A likely increase to four-year municipal terms is getting mixed reviews from Merritt’s current council members.

The provincial government is introducing legislation to change election terms from three years to four for municipalities, school boards and regional districts. If it gets through, four years will be the new term length at November’s general election in Merritt.

Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart told the Herald the legislation is expected to pass, which means B.C. municipalities will join Canada’s other nine provinces that have a four-year system.

Merritt Mayor Susan Roline told the Herald she’s in favour of a four-year term system, seeing it as a benefit to taxpayers because it would mean fewer elections.

“It also helps with local governments in that you get more time to learn your role, and perhaps to work on specific projects that you see are important for the community,” Roline said.

Roline said a four-year term allows elected officials more time to do their jobs given the extra year before an election where decisions are influenced by retaining votes.

Coun. Dave Baker said the four-year system has both pros and cons to it. He too pointed out the ability for an elected official to get more projects completed, but said four years could be detrimental for would-be first-time councillors.

“It’s very difficult to commit to four years,” he said. “I mean, look at us in the last three years. We’ve had two councillors [who] had to give it up and do byelections, which cost the city and taxpayers money.

“I’m afraid that some people are going to get in and say, ‘I can handle a year or two of this, but oh boy, I don’t know if I can do four,” Baker said, adding that he thinks it would have a similar effect on older councillors who might not want to make the commitment.

Coun. Kurt Christopherson said he’s not sure if he approves or disapproves of the four-year term.

Christopherson said he’s curious as to what the impact it would have on smaller centres.

He said he could see it causing more byelections given that sometimes jobs change and people move on.

Coun. Neil Menard said he thinks the extra year is a good thing and will provide new councillors an opportunity to learn, help save money on elections and give stability to council and towns.

Coun. Clara Norgaard also said she thinks it gives new councillors the opportunity to learn.

“The first year is sort of a learning process, and then you can be quite effective the next three years,” Norgaard said.

However, she also said she has mixed feelings about the change.

She said it can seem like a long time to serve, but can also be quite enjoyable depending on how progressive the council is.

She said this particular council can be a challenge to work with, but they’ve had fun moments as well.

Coun. Harry Kroeker said the extended term could be beneficial in adding time for councillors to finish projects without having to go through another election first.

Coun. Mike Goetz said the term length could discourage people from running for office.

“A lot of young people will not look at this because they simply do not want to commit four years because they may move or something,” Goetz said.

He said the other downside is the possibility of having a “bad” council for longer.

“Let’s be honest, if you get a bad council, you’re stuck with them for four years,” Goetz said.

Goetz said having fewer byelections could be a potential positive effect of longer terms.

“Every time you put an election on it costs $15,000, so if you can extend that by a year, that’s $15,000 you can use somewhere else in your budgeting,” Goetz said.

Roline said she thinks Merritt’s back-to-back byelections are more of an anomaly as opposed to a trend because there haven’t been many byelections in the past.

“In my memory, I can probably count on one hand how many byelections we’ve had,” Roline said.

The City of Merritt has had three byelections in the past 13 years.

Kroeker offered a solution to curbing any byelection woes, saying that the government should make it so that rather spending the money on a byelection, the candidate with the next highest number of votes in the previous general election should be able to fill a vacant seat.

Most of the councillors and the mayor said the potential extra year doesn’t factor into their decisions to run for re-election in November. Roline said she’s leaning toward running again, and Christopherson, Kroeker, Baker and Norgaard said they were undecided. Goetz and Menard confirmed Merrittonians can expect to see their names on the ballot.