The Mayor of Ritchot says community consultations begin this week in the municipality aimed at getting feedback on a number of important issues.

Chris Ewen says there are three topics to be discussed: Main Street revitalization, proposed ward boundary changes for 2018 General Election and policing services.

In terms of the ward review, Ewen says each ward needs to have a similar population in order to make an election fair. That means if one ward today has considerably more residents than the other wards, the boundaries will need to be realigned in order to bring populations as close as possible.

But, Ewen says they also want to find out whether residents even like the ward system. He notes the municipality could potentially drop down to three wards or possibly even do away with wards completely and work with an at-large system.

"We're going to listen to what the municipality and community members have to say about it," assures Ewen.

Meanwhile, in terms of police services, Ewen says they want to find out what the concerns are of residents, whether residents feel RCMP have the manpower and capabilities to help with these issues and how Ritchot can get police to provide more service.

"Do we look at bringing our own community police service," suggests Ewen. "Which is something that I think a lot of community members have talked about so we would like to hear more about it from them."

The community consultations start at 6:30 pm on each of the following dates:
October 24, 2017 @ Ste. Agathe Cultural Centre
October 25, 2017 @ St. Adolphe Pioneer Hall
October 26, 2017 @ Ile des Chenes TransCanada Centre
November 1, 2017 @ Howden Community Hall
November 2, 2017 @ Grande Pointe Warm-up Shed