With Bonnie Crombie gone and ahead of a mayoral by-election, who’s in charge in Mississauga?

The City of Mississauga has been working without a permanent mayor for about a month since Bonnie Crombie officially resigned in January after winning the leadership of the Ontario Liberal party.

A by-election isn’t scheduled to fill Crombie’s seat until June. So what’s happening in the meantime?

“Councillors have been rotating as acting mayor really since even before January while the mayor was on leave last fall,” said City Manager Shari Lichterman, pointing out that this is not a unique situation.

Lichterman says while councillors could have chosen a deputy mayor on an interim basis, they opted instead for the current solution which – while rarely used – has been in place for decades.

“I can’t entirely speak for council on this, but I believe it was about fairness and about distributing the duties.”

Currently, the honour belongs to Ward 6 Councillor Joe Horneck who says the city hasn’t missed a beat.

“We are missing a full-time mayor but the city still rolls along,” he said. “It’s a bit of a change but we’re capable and we’re stepping up in the way that we need to.”

Acting mayors chair council meetings, attend city events, and represent Mississauga on various committees in addition to their regular duties as councillor. The one difference in this model is that any councillors who have expressed intentions to run in the mayoral election are not eligible to be part of the rotation.

“That was actually a rule I brought forward myself because I thought an acting mayor does get a little more profile in terms of the public events especially, so we want to make sure you remove that, it could possibly be seen as an advantage to anyone who is running for office, not only for somebody running for mayor but anyone running for any federal or provincial seat in the future their turn would skipped,” explained Horneck.

There are currently four city councillors who have expressed their intention to run for mayor – Stephen Dasko, Alvin Tedjo, Carolyn Parrish, and Dipika Damerla. The nomination period officially opens on March 6 with the mayoral by-election scheduled for June 10.