At last night's Committee of the Whole meeting, WL Council held a lively/spirited debