Hey Ho ..The Merry O...No

There's lots of time during Council meetings to do random figuring. 
Presentations and delegations last Tuesday took  one hour and twenty minutes.
Council did not complete the agenda until almost midnight. 
Overtime to complete the agenda  equaled time spent making presentations and  listening to delegations.

As the clock moved closer to midnight,  recommended   for approval , was  a development application which had taken months, several debates, hundreds of  staff hours and a mint to process.
It's a sixty-five million dollar development project.It will undoubtedly increase the assessment base by that amount. 
The previous Tuesday the vote to approve  staff's  recommendation  was seven to one.
The Mayor was absent.
Councillor Gaertner was consistent in  her argument that retail jobs are not as good as  office jobs andshe voted against.
As the clock came closer to midnight a recorded vote was taken
The Mayor and the Three Caballeros, Gallo, Gaertner and Ballard voted against the staff recommendation.
Councillors Abel,Thompson,Humphryes and Pirri voted in favour. 
I had left the chamber at 11.15p.m.
The vote tied. A tie vote is stalemate.
It is a non decision .. 
The Planning Act requires Council to make a decision.
The recommendation  must return to the Council table once more for a decision to be made. 
It will not happen until mid- July. 
Three more weeks of the construction season.  Without certainty.
The option is an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board which the Town  cannot possibly win.
Shades of the near-distant past.