he added.

Tittemore also urged the new councillors to remember that there will likely be some growing pains.

“The sausage is being made on the table,” he said. “Hopefully people can recognize that that’s the case.”