Steve Rant - City of WL Council Actions & Hypocrisy from April 6th Meeting

Tuesday evening, WL Council met to consider various matters and I wish to pick apart some of their decisions

1) Changes to Council Procedure Bylaw

With the focus on seniors' at the very beginning of the meeting, Council agreed-in-principle to change its' meeting start time from 7:30pm to 6:00pm while leaving its' Public Hearing at 7:00pm and Committee of the Whole at 6:30pm. The amendment bylaw to Council's Procedure Bylaw will be considered at the April 20th meeting at 7:30pm. The amendment bylaw also makes some technical amendments removing language pertaining to commissions no longer in use in the City.

Council really should be ashamed for this action as it forces seniors' to rush through dinner or skip it until later in order to attend a Council meeting to which they have a interest in. If we truly respect what seniors' do for our community including volunteering then Council should be meeting at 7:00pm at the earliest or 7:30pm as it has been for years. This would also be keeping with the public interest which requires that Council consult or meet at a reasonable hour which I believe Council meeting at 6:00pm would be unreasonable for most if not all of the public

In addition, Councillor Montoya mentioned that meetings were starting at 7:30pm and ending by 10:00pm. This reminds me of the time that the CRD Area 'H' Director complained of long CRD Board Meetings' until Area 'G' Director Al Richmond reminded the Board that it agreed to it and if they don't like it then they should resign and let someone else do the work. If Councillor Montoya doesn't like the long hours at night dealing with Council business, then she should resign and let someone else, who doesn't complain, do the work of the community, no matter how many hours it takes.

Further to this, Council has agreed to authorize electronic Council meetings with the provision that it can be used no more than 4 times per year and no more than 2 Council members can participate electronically. In my opinion, this amendment is contrary to a Council member's ability to do his/her job. As long as a physical quorum (4 Council members) can be established, then there should be no reason to restrict how many make use of this feature and how many times per year that a Council member uses this feature. I don't believe Mayor Cook when she states the reason for this is to limit the consistent use of this feature. I believe that all Council members will be reasonable and attend meetings whenever possible and when they can't, they should be allowed to use this tool in order to serve the public to which they were elected (Note - I've submitted a letter to the Tribune calling on the community to ask Council to think long and hard about these amendments to the Council Procedure Bylaw before proceeding formally)

2) 2010 Budget

Councillor Rathor voted for a 2nd year in a row against the City's Annual Budget. He cited various increases in other costs (HST, Hydro, Terasen Gas, etc) as to why he couldn't support this year's budget.

I find it surprising that City Staff did not recommend a date for a Public Consultation Meeting for the Budget. I think that the 2010-2014 Financial Plan should be submitted to a meeting for the public's perusal prior to adoption by WL Council.