Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Length of May 25th WL Council Meeting

Last night, for the 1st time and in a very long time that goes back years, Council held a meeting that exceeded 3 hours including 2 hours for delegations and presentations

The 2 hours for delegations dealt with these 2 topics:

i) Appeal from Nick Weekes (Owner - Boot Cabaret) on the suspension of the Boot's Business License

ii) Request to revoke Remedial Action Resolution from Bill & Sharon Whitely

These 2 delegations should have been scheduled for another night as it makes the reasons stated by Councillor Montoya for moving the Council meeting from 7:30pm to 6:00pm hypocritical. I also believe this calls into question Mayor Cook's ability to ensure that City Council business can be conducted at a meeting in a time effective way. A good Mayor is one who looks at the Agenda and decides which matters should be separated for an Special meeting and which ones should be included at a Regular Meeting and these 2 delegations should have been subject of a Special Meeting and not included on a Regular Meeting

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So your criticizing that council stayed welllll beyond the time they needed to in order to get the job done and this is an issue? Wow, good work.

Steve Forseth said...

Thanks - But there's a difference, a good Mayor knows how to setup an Agenda that allows for good use of Council's time and I believe (notwithstanding the change of the start time of Council meetings from 7:30pm to 6:00pm) that is what Councillor Montoya wanted to have - effective and time-efficient Council meetings.

Former Mayors Scott Nelson & Rick Gibson were perfect examples of Mayors' who know how to run time-efficient Council meetings'. Kerry Cook, our current Mayor, doesn't know how to run a time-efficient Council meeting and that was the basis for my criticism of last night's Williams Lake City Council Meeting

Anonymous said...

If your using former Mayor Nelson as the bar for success you now hold little credibility in alot of peoples books. its one thing not to be happy about the time usage, but another to badger hard working councilors, staff, and the Mayor about, from what the agenda you write about here looks like, VERY serious matters and them taking care of them and not leaving them to sit in delay. Both those hearings were quasi judicial in nature and thus time appears to have been very pertinant to the reason the agenda ran so long.

Steve Forseth said...

Thanks...

I never critized Staff and I don't think Staff should be critized directly.

On the matter of Mayor and Councillors - they are fair game as they wanted to become the Mayor & City Councillors so as the old saying goes "If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out and let me someone take over"

Also - I never suggested that the the Agenda Items at Tuesday's Council meeting "were not" serious. I only said that in order to honour the concern expressed by Councillor Montoya - the Mayor should have taken the 2 Appeals at this past Tuesday's Council Meeting and have them considered at a Special Meeting. They would show great respect to those people who work very hard for our community - like Tom Barr, Surinder Rathor and Geoff Bourdon.

As for my supposed lack of credibility -- obviously, you are a Mayor Cook supporter and I will accept the decision of the voters in 2011, if I decide to run for Williams Lake City Council. Besides, the voters are very smart people

Anonymous said...

Not a Cook supporter, just not a supporter of badgering of public officals for doing their job.