Ward 7 voters will head back to the polls early in 2016, to elect a replacement for former councillor John Brassard who is now MP for Barrie-Innisfil.
Council had two options - to appoint a replacement or tohold a byelction.
While an appointment would be considerably less costly - $2,000 compared to over $40,000 for a byelection, it is "viewed as a less democrated process and it could be perceived that Council was affording an advantage to the individual should they choose to run in the next election," a staff report concluded.
There are three years remaining in the four year municipal term.
Brassard took an unpaid leave of absence from council to run his provincial campaign which he won by over 3,600 votes to defeat Liberal Colin Wilson and NDP Myrna Clark to become the new riding's first MP.
Historically, there have been seven previous resignations from city council, and six byelections were held to find replacements. In the other two cases, there was less than six months remaining in the term and replacements were appointed.
