Residents who want to appeal an action made by the City of Moose Jaw will no longer have to wait for hours during a city council meeting before making their presentation.
During its Oct. 28 regular meeting, city council gave third and final reading to a procedure bylaw amendment and voted 6-1 to approve the amendment. The change is intended to improve the meeting management process by allowing delegations to make their appeals during a regular council meeting — early on in the Committee of the Whole — rather than during the executive committee portion and hours into the overall meeting.
Coun. Brian Swanson was opposed.
In the last year, the municipality moved to a schedule to hold regular council and executive committee meetings on the second and fourth Mondays of the month, a report from the city clerk’s office explained. This essentially means council holds four meetings over two nights.
One of the unintended consequences is that citizen appeals, which are normally routed through executive committee meetings in accordance with procedure bylaw, are delayed to the second meeting, which results in residents waiting hours to be heard, the report continued.
The idea for appeals being heard in executive committee had been that the non-televised forum of the more casual meeting setting in the Scoop Lewry Room was supposedly less intimidating for participants. Since meetings are now held in council chambers and are televised, the reasoning no longer exists.
The exception to this clause would be when an exemption under the Local Area Freedom of Information Protocol (LA FOIP) requires the matter to be dealt with in-camera, the report added. Those matters, of necessity, would be dealt with in executive committee.
Inquiries
Council is slowly growing frustrated with the poor responses that city administration is providing about topics that have come up in the past but have fallen off the radar.
Coun. Scott McMann asked city administration about a report about the special needs transit van and when that report was coming. He pointed out administration promised to have the report for the Oct. 28 meeting, while this was the third time he had asked about the report.
“It is a work in progress,” replied Josh Mickleborough, director of engineering services. There is no specific date for the report to come to council, but it should be completed by the end of December.
The inquiry was about city administration promising to provide the report for the Oct. 28 meeting, said Mayor Fraser Tolmie. He thought city manager Jim Puffalt had previously given a date for the report to be provided. He wondered if it had been delayed.
At some point there was confusion about the issue, particularly with hours of use and ridership numbers, said Mickleborough. The report fell off the list since administration thought the issue had been addressed. Mickleborough added that he deferred to Puffalt on this issue.
Puffalt was not at the Oct. 28 meeting to provide an answer.
“In the past, when an issue comes up, council normally gets an update,” replied Tolmie sternly. “If we could get an update on reports that are promised and will not be delivered, it would be good for communications for council to be aware of and we would have more info.”
Council appointments
From Nov. 1 until Dec. 31, Coun. Chris Warren will act as deputy mayor, Coun. Crystal Froese will act as chair of the executive committee, and Coun. Dawn Luhning will act as chair of the personnel committee.
Council voted 6-1 on three motions to make these appointments.
Swanson voted against all three motions.
The next regular council meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 12.
