Parksville’s new mayor and council swore their oath of office during the inaugural Nov. 7 meeting.
Mayor Doug O’Brien was presented with the mayor’s chain of office and gave his inauguration speech at the forum of the Parksville Civic and Technology Centre.
“We are here to work together towards the same goal: to make Parksville the best community it can be,” O’Brien said.
Councillors Mary Beil, Adam Fras, Amit Gaur, Joel Grenz, Sylvia Martin and Sean Wood also took the oath of office.
The ceremony started with blessings by Michael Recalma, Qualicum First Nation Chief, and Andrew Gulevich, pastor of youth and young adults with Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church.
Council voted in favour of O’Brien’s council appointments, including Parksville’s representatives to the Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) board.
Fras said it is customary for Parksville’s RDN director to be appointed based on the order of votes in the municipal election.
READ MORE: It’s official: Doug O’Brien is the new mayor of Parksville
“In this case, there was some appointments made outside of that,” Fras said.
He asked for some background from the mayor as to the reasoning for not assigning based on the order of votes.
O’Brien said he did not make the appointments by votes, although some councils do appoint RDN directors that way.
“It was determined by the person that was most effective for the job, in my opinion, after interviewing all the individuals and considering their schedules and other time commitments they have,” he said.
Wood will join the mayor to represent Parksville at RDN board meetings, with Grenz and Beil as alternates.
Council also voted to change the regular meeting start times from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The next regular council meeting is set for Nov. 21.