By Bromley Chamberlain
Mayor Sheldon Ibbotson has been sworn in along side his four councillors: Gayle Rondeel, Joe Anglin, Jack Webb and Paul Payson.
The gallery during the newly elected town council organizational meeting had standing room only on Oct. 26. With more people than council has seen in a while, extra chairs had to be brought in.
“I was actually surprised that there wasn’t more people there,” said councillor Gayle Rondeel.
“I’d be interested to see down the road if we continue to get a turn out,” said Tony Goode, the town CAO.
Ibbotson said he thought it went fine. “But what do I know? I’m not objective. My kids thought I looked good.”
The organizational meeting will most likely be the shortest meeting over the next year, and Ibbotson said it would be one of the easiest. Since it was committees and schedules, the council wasn’t sweating the small issues.
“I thought it went quite well,” said Goode. “I suggested it to the mayor that he contact the other council members prior to the meeting to see what committees they were interested in, and apparently he did that. I think as a result of that things went rather smoothly.”
Since we have a new council, the day for meeting was up for grabs. The new council has switched their meeting time from Tuesdays to Wednesday nights at 6:30 p.m.
“It seems to work out for everyone,” Ibbotson said. “We’ll see how it works out and go from there. It’s not set in stone, so we can always revisit it.”
Near the end of the meeting Ibbotson finally spoke up saying that he would rather be called Sheldon then your worship.
“I just know that I would sooner be called Sheldon,” Ibbotson said. “Worship seems a little formal for the setting. I want people to feel comfortable, to ask questions and that way they don’t feel intimidated. I’m Sheldon; I’m here to help the public.”
Goode thought this was a reasonable request.
“That’s okay with me. He can call me Tony,” Goode said. “I think that probably denotes that he is not pretentious and just wants to be treated like a regular guy.”
The next meeting will be held on Nov. 3.