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Governance Sub-Committee
November 30, 2004 Report
Present: Councillors Mitchell (Chair), Samson and Collins
Absent : Braden, Whitehead
Staff: Kevin Christenson, Rose Caterini, Mary Gallagher
Media: Kevin Werner (Brabant)
Minutes of previous meeting moved by Samson, seconded by Collins. Approved.
Dave Mitchell: Presentation by Matt Jelly - he can't make it this morning, I guess he's not prepared, so I hear from the Clerk's dept.
When you look at item 3 on here, he would like to present to us on having an open public question period for City Council. Now we're not going to deal with this today till Matt can attend in front of this committee, but just my own personal opinion would be that we have a committee structure to appear in front of committees and I don't think we should be opening up the council for this, but I do want to hear his request in his presence so if we could discuss it then.
When I saw this I asked the clerk, could we make a ruling on this today? No that wouldn't be appropriate..we should hear from the delegation that is requested to be here, so that will be on the next agenda item next meeting.
Standing committee reports to Council and distribution on agendas, Mr Clerk?
Kevin Christenson: For those of you who were part of the committee at the time, Governance Review committee asked us to provide information on the role (gap in tape) ... for municipalities and comparing their procedural by-laws. We currently have a role of the chair in our procedural by-laws, this just enhances the duties.
In terms of what's passed here, the intent is that this would be a sent out to all members of council, there's been a number of new appointments as you've been aware of to the standing committees and then subsequently next year there'll be members of council who haven't had the opportunity to chair before, and this should be handy for them to follow in terms of what their responsibilities are.
We've also offered to meet with any of the Chairmen either currently or the ones that are going to be appointed for the next year of Council to run over the procedural by-law and bring them a little more up to speed and a little more comfortable with their role, but our recommendation is that this be sent out to all members of council and this be used as a guideline if they want to speak to us that'd be fine.
Mitchell: Thanks. Questions Chad?
Chad Collins : Mr Chairman I'm just curious as to whether everyone on council has received this? Can I ask that if you haven't then that Governance specifically sends this copy of the report as it relates to the role of committee chairs to council members?
Christenson: Mr Chairman, that is the intent and that is the recommendation here. (Reads intent that all council members with more descriptive role)
And then the offer to meet with any member of Council who would require any further guidance.
Mitchell : So you'll move that Art? Seconded by Chad. All in favour - carried.
Christenson: (Suggests attaching procedural by-law to guidelines so all in one package for Council members.)
Mitchell: Could you note that too Mary please I'll call the question again on that then.Just a quick comment - I circled one here Mr Clerk. The one that's about seven or eight down: "Permit questions to be asked through the Chair by any officer of the City in order to provide information to assist in any debate when the Chair deems it proper".
I do appreciate very much the input from our staff and would encourage our staff to put their hands up and be recognized to put something in they feel is there and I think that's very important and can help speed things up on occasions, not necessarily enter into the debate, but when they feel that they have information that helps. Sometimes as councillors we can go on and on for a long time, and if there's a tidbit of information that can help make the decision, I'd sure like to hear it. So just . All in favour of this role of the chair? Moved by Samson, seconded by Collins. All in favour, carried.
While we're on that subject, I'm the vice-chair of this committee, and have been last term, I want to leave it till we have a full committee, but I think we should appoint a chair or elect a chair, and a vice-chair when we get everybody present.
OK?
Item Number 5
Christenson: (reads re standing committee reports to council and distribution of agendas as a result of Don coming to our meeting back in April where he had provided comments on the process of distribution and I guess the turnaround time for reports coming from a standing committee to Council and the Governance Committee had requested that we report back on this. We've had an opportunity to meet with staff and consider the options that are available to us on this, and we're recommending at this point that the Standing Committee schedules that meet during the week of Council continue to do so. The options that we have are to move the committee meetings back a week, which we've considered in terms of the scheduling not an easy thing to do especially given that the 2 community services and social public health committees are now divided and there'll be 2 days that they're required now instead of one.
