The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Trustees put end to secret ballot for chair, vice-chair By Tim Whitnell METROLAND WEST MEDIA GROUP The Halton District School Board will no longer elect its chair and vice-chair by secret ballot. After considering advice from legal counsel, trustees voted at a recent meeting to change a bylaw related to how they elect the chair and vice-chair. The annual vote to determine which trustees will act as chair and vice-chair of the board for a one- year term now will be public record, meaning those in atten- dance will know for whom each trustee voted. By a 5-4 margin trustees voted to have the election of the chair and vice-chair now be done by a show of hands versus a recorded (vocal) vote. The elections take place the first Wednesday of each December at the annual meeting of the board. This years meeting will be held tonight at 7 p.m. at the J.W Singleton Education Centre, beside M.M. Robinson High School in Burlington. Burlington Trustee Peggy Russell, chair of the boards policy, bylaw and governance committee, told trustees that a conference call Install 4 Srolwlit PPm Chic The Ontario Fire Code requires that every home have working smoke alarms. Iceb Instali them LtUci in your home or cottage today! SPECIALS IN 327 Bron 90! she and Education Director Wayne Joudrie had with a board-retained lawyer determined the board inad- vertently had been violating Ontario's Education Act for an unknawn number af years by holding secret ballot elections for its chair and vice-chair positions. Traditionally, trustees have writ- ten down the name of their pre- ferred chair or vice-chair candidate in public but two scrutineers would count the ballots in private with the education director announcing the winner. No vote count was ever given. Russell said current board and previous Halton boards of trustees she was a part of were unaware they were in contravention of the act by conducting secret ballots. "When you find out you're doing something contrary to the act, you change your practice. The whole idea of a recorded vote is the public bas a right to know," said Russell, who noted she couldn't ever recall any objections from the public about previous processes around the secret ballot. During board debate about the proposed change in voting proce- dure, Russell indicated it didn't matter what trustees ultimately decided as she would exercise a trustee's right to call for a recorded vote when the elections take place. Russell said the voting proce- dural error was discovered as a result of legal counsel reviewing the policy and bylaw committees work. Trustees are revewing and updating their bylaws, ta, be fal- lowed by a review of board poli- cies. The role of the chair at board meetings is to steer trustees through their meeting agendas, try to maintain trustee focus and deco- rum and make rulings, when nec- essary, on the protocols to be fol- lowed by the board in making deci- sions. The vice-chair assists the chair and assumes the chair's role when the former isn't present, has a con- flict of interest or wishes to speak on a matter at a public board meet- ing. The current chair of the Halton board is Halton Hills Trustee Gillian Tuck-Kutarna; the vice- chair is Janie Hames of Burlington. Elected trustees earn between $13,000 and $20,000 per year - the amount varies based on stu- dent enrolment and whether they are a regular trustee, the chair or vice-chair. During their four-year terms all trustees also have an annual expense budget of up to $5,000, which can be carried over to subse- quent years if its not all spent. The Canadian Champion, Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - A3 $29 ,7.$29,5 Ony30,000ifll nly291747kr Balance 15 y Balanceof 160,00km Factory 5r160,000kmr warrantyFactory Warranty aooo 8spassenger Only 6ooo0km 160.owkr mFactor AWD, eatherAW rt onro o m9oo y