June 22, 2011
Council to cut middle
meeting
by Vance Gutzman
If Bart Simpson were to sit on Deep River council, he would likely join
his colleagues in saying "Don't have a COW, man!"
That's because the consensus around the table right now is that council
should do away with its committee of the whole (COW) meetings.
That consensus was reached, appropriately enough, at council's
committee of the whole meeting this month, and it came about as a
result of a report prepared by council's procedural bylaw committee,
which recommended that council discuss the viability of eliminating COW
meetings.
As things currently stand, town council holds regular meetings on the
first three Wednesdays of each month, apart from ad hoc committee
meetings.
The first and third are formal council meetings, at which resolutions
and bylaws can be passed, while the one sandwiched in the middle is a
committee of the whole meeting, which serves more as a forum for debate.
It hasn't always been that way, however, and some members of council
this term have expressed a fondness for a return to the standing
committees the town used to operate under, as a more streamlined means
of bringing recommendations to council.
While there wasn't any discussion of returning to the standing
committee format this month, council members did express their support
for reverting to having just two regular council meetings each month.
One of the main driving forces behind eliminating committee of the
whole meetings, according to a report prepared by the town's deputy
clerk, Dawn Recoskie, is to allow staff more lead time between meetings
to prepare reports, and to cut down on the necessity of adding last
minute items to the agenda.
"Having two council meetings per month would be the preferable option,
because council always has the option of holding a special council
meeting should the need arise," Recoskie stated in her report.
Members of council were on the same page as the deputy clerk in terms
of that recommendation.
"I'm comfortable with two council meetings each month," Councillor
Chris Carroll said.
"There is significant staff time being spent preparing for meetings."
The recommendation also received support from Councillor Terry Myers.
"I'm not a huge fan of it," he said of the committee of the whole
structure.
"We're making more use out of special purpose committees. I don't think
we're using committee of the whole as it should be... it's more like a
council meeting except we don't pass bylaws."
A bylaw is expected to come forth for debate on the recommendation send
the COW structure to the proverbial abattoir.
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