The other option was to have the meeting take place the week of Council but not report to Council for the following 2 weeks and I would suggest to you that given the time frame of the report writing process and review of printing we go through it's an excessive amount of time since the report is written to the point it would be getting to Council, and I understand Don's concern in this that the committees meeting on Tuesday, the report going to Council on Wednesday night, the only times that we see available to move it back a week would be Thursday, is that right Rose? Monday afternoon. Thursday is taken up by I think Corporate Management Team meets every Thursday. We do our report review with them every other Thursday so that would require them making some changes to their schedule we would still continue to get those reports out electronically and Don I don't know if we do that, do we send those out to you now? When those reports from those committees who meet on Tuesdays are completed you probably receive them Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday?
McLean: No, I don't actually see the reports, I don't think I'm on a reception list.
Christenson: Well then I think what we recommended in here is that we could add you to the distribution list the same time that Council is receiving those electronically as well as a hard copy in Council, we would be very happy to do that as well, but it's just the scheduling as we have it now would be extremely difficult to change that. Now the other issue that we had Don raised. 48hours is the time delay between when we distribute our copies of reports and agendas to members at Council We've done a survey, Don felt specially on Fridays with the Monday meeting, it didn't allow a whole of time for public to digest what was before them in the reports. We've done an assessment of other municipalities and feel that 24 hours is a more adequate time frame narrowing it down by a day that we could distribute it to members of Council and then within 24 hours have it out the public. I think from our comparison to other municipalities, ours was fairly lengthy at this point, And we were quite comfortable with that distribution time frame.
So those are our recommendations
- that it remain the same in terms of the schedule and
- that the 48 hours be amended to reflect 24 hour distribution
Art Samson : So how would that work in terms of meeting?
Mitchell: If a meeting was held on Monday, the reports would be distributed I believe on Thursday? - (Rose corrects) Tuesday - and it think it was some issues with long weekends and things like that somehow made it even worse, so we're hoping that 24 hours would satisfy your concern.
Samson: So they would get it 24 hours after the council meeting
Christenson: Yes that is correct. I know that we put Community Services and Public Health separately last week. Just make a note it would seem to me there's a lot more decisions and issues on Community Services that could get brought forward to be discussed and debated at that committee.... so that maybe that's noted in here Councillors could request more information with regards to what's happening in our community services. Still a big area and an important part of the..
Mitchell: Motion for deciding Moved by Samson seconded by Collins. All in favour? Carried. Thank you.
Item 6
Mitchell: Standing Committee. this was an item that was brought to the Governance Committee by Coun. Braden and it's unfortunate that he's not here. I will comment on it and it may be appropriate to leave this till he's available as well. But he was asking if it's possible to add a curfew to the standing committees the same as we have for city council and quite frankly I don't think it's something that is necessary. At council where we have a curfew which was generally we never had a curfew at regional council in old regional days (did we?) and we didn't at city council and I'm finding it was the area of municipalities when we combined the procedural by-laws back in the transition time that had a generally a curfew in their procedural by-laws and I'm finding at council quite frankly that it is just a procedural issue that we're required to go through and we're not going to stop and 9 o'clock and I don't believe we'd stop during a committee meeting when you have delegations and public there either.
I would instead of going this route on a standing committee curfew I would like to see .. on a procedural by-law for council as well. It's just an administrative function that we have to do at 9 0'clock, ten o-clock we waive the rules consistently. Those would be my comments, but I would also suggest that Councillor Braden may want to comment on this as he raised the issue.
Samson : I don't really see a need for a curfew.. I think maybe that the early curfew maybe should be 10. but I guess we should wait for Coun Braden.
Mitchell: We've got a committee for a reason. Chad?
