City of Powell River councillors will participate in a workshop in the new year to iron out a proposed new procedure bylaw governing council business.
At the December 5 committee of the whole meeting, deputy corporate officer Jessica Lefort presented options to revise city council’s procedure bylaw to move forward with bylaw amendments.
Lefort said city staff had conducted lots of research into best practices in other municipalities. Her recommendation had eight changes to the procedure bylaw with the focus on efficiency and effectiveness of meetings and overall modernization of the policy.
“Staff wanted to provide a starting point for discussion to ensure you get the desired procedures in place,” said Lefort.
Recommended measures include addition of a consent agenda to regular council agendas to deal with matters that council has strongly supported at committee. The consent agenda presents a block of motions that council can deal with in one motion, while still having the opportunity to bring out items for further discussion.
There is also a recommendation to start regular council meetings at 5:30 pm rather than 7 pm, with a requirement to adjourn all meetings after four and a half hours. Also suggested is a scheduled recess at all meetings.
The proposal includes reducing committee of the whole meetings from two to one per month.
There was also the suggestion of limiting question period to three minutes per speaker and limiting delegations to five minutes.
Reduction of speaking time per council member from 15 to 10 minutes is recommended.
Lefort said staff’s intention was to bring forward the city council meeting schedule for the December 21 council meeting for approval, as well as the revised procedure bylaw.
Councillor Earl Almeida said he was in favour of all the recommendations except for limiting delegations to five minutes. He said making presentations in five minutes is a big challenge. He said he would be in favour of keeping the delegation limit at 10 minutes.
Councillor Cindy Elliott advocated for two committee of the whole meetings per month.
Mayor Ron Woznow moved that staff prepare amendments to the procedure bylaw omitting the recommendation to reduce two committee of the whole meetings from two to one per month, limiting questions during question period to three minutes and limiting delegations to five minutes.
Councillor and committee chair George Doubt said there was a number of items before the committee dealing with many different things and many complicated issues.
“They deserve some thought,” said Doubt. “It is, in reality, the basis of procedure for this group. I would be in favour of referring this to a workshop of some kind so council can have an eyes wide open discussion on all the possibilities. There are things that could throw a monkey wrench into trying to get things done in city council.”
Chief administrative officer Lisa Bhopalsingh said staff were bringing the matter to council to present some unfinished business, and what staff were hearing is that more time is needed. She said a workshop would be super. She said time was running short toward the end of this year.
“I want to emphasize staff is bringing forward their best efforts to have something for you to respond to and you’ve certainly responded, so thank you,” said Bhopalsingh.
The committee defeated Woznow’s motion.
Elliott then made a motion to refer the matter back to staff to come back with a date for a workshop. The committee carried the motion unanimously.
Bhopalsingh recommended that the workshop be scheduled for January.
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