An easier way to contact County Council members.
A report will be presented to County Council with potential options on how to reach council through a single form of communication.
This report stemmed from a notice of motion in 2024 from Essex mayor, Sherry Bondy, who noticed that residents were frustrated that there wasn't a way to contact all members of County Council without emailing each individual councillor.
Administration has listed five options: to not change anything, create an email that will be sent to a list and then distributed to their local municipal email, create an email distribution list that would go to each councillor through a County email address, create a website form that residents would fill out that would be sent to each councillor, or have an email to the County Clerk which would then be sent to all members of council.
Administration recommends that council approve Option 4, which would see a website form be created where members of the public could write their concern, attach files if necessary, and it would then be circulated to council members.
Essex mayor and County Council member, Sherry Bondy, says it's important for all of the councillors to have the same information from residents.
"So if there is a big ticket item, or a concern going on in one part of the county, there's 14 people that vote on a county issue. So, we all represent each municipality for county issues. So sometimes it's good to hear from residents so that all county councillors understand what's going on because we all vote on matters."
She says there have been issues in the past with the current system.
"I would get an email from residents and then it would have some emails typed wrong. We have a lot of last names that residents have to spell, but residents were having typos. So that would mean that out of the 14, nine or 10 are getting it, not everybody is getting the same information."
Bondy says she likes administration's recommendation.
"So at least if residents want to email us something, say it's about Official Plan, or Transportation Master Plan, they can have one spot to email all of us. I think it makes sense from a residents point-of-view. We want to encourage residents to provide our feedback."
Currently, members of County Council can only be reached through email from their respective municipality. The County's website does not have a form or a link that would allow a single email to be sent to all members at one time.
County Council will meet tonight at 6 p.m.