Collins: I agree with Kevin, in terms of . I really don't think it serves a purpose right now. Trying to apply this to a committee structure is difficult because often times specially for planning because those meetings have been advertised well ahead of time so to cut it off at a certain time I think would be problematic. so to be fair to Dave instead of convening in here we'll just move it and refer this to Corporate Services of which he's a member.
Mitchell; I'd like to see us send this committee's feelings on and we have our staff here that have come in and put their feelings on it Coun Samson just spoke, what I remember from Glanbrook was it was 11 0'clock as well, so it was later in the evening for council and it needed unanimous support at 11 0'clock or the meeting was done. So it had to be a really important issue to keep going past 11 0'clock. I'm sure. Kevin, that every municipality had something different. So a compromise Art, might be to leave it there for council but to extend it to 11 0'clock?
Christenson: Through you Mr Chairman, my only comment would be that we do have 2 curfews and as you know that at 10 0'clock we sometimes will waive another rule and it's simply that no new information are to be brought forward
So you'r not adding new items and maybe 11 0'clock for both is appropriate so you have one rule for both
Collins: Well, I can't really think of a circumstance where you would even at 11 0'clock suggest that we end the meeting. We would always say, look how much have we got left on the agenda? In my time on council I can probably think of maybe half a dozen times where we've gone past 11 o'clock.. We usually say instead of holding this over trying to re-schedule everyone's calendar why wouldn't we just continue on with the meeting. Either 11 0'clock, my understanding 10, but we're just going to end up waiving it as we are the 9 and 10 o' clock hours.
Mitchell : I agree. How be we have a motion to leave it as the Clerk suggested and forward it through Corporate Services to allow Coun Braden to see it.
That the curfews be deleted from our procedural by-laws and this information be forwarded to Corporate Services for further discussion. (Secretary Rose comments)
Motion carried.
Mitchell: OK we've got several items referred from committee as a whole to this. One of them I referred myself. Representation on by staff on the District Heatlh council and Conservation Halton and that's because our councilors are getting spread pretty thin and aren't attending often enough because of their meeting schedule. Was there any homework done on that Rose?
Rose Caterini: The District Health council has indicated that it would accept other than an elected officials to their committee.. with the District Health Council, the Ministry of Health has to approve that appointment so we can make a recommendation.. So it's at your discretion whether you want to appoint .or a staff member instead of an elected official that would be acceptable by District Health.
Mitchell : Do we have a staff member or an elected official?
Caterini: Recommended?
Mitchell : Yes
Summary: there is a databank with volunteers from the public
Mitchell: Coun McHattie and I were appointed to this committee and we initially agreed that one of us would always try to be there. He found that he could never be there so he resigned and that left me and I try to attend half of the time but there is conflicts so it's not fair to that organization to not have city of Hamilton representation there. So.
I do know that we appoint citizen members in place of us for some other committees. We used to have council appointment to the Niagara Conservation authority - we don't now we have citizens. Discussion?
Samson : I would say that citizen. staff member . (tape inaudible)
Collins: (hard to hear on tape) Well I'm really not fussy either way... I'm usually concerned when we lose representation on a committee where we have some potential funding at stake from the municipality. In this instance I don't believe.. I understand our contribution to District Health Council was..
In of itself from that standpoint still think it is important to have a voice but . a citizen, I second that..
I suggest that if we have someone on file - we look at that process first and failing having someone in the wings then I would totally select a citizen.
Mitchell: You all clear about that? Have someone on file first .. and . (if we have to?) then ask for applications and got to the selection committee.
Art comfortable with that? All in favour - carried. Thank you.
Samson: Could I just say with regard to Conservation Halton I believe there is an individual in Waterdown area who Coun McHattie mentioned to me I forget the name now.. (Secretary addressed) name is on list of people who applied to ad)
McHattie has the name, he gave it to me. He will certainly give you the name.That jurisdiction comes on the edge of Dundas.. Coun McHattie asked me first
Did we advertise for this? We did. So we appointed the one. We can almost do the same thing as District Health Council. You can go to the other applications that did apply or do a little more homework on this replacement who's interested.
