New BrunswickNew Brunswick now has three municipalities under the control of unelected supervisors until next spring’s elections. Supervisor named to run things after resignations force dissolution of councilSam Farley · CBC News · Posted: Nov 06, 2025 4:58 PM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.The council of Miramichi River Valley as it looked in May. Kevin Russell, the mayor, and Morgan Vickers, the deputy mayor, both at centre, resigned in recent months. (Miramichi River Valley)New Brunswick now has three municipalities under the control of unelected supervisors until next spring’s elections. Miramichi River Valley — an amalgamated community that includes Blackville, Renous and Sunny Corner — is the latest to see its elected government dissolved. A statement posted Thursday morning by the Local Governance Commission of New Brunswick said the municipality lost its quorum because of resignations.“This means that the council is no longer able to govern and direct the operations of the rural community,” the statement said. All three supervised municipalities, Miramichi River Valley, Sunbury-York South and Strait Shores, are amalgamated communities that did not exist before 2023.No details have been made available to the public about why the council in Miramichi River Valley fell apart.But in Sunbury-York South, a supervisor was appointed after the mayor resigned. Council had found he violated the code of conduct by signing a two-year lease for the municipality’s office space in Oromocto without bringing it to council for an official decision. In Strait Shores, a supervisor was appointed after months of turmoil, driven by a negative reaction on council to efforts by a new councillor to bring about more transparency. Commission advised compulsory trainingIn September, the Local Governance Commission recommended that all councillors in New Brunswick be subject to mandatory training to avoid problems such as those affecting some newly amalgamated communities. But the province is not going to act on the training recommendation until after elections next spring, Local Government Minister Aaron Kennedy said Thursday in an email statement.Kennedy said his department is “working in partnership with the municipal associations to look at how best to address training of newly elected officials following the 2026 municipal election.” Minutes and notices posted on the Miramichi River Valley website indicate there was a lot of changeover on the council this year alone. Two new councillors, Ray Croft and Paula Hare, joined after a May byelection following two resignations. Morgan Vickers resigned as deputy mayor in July, and another councillor, Amanda Brennan, stepped in to fill the role. A social media page for the municipality said the council meeting on Nov. 4 had been cancelled because of a lack of quorum. The would-be agenda for that meeting included three separate conflict-of-interest complaints and one code of conduct complaint, to be discussed in a closed session. Biographies and contact information for all those who were serving as councillors have been deleted on the website. When a supervisor is appointed, all councillor email accounts are deactivated, as they are no longer officially councillors.There was no response to a question sent to the email address of the municipality asking which councillors resigned and seeking their resignation letters. The province’s newest MLA, Kevin Russell, won a byelection in October for the riding that includes Miramichi River Valley. Russell was the mayor of the municipality before stepping down to run for the provincial office.CBC News requested an interview with Russell through a Progressive Conservative Party official but did not get a response.Supervisor experienced in local governmentThe appointed supervisor, Brenda Knight, will be in place until municipal elections in May 2026. A webpage for the Université de Moncton says that Knight runs a training course there for local government officials, and it outlines her extensive background in municipal governments. The biography on the page says Knight has worked in the municipal governments of Nackawic, Oromocto and St. Stephen. She has also held leadership roles within the Local Government Department and is a past president of the Association of Municipal Administrators of New Brunswick.ABOUT THE AUTHORSam Farley is a Fredericton-based reporter at CBC New Brunswick. Originally from Boston, he is a journalism graduate of the University of King’s College in Halifax. He can be reached at sam.farley@cbc.ca
Miramichi River Valley latest N.B. community to be left without a council
