A second councillor from the Halifax Regional Municipality has announced he won't be running in the 2016 municipal election and suggests the size of council is part of the reason why.

Barry Dalrymple is in his second term and represents Waverley-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley.

He said he doesn't like not being able to serve people in the manner they deserve and feels council is too small now.

"It's far too big a district. This district is one quarter the size of the whole HRM and spread out over an hour and a half drive from one end to the other. It's rather ludicrous," he said.

Dalrymple said he was on the committee the looked at council reform and says they recommended 20 councillors. Currently there are 16 councillors.

Dalrymple said the city's Chief Administrative Officer Richard Butts is doing the job he was hired to do. (CBC)

He also sees increasing bureaucracy at Halifax City Hall and said it's frustrating trying to get things done as more procedures and processes are adopted.

"Some of the newer rules over the last number of years where you need a staff report to do anything — even just general stuff," he said.

Dalrymple doesn't blame city CAO Richard Butts and new measures he has brought in. He said Butts has slashed spending and he appreciates those efforts.

"The CAO has done actually, over the last three or four years, exactly what we hired him to come do," he said.

Job is 'becoming unrealistic'

The demands of the job are part of the issue as well. He told CBC's Mainstreet it has become a 24 hour a day, seven day a week position.

"If you want to do it, even half-ways right, you have to do that in an area this big with the amount of issues that are here," he said.

"It's become a very demanding, a very 'me, me, me, now, now, now' world with social media, instant media and those kind of things, to the point of, I would say, becoming unrealistic."

On Wednesday, District 8 councillor Jennifer Watts announced she would not re-offer in 2016. She said council needed new voices and was currently "very white, it's predominantly male and it also tends to be of an older generation."

Dalrymple agrees and said there is not enough turnover on city council.

"There's room there for more youth and more diversity," he said, adding there is someone out there younger and more in tune with the demands of the modern world who can do a better job.

He said there are also some personal reasons for the decision, noting he was single when he started as councillor seven years also and had the time to dedicate to the job. He is now in a relationship and said that deserves more of his attention.

Dalrymple said it's been rewarding to serve, but his time has come.

"I've had a full 33-year career in the RCMP. I'm in my 60s," he said.

"I only ran originally for four years to get some things done in the district that I thought needed to be done and virtually all of them have been accomplished."