Sec: There were other applicants.
Mitchell: Could you work with Coun Samson and Coun McHattie and try to make a decision there whether it should come to Selection Committee or not?
Chad are you comfortable with that? If it's a person that's already applied that would be excellent. And with regards to the District Health Council - I think we had 3 appointments and we didn't fill the 3 rd one this council.
Staff: (Three recommendations)
Mitchell: So we're not looking for 2 we're looking for one more, that's fine. I want to make sure we get the one because I can't be there all the time. I won't resign but I just can't get there all the time. OK? Do we need a motion on the Conservation Halton then separately? Moved by Coun Samson, seconded Coun Collins that we go back to the databank or people that have applied and see if there's an interest in the participant to be appointed to Conservation Halton and if not then we go to Selection Committee. OK? All in favour? Excellent.
Mitchell: Make up of the Future Standing Committee numbers and members to be reviewed. I guess we've had. turn it over to you Mr Clerk.
Christenson: This has come about - the procedural by-law dictates that there's a maximum of 8 members on any of the standing committees -some have the maximum right now, others have 6 I think is where we are. I know that , again to reinforce that all member s of council are invited to attend and speak on any standing committee regardless if they're a member or not - they can't vote however of course when the issue comes to council. However Coun Braden has expressed an interest to be on the Planning and Economic Committee based on the temporary appointment which was an error in our record-keeping at the time. He was noted as being appointed for the September appointment - he has indicated to me that he is willing to step down understands that, but would like us to review the numbers on that committee and I guess others. It's 8 right now - do we want to increase.
Collins: Well I'm certainly not willing to increase the numbers and looking back at the history of the subject I was a little miffed at the start of the term. I had a conflict for one governance meeting and the governance meeting that I missed somehow this committee meeting decision changed the composition from 6 to 8 to politically accommodate people on certain committees. That really bothered me at the beginning of the term. Because if you look at the scenario that we have - we have five standing committees and with 15 councillors and a mayor we would have had a situation where we would have had 5 committees of 6 council members and that would have meant that everyone served on 2 committees and so we had this discussion last term. I know there are some people who wanted to merge committees who wanted to increase the number of councilors on certain committees and so to just to recall the history understanding that's where we started and now we're looking at possibly beyond 8 in my mind is a little troublesome and I just think it makes for an odd situation. The region and the city I thought we had fairly set rules and we live by those rules and at the beginning of the term we tried to accommodate people for their interests - you're interested in certain subjects like Public Works, or Planning or whatever it is - usually everyone was given their first choice if possible, then beyond that tried to distribute the committees composition so it's evenly spread out.
Now we have a system where everyone's jumping onto committees and we're changing the numbers, we're actually even proposing to possibly reduce the number of committees and I just think it's a system that's - it's an odd system that isn't working as well as it should. And I think there should be some discussion prior the next term in revisiting this whole issue of how many standing committees councilors sit on. Here we an instance of councilors resigning from sub-committees because they don't have the time, and if you're sitting on 3 standing committees I can understand why someone may not have the time to sit on sub-committees, so those are my thoughts on the issue and I really think this needs to be on the agenda as I said prior to next term to sort this out and I really think the current system that we're working under it isn't the most judicial system.
Mitchell: I hear what you said and I agree with you in a lot of cases. I don't recall this committee dealing with it. What I recall was a full committee of the whole we had planning and public works because of the workload that they have all for those committees going to 8 and the rest of them staying at 6. Now it may have gotten sent to this . I don;'t totally recall.
Staff: Several members wanted to keep it 6-8 Public Works and Planning have 6
Collins: That's certainly correct, I think we're trying to accommodate certain people's first and second choices rather than just accommodating everyone's first choice and that for me I think is problematic and shows preference for certain individuals over others...
