Rosetown councillor resigns; by-election set for March

EAGLE STAFF

Rosetown councillor Jadwiga Dolega-Cieszkowski has resigned from town council. Her letter was submitted ahead of the Oct. 20 council meeting, with the resignation taking effect Oct. 17.

Council has scheduled a by-election for March 18 to fill the vacancy. Under provincial rules, the vote must be held within six months of a resignation. The timing came too late to align with the Dec. 3 by-election to replace former councillor Joe Spratt. Council briefly considered a Feb. 14 vote but chose March instead.

“We don’t want to do it right away and super-close to Christmas because we have one already,” councillor Kimiko Otterspoor said.

Mayor Trevor Hay read a message from Dolega-Cieszkowski in which she wrote: “It has been an honour to represent Rosetown’s residents for the last five years.”

Hay said the resignation was unexpected and praised her contributions.

“She did some great work with us,” he said, noting her leadership of the Orange Memories Management Board, which helped stabilize its budgets and operations, and her efforts during the pandemic.

“That was a difficult time for us on council to go through COVID and the expenses it brought,” Hay said. “We actually came through that fairly well. We weren’t like a lot of other communities that had high increases in taxes because of COVID costs.”

Dolega-Cieszkowski was elected in November 2020 and also chaired the Public Works Committee.