Musicians at WL Council Meetings

After Mayor Kerry Cook was sworn in on December 2nd, 2008, she has allowed musicians to play at Council meetings on:

December 16th, 2008
January 13th, 2009
February 24th, 2009

Now, I don't know about anyone who may read this blog, but my personal feeling is Council meetings are for the expressed purpose of:

a) Receiving Delegations relative to requests of Council or general introductions to Council
b) City Staff or Council business (Reports/Bylaws)
c) Correspondence
d) Proclamations

Council meetings' should not be for the purpose of allowing musicians play their tunes at a Council meeting.

Council meetings are a formal event, such is the case in the Parliaments of BC and Canada. At the January 27th, 2009 meeting of WL Council, Mayor Cook announced several changes to how Council conducts its' business including:

i) moving the meeting place for Committee of the Whole Council meetings from Council Chambers to Committee Room #1 because the Committee of the Whole meeting was too "formal" in Council Chambers

Now, allowing musicians to play at Regular Council meetings but moving Committee of the Whole meetings' downstairs to Committee Room #1 brings to mind three words:

"Height of Hypocrisy"

If Mayor Cook keeps this up (musicians playing at Council meetings' once a month) I'll be writing a letter to the editor on this subject because we must differentiate between formal City Council meetings' and musicians playing their "art" for the general public.

As a point of interest, former City of Vancouver, now Liberal Party Senator, Larry Campbell and his Council of 2002-2005 allowed musicians to play at their Council meetings' and I was not a fan of his Council decision then