Mitchell: I notice my name's on 3 committees -which other than planning and public works which were the 2 that I recall as being 8, in my mind the rest should have been all 6 so Art's a new councillor he's on Community Services I would definitely withdraw my name from Community Services to bring it back in line that we have 4 with 6 and 2 with 8.
Collins: ....there's no rhyme or reason to this.
Mitchell: No I believe I probably was some of the problem with that planning committee 'cos I requested it - I don't think I was one of the original 6 and then I think the feeling of all committee as a whole and council was there's so much development going on in Ward 11 that it was very appropriate to have the Ward 11 councillor regardless of who that was on the committee because of the amount of action and the amount of issues that were there. And no-one was willing to back down to allow that to take place so it could have been me that created some of the 8 but that wasn't by my choice It was about the reality of where the development that's taking place in the city, But I agree with you it's not a fair scenario and don't look quite right. I don't need to be on 3 committees. And I think there;s 4 or 5 councillors on 3 committees.
So how that happened I understand it but how do we get this committee recommend we get it set back to something that would be equal and fair and how do you decide who should be on what - I think it was the Mayor's platform that he brought forward for all of us to pass and to keep the meeting shorter we passed it.
Collins: Well if you ask me I don't think there is a way to . they requested obviously those committees at the beginning and taken on a workload that they felt comfortable with at that time and I think that they should live up to whatever promises they make.. to start giving them up now and taking the best ones politically from that perspective and discarding the others I don't think is right. So someone's picked 3 committees at the beginning of term, then they should be attending those committees.
Mitchell : Oh I agree with that, it's just how do you make the correction and the reason this is here is the fact that we've also had some new councilors come on board and to try to be fair to them - how do you be fair to them as well?
Collins: .presumably they take the same committees for the councilors they replaced. That's what happened when I took Agostino;s place.
Mitchell : But that didn't necessarily put you to where the best advantage was to the city. It didn't use your talents to the best of your abilities and I think that's what our council's trying to do here, is to take councilors and put them in places they fit to help better the whole city not just "you're going there because the previous fella was there". That's my concern. Mr Clerk?
Christenson: ( Agreed with Mr Collins that change mid-tern would be problematic. 6 members of council set out in by-law up o maximum of 8 can be appointed. Appropriate time to make changes is to make recommendation issue is revisited before the end of the term of council. To make changes now is inappropriate)
Samson: . I guess I don;'t understand the limitation of the 8. (Relates experience from school board )- had been a member on board then off and then cam back on, then found stipulation that 9 was liimit on committee. There were 10 - had a vote. I had certain expertise, but I didn't make it on the committee. I guess I felt that I had a degree of expertise and I'm wondering if that can happen here.. Take Dave (Mitchell's situation) Say there were 8 other people wanted to be on the planning committee and if were not voted on, how do you make that decision if you've got more than 8 people interested? I would have thought probably 8 was the maximum, I thought the issue was people not wanting to be on lots of committees rather than . do you have a vote?
Mitchell: We had everybody's ame up on a board and some committees had more desire to be on than others so we broke into little discussion groups and talked amongst ourselves, and somebody backed down off this one and go over to that one and kind of negotiated back and forth and Coun Braden did not get one of his main choices. But he did volunteer to back down for the sake of going forward.
Caterini: Planning and Public works ended up with more. Braden temporarily replace Horvath which is how he ended up there..
Collins: I recall the checkmarks system this year ...
Mitchell : and the mayor recommended a slate
Collins: But didn't we do the checkmarks system this year too?
When did the slates come out?
(discussion on the slates. )
Christenson: We went from the committee as a whole structure .. part of the problem was we started to get too many members on any standing committees and our quorum issue who was really responsible to be there. But I just remind the committee again that every member of council can go and speak at any standing committee and even if the recommendation isn't forwarded by the standing committee, it;s in the background of the report that goes forward and any member of council can still speak to it and council and ask that it be lifted from the background. There's still some process here by which any member of council can really contribute to any standing committee without being a member.
