While Mayor Dan Onichuk’s suggestion to start council meetings at a standard time for the benefit of the public was approved back on Jan. 12, council held off on passing a bylaw to put that policy into place Monday night after Coun. Roy Avis voiced a concern over the in-camera portion of the committee of the whole.
Coun. Avis noted in-camera business occasionally must be dealt with before the council meeting because a motion up for a vote at the latter meeting might have to be discussed at the former one first.
But the bylaw in question would see the in-camera meeting scheduled after the public sessions and not before, as they are now.
Additionally, in-camera meetings sometimes have individuals on hand, such as lawyers or Human Resources personnel, and they shouldn’t have to wait until after the evening’s council meeting, which could go on quite late.
Coun. Avis suggested council meet in-camera before the meetings, as they do now, but do it a half-hour—or more if required—earlier than they do now (which is usually at 5:30 p.m.) so the public portion can start at a fixed time, as Mayor Onichuk suggested.
Clerk Glenn Treftlin replied the difficulty with that suggestion was that agendas must be made up by the end of the day Thursday and that if a start time were to fluctuate, it would be very difficult to contact council members and others in attendance between then and Monday to ensure they could make the early start-time.
Council ended up deferring the bylaw to all four executive committees for further consideration, with the matter to come back before council at a future meeting.
Coun. Avis was not in attendance at the Jan. 12 meeting when council approved to have the new policy on start times drawn up as a bylaw.
Mayor Onichuk had proposed that the committee of the whole should meet at 6 p.m. every two weeks in council chambers at the Civic Centre (as opposed to downstairs where it meets now).
Once the committee of the whole meeting is over, the regular council meeting would begin, also in council chambers (where they currently are held).
Any in-camera business, which normally is held before the committee of the whole, would take place after the regular council meeting so neither the public nor media will have to wait for council to finish those private discussions before they convene for the two public meetings.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
