Some changes are coming to New Westminster city council meetings starting this month.
Beginning Nov. 25, the city will hold public hearings at 7 p.m., instead of 6 p.m., as has been the case for several years. On evenings where public hearings are scheduled, the regular council meeting will begin at 6 p.m. and adjourn at 7 p.m. for the public hearing, with the regular meeting reconvening once the public hearing has ended.
The new time for public hearings is just one of a number of changes coming to council meetings.
“I think the reality is, in terms of what is being proposed, this actually won’t have much of an impact on our meetings,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “Our meetings will actually seem similar.”
In July, council approved a motion by Coun. Mary Trentadue directing staff to report back on efficiencies related to council meetings, such as time limits for council members’ comments/questions and limits on the number of times a councillor might comment. Last month, council considered some staff recommendations regarding changes to the council procedures bylaw, which is expected to be adopted at the Dec. 9 meeting.
Once the bylaw is approved, council meetings will adjourn no later than 10:30 p.m., unless a two-thirds majority vote of council agrees to extend it for one hour or less.
Trentadue said some council members often have more than one meeting on council days, with some days starting at 9 a.m.
“I have concerns about our ability to deal with really sensitive and complex issues after being in meetings for up to 10 hours,” she said. “I am concerned about the idea of making the best decisions for the community after that length of time in a meeting. ... I think that’s challenging. I think that’s challenging for people, and I don’t think it’s healthy.”
At the meeting where council discussed proposed changes to meetings, Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said council started meeting at 2 p.m. If the city’s task forces are interfering with the time that is needed for council, he said task forces and other committee meetings need to be changed.
“The transparent public part that involves democratic debate is not the part that should be sacrificed,” he said.
Changes are also coming to the open delegation period, which will be limited to 1.5 hours. Council has the option to vote on extending the time for open delegations.
“That is something to be proud of in New Westminster that we have that kind of access, that we don’t cut it off, that we are good and responsive to people and listen, even if they are telling us something we don’t want to hear. And even if are doing it one night in large numbers, that’s a good thing,” McEvoy said.
Trentadue doesn’t like the idea of requiring delegations to sign up to speak a week in advance, as is required in some municipalities, but she’s also concerned about the idea of delegations going on for an-hour-and-a-half.
“My sense of a council meeting is we are here to do the council business, to approve reports and move things along and approve people’s projects. In my mind, that is a very big reason why we have council meetings,” she said. “I think it’s important for the public to have access to council and to be able to communicate to council on specific issues, but I also think the public has other ways of doing that. They can make a phone call, they can email. There are other ways to reach out to councillors.”
Although staff had recommended reducing the speaking time for delegations to two or four minutes, subject to the decision of the chair and based on the number of speakers present, council voted to maintain the current five-minute speaking limit.
“It gives the public the same amount of time that councillors are allowed to speak and communicates that their voices are as important as ours,” said Coun. Nadine Nakagawa.
Nakagawa expressed concern about limiting delegations to two to four minutes, at the decision of the chair, as she fears that has the potential to create inequities.
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr said it’s rare that council has delegations that go on for hours, but listening to constituents is part of the job.
If a lot of people show up to speak as delegations, there’s usually a good reason for it and an issue of public interest, McEvoy said.
Once the bylaw is approved, council members will be limited to speaking a maximum of five minutes on any item on the agenda, including questions to staff, but they may speak for an additional five minutes, if given permission from the chair.
“If we are limiting the public to speak and to get their ideas in a certain amount of time, we should also hold ourselves to that same notion that we, as council, should be able to get our points across quickly and succinctly and be able to move things along so that we do not end up having council meetings that go past 10 o’clock,” Trentadue said.
Puchmayr and McEvoy expressed concern about the speaking limits on council members, saying it was undemocratic to limit debate among council.
“It may be OK for a council like ours, where we are all fairly like-minded and we all seem to care and trust each other, but you could have a situation where you could have a council that could take advantage of this and really exclude opposition and really exclude the general public, which would really exclude accountability,” Puchmayr said.
Other changes include: adjourning regular council meetings that follow public hearings by midnight on the day of the meeting, unless council agrees (by two-thirds majority) to extend the meeting; and requiring individuals or organizations wanting to make a presentation to council or committees to make a request in writing at least two weeks in advance of the meeting.
Nakagawa said she would actually like to see entirely different procedures implemented for council meetings. She said Roberts Rules of Order, a guide for conducting meetings, is an “antiquated system” based on a general from the 1850s.
“In Roberts Rules of Order, silence means consent. It means agreeing to something. I think this often is a case in council meetings; if you don’t raise your hand, does that mean you are voting against it? In fact, you are voting for it. I think in the current context, I think that is an incredibly troubling proposition – that silence equals consent.”
