Newly elected Deputy Mayor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell presides over the council adjournment vote last Tuesday

NOTE: This post has been updated to include new information on the handling of the Code of Conduct complaint against Mayor Andrew Black.

In a move that caught some observers by surprise, Tantramar council has elected Debbie Wiggins-Colwell as the town’s deputy mayor.

At last Tuesday’s regular council meeting, she defeated Councillor Josh Goguen, the only other nominated candidate, by a vote of 5-2 gaining the support of Bruce Phinney, Greg Martin, Matt Estabrooks and Barry Hicks along with her own vote.

Councillors Michael Tower and Josh Goguen voted for Goguen while Mayor Andrew Black and Councillor Allison Butcher were absent.

Wiggins-Colwell will serve as deputy mayor until the next municipal election on May 11, 2026. The post comes with an annual pay raise of $5,258. The deputy mayor receives an annual salary of $31,548 while councillors get $26,290. Tantramar’s mayor is paid $52,581 per year.

“It’s a great feeling,” Wiggins-Colwell told Warktimes after her win. “I’m glad I had the confidence of my council.”

She acknowledged that the honour has been a long time in coming.

“Yes it has,” she said, “but it’s been a learning curve right straight through, so it’s been good.”

Black blocks vote

Before the forced amalgamation of the town of Sackville with the village of Dorchester and surrounding local service districts or LSDs, Wiggins-Colwell served as mayor of the former village and was considered a front-running candidate for the Tantramar deputy mayor’s post.

Black blocks vote on deputy mayor in January 2023

But in a controversial move that led to a code of conduct complaint against him, Mayor Black refused to give unanimous consent to add a vote for deputy mayor to the council’s first regular meeting agenda in January 2023.

The provincially imposed procedural bylaw requires a vote for deputy mayor at council’s first meeting and it has never been clear why it was not on the agenda.

Black himself explained his decision to block the vote this way:

“We have not had an opportunity to interact with one another. I would like us to be able to know each other and have an understanding of who we are as councillors and as council, before we make the decision of who would be the deputy mayor,” he said at the time.

The election for deputy mayor did not happen until February 2023 when Greg Martin narrowly defeated Wiggins-Colwell by 5 votes to 4.

Martin, who represents the former Point de Bute LSD, was supported then by Mayor Black and councillors Michael Tower, Allison Butcher, Josh Goguen and himself while councillors Matt Estabrooks, Bruce Phinney, Barrie Hicks and Wiggins-Colwell voted for her.

Code of Conduct complaint

Les Hicks

On August 7, 2023, Sackville resident Les Hicks filed a Code of Conduct complaint against Black for failing to follow proper procedures. He received a brief letter eight weeks later from then Deputy Mayor Martin saying council had met to review and discuss the complaint, adding: “Council has determined no violation of the Code of Conduct had been breached.”

An accompanying letter from Black acknowledged “error” adding that nine months later, members of council and town administrators “now have a better understanding” of the council procedures bylaw “and will work together to ensure process is followed.”

Hicks himself was not satisfied telling Warktimes he was disappointed and troubled that there was no explanation about why council had determined there had been no breach of the code of conduct.

In his response to council, he wrote:

“This might seem like a trivial matter and it might appear that I am personally persecuting Mayor Black but I assure you this is not the case. I voted for Mayor Black because of the commitment he made to transparent and accountable governance and I expect him to adhere to this promise.”

Warktimes seeks information

On November 24, 2025, the chair of the new local governance commission warned all municipal councils in New Brunswick that provincial law requires code of conduct complaints to be discussed and voted on in public.

Warktimes e-mailed CAO Jennifer Borne and Acting Town Clerk Becky Goodwin to ask for information on what happened when Tantramar council met behind closed doors to discuss the complaint against Black and how it decided that he had not violated the code of conduct.

Goodwin responded with documents from two closed-door meetings, the first on August 15, 2023:

The second, closed-door meeting was held on September 26, 2023:

The documents indicate that although a majority felt there was merit to the complaint on August 15th, by the second meeting on September 26th, the majority had decided no action should be taken.

Provincial law requires code of conduct complaints to be discussed in public, but since that wasn’t done, there is no way of knowing why the councillors who felt the complaint had merit, decided later that no action should be taken.

Mayor Black was not only present at both meetings when the complaint against him was discussed, he was also allowed to vote on whether it had merit and how it should be handled.