Mitchell; There's six standing committees and up to 8 is in our procedure by-law. The only place we still have a problem is a request by Coun. Braden to be on Planning and Economic Development. So that 's the decision this committee is being asked to deal with.
Christenson: I don't know if I would limit it to Planning and Economic Development Committee, I don't know if that's where he wants to go with that. (asks staff)
Collins : I don't think we have the power as this committee to appoint someone to a committee..
Mitchel l : No, we'd have to recommend
Collins: Can we consider this at Council
Christenson: There is a process that this committee would have to follow to recommend to Corporate Admin committee and subsequently probably have a reconsideration of what would be before Council on another process of amending a procedural by-law.
Collins : Again for reasons I stated earlier I'm not in favour of increasing the composition and I think Coun Braden was disadvantaged because of a process that was flawed at the start. He should have been accommodated, I believe he was in Public Works and Planning - instead of putting him on 3 committees and letting people take the bulk of the two most popular committees (and there are a number of them - planning, Public Works, Coun Braden should have been given one of those positions, no doubt about it. And I think that illustrates the flaw of the process. I voiced those concerns earlier at the time and I still hold them today, so I would suggest that we begin, I don't know procedurally how you want to do this, from a Clerk's perspective, but prepare a report similar to the Corporate (tape faint) dealt with last term and look at the whole system looking at composition, public committees, number of committees so we have something in place and even the selection process - and in fact this was distributed to council and those sheets be filled out by councilors and then be submitted to clerks, and then passed on to another office where those decisions were made. Although we did have a discussion a week later and it was endorsed by the meeting as a whole, I think there's a better way of going about it so everyone's treated fairly.
Mitchell: I agree with you and if you've got a better way, I'd like to have this committee deal with that at the end of the term and recommend it for next term at council. Isn't that what you're after?
Collins: Yes
Mitchell: So right now we need to make a decision on this 8 and what I'm hearing is that we're going to stick with it for the term of council and try to make a recommendation for next term on how to get this ironed out. Art?
Samson: I hear there's recognition that the procedure has a flaw, it just seems to me that if that;s recognized now after one year of the term and there's two years of the term to go - and seems to be only one individual that seems to be interested in. (tape faint) I don't understand why an exception to that cannot be made at this particular time, and then work on correcting the flaw so that that doesn't happen in the next council. I see every term on council as being an entity unto itself Councillor Braden may never run again, or he may not be successful in the next term, and to say we recognize there's been a flaw and something has happened - I go back to my own experience.
I was voted off that committee for that particular term and it was something I felt wasn't fair to me. For that particular term. if we were in the last year of a term.or something like that - but there's 2 years to go in this term and if Coun Braden really feels that - obviously he's got into it, in that interim period ...I agree fully that everybody has a complete opportunity to go meetings and so forth, I really appreciated that in my 2 months here, probably the biggest issues have been regarding the committee I haven't been on, and I certainly appreciated the welcoming attitude I've received from the Chairman of that particular committee allowing my input into it - I've no problem, but I see in this instance here we have a councilor that really wants to be on that particular committee and I think we should accommodate that rather than throwing the rule of 8 - that would be my feeling, realizing that there is some kind of a flaw and we're going to work on that for next term of Council, why have that. no, no there's the rule.
Mitchell: Well Art, I could take a motion to that effect that that request be sent on to Corporate services I guess.. You know you don't have support from the other 2 that are here. (laughter)
Samson: I hear that.
Mitchell: I think you'd have a real good debate if Coun. Whitehead was here. Mr Clerk, any advice for us here?
Christenson: The information and the background of this report will be there if you want to raise it at Corporate and Admin committee you could do so as well, based on this report going forward. Um.. I'm in the hands of the committee here. If you want to raise it to 9 if it's raised at Corporate Admin and approved by council we'll follow that process and do what we need to do to amend that procedural by-law.
I'm just not so sure that if you open the door to the one, and there's not somebody else sitting there and I only raise that - I don't know what you might end up having, that's not an issue for me, I just follow the process whatever I'm directed to do.
