Essex councillor calling on Mayor Snively to resign

After the mayor of Essex was fined $10,000 following a guilty plea to a charge under the Municipal Elections Act on Friday, one member of Essex council isn't holding back.

The charge was laid after the OPP began investigating in October 2018 after allegations over the misuse of proxy ballots, with several complaints received over proxy ballots being signed without proper consent.

Councillor Sherry Bondy says that Larry Snively should resign, and she's asking Council to unanimously request that he resign from his position.

Speaking on the Dan MacDonald Show, Bondy explained that a group of them hired a lawyer to get access to all of the emails surrounding the previous municipal election.

"In those emails there were repeat warnings to all candidates about how to use the proxy forms correctly," she continued. "And there were many emails directly to Mr. Snively himself, so I have a hard time buying that he didn't know."

Bondy says she learned from information received through a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request that 17 of the 30 nominations that Snively received for Mayor were through proxy votes.

"This is no coincidence, this was a plot and it's the intent as well. There were more people that were approached in Harrow by him asking if he could have their vote for proxy so there could have been a lot more. So what are going to tolerate as a council and what are we going to tolerate as an electorate?"

There is only so much that council can legally do when it comes to an issue like this, but Bondy says it's worth it to at least ask because if all seven councillors say they don't want Snively to remain on as Mayor that's a loud message.

"We as council need to stand up and do the right thing. People are asking for him to resign, council needs to at least ask that's the very least we can do. We've fixed our forms on how proxy's are going to be done in the next election, so I want the residents in the community to know that this will never happen again in Essex," she said.

Bondy says another thing she believes council should do is lobby the province to change the Municipal Elections Act, because an offence like this should make it illegal for someone to remain in the seat afterwards.

Snively has advised members of Essex Council that he intends to serve out the remainder of this term, but will not run in the 2022 Municipal Election. 

- with files from the Dan MacDonald Show