It's not often that you hear about a town council calling a meeting for Christmas Eve but that's exactly what's happened at Crossfield Town Council as they meet tomorrow (December 24) to vote on a bylaw that could increase the number of members from five to seven.  

Council will meet at 10:00 am to vote on third reading to approve its Regulating Procedures of Electing a Mayor and Council bylaw.  If third reading is approved, the size of Crossfield Council will grow from five to seven after the next municipal election, scheduled for October 2021.

If approval for the move is given, it won't be the first time that Crossfield has been represented by six councillors and a mayor.  The town was served by seven people until 1995.

Second reading of the bylaw was given at council's regular meeting of December 15th and then the special meeting was called for tomorrow.

According to a Town of Crossfield Facebook post, it's believed as the population of Crossfield continues to grow, increasing the size of council by two members would ensure better representation for the diverse community and more diversity on council would create space for varied opinions.

Crossfield council currently has the second-lowest average compensation for councillors and the lowest for mayor when compared to ten Alberta municipalities of similar size with councillor compensation being 30.8 percent lower and the mayor's being 39.6 percent lower than the average of the comparison group.  Nine of the 10 comparable municipalities have councils consisting of six councillors and a mayor.

Increasing the size of council would result in approximately $17,000 cost increase to the town.  This year, the current council voted to rollback their compensation by five percent.

If the bylaw change is approved, Crossfield will continue to have the second-lowest-cost among the ten municipalities.

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