Mitchell: The other question I have is can we make an attempt at e-mail on the current members on that committee and see if there's anybody - I should maybe ask Coun Braden to do that. maybe there's somebody.. (End of side one of tape)
(Side Two of tape)
Mitchell : and if they are going to prefer something else, then how are we going to accommodate them? Like, you're kind of in a no-win for somebody or every term of council. I do recall Jed on regional govt that the new rookies that came in - cos when I came in here out of Glanbrook I was told I had to serve on social and public health I didn't have any choice (laughs). Ok - that;'s how they got around it with the new rookies then, so now but I got one of my first choices which was environmental and infrastructure committee or whatnot because the landfill site was out in Glanbrook and so on, but I had to serve as a rookie on what I was told what to do.
Now we're not going with this rookie policy with this city council but anyway I do remember that Mary! (laughter)
So the question here if I'm acting chair, now as vice-chair, if there was a motion moved I can't second anything put forward or can I?
Christenson: You would have to give the chair to someone (laughter)
Mitchell: Cause I agree with Coun Collins - leave it the way it is, we'll deal with it at the end of the term.
Christenson: Well in that case, if Coun Samson moved the motion there's no seconder it would still go into our record - if there's no seconder it would be noted and that's where I mean this process is again, if Coun Braden was at that meeting or yourself and somebody wanted to raise it in the background it could still you know.
Mitchell : OK - Art, do you want to put that on the floor?
Samson: Yes, I just want it noted that I was going to raise, I moved the motion but I realized I don't have a seconder.
Mitchell: So things stay status quo right now unless Corporate Admin committee concludes that they would preier it to be somewhat different, and it should also be noted that discussion was held that recommendations be made from this committee for next term.
Christenson: I think that's appropriate to move and second that. The direction is that court staff report back prior to the end of the term council on membership of the committees and the selection process.
Mitchell: Any other business?
Samson: If somebody on the existing committee decided to step down, then it would be just a matter of filling, wouldn't it?
Mitchell: That's right. But do we have a process for somebody resigning off a standing committee or not?
Christenson: I'm sure if that was the case, Mr Chairman, I'm sure there would be a reason and some discussion would have taken place with somebody else.
But if we were going to fall below the 6, then would be in the process of having to go around ask members of council who would be willing to step in and fill that vacancy.
Mitchell: Any other discussion?
Christenson: You have a motion on the floor about staff reporting back on that issue, so I think we just need a mover and seconder.
Mitchell: Moved by Chad seconded by Art? Any other business somebody wanted to discuss? Don, did you have any concerns you wanted to throw onto the table just before we close?
Don McLean: Just one of the things you might want to think about in terms of this committee structure, is with the strategic planning and budgets committee, somebody who's sitting on 3 committees may end up sitting on 4 because they move on as a chair.
Mitchell: Right now, that's me
McLean: OK and that may be.. there was some discussion I think at the last meeting that strategic planning and budget should be as a committee as a whole.
Christenson: I know there was some discussion, I don't think it actually came to the floor of the committee. I know I heard that sort of discussion as well, but with the limitation of each member of council being a chairman of one standing committee during the term, you are going to end up potentially with somebody serving on 4 committees but that every member of council will have one term as member of that strategic planning and budgets committee. You're right it could become onerous for somebody and they're going to have to determine at that point what their schedule will accommodate.
Mitchell: I think Don some of it was last term everybody on the committee as a whole everybody was expected to be here anyway. So now that you're on standing committees, if you were one of those players that were going to be here anyway, it really wasn[t that much different so. it's up to the individual councilor how often they can attend committee meeting.
McLean: I just wanted.. it's that mathematical thing starts kicking in when you've got the chairs moving to another committee, so .
Mitchell : There's no doubt (tape faint) It would be easier if we've got a full committee of people here round this table.
Meeting adjourned
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