Erin’s evening council meetings will now be starting at 6:30pm and will offer the public a chance to ask questions to council.
Council approved the bylaw change at its Sept. 15 council meeting and the changes will go into effect at the next council meeting on Oct. 6.
Mayor Allan Alls requested at the Sept. 1 council meeting that council look into changes to the bylaw that would allow evening meetings to begin earlier and to add a question period to regular meetings.
“We sometimes tend to rush our proceedings at quarter to 11 and I’m not saying we make bad decisions, because I’d never own up to that, but we do tend to push it forward. I would like to see an earlier start and earlier finish,” said Alls.
Council will now offer the public the opportunity to ask questions to council at the beginning of each council meeting. Fifteen minutes have been allotted to this period.
“It certainly answers to the openness and transparency that we maybe can be accused of not having,” said Alls.
Brennan suggested council incorporate the question period into the agenda, so that if there are no questions, then they can move on to the next item.
Alls said the public can seek answers from council, but he would most likely turn to staff for answers. If an answer cannot be provided at the meeting, Alls said he would get those answers.
“I’ll guarantee that we’ll get the answer after the council meeting,” said Alls.
Brennan added council needs to provide answers to the public rather than the individual, if questions could not be answered right away.
“Hopefully the questions are such that we’re not providing information to that one individual person but the questions are such that the information is of value to the population at large,” said Brennan.
“I would want to make sure that if the question is asked and we don’t have an answer for it right here and now that we find some way to capture that and bring that back in the agenda of a further meeting, so that it is available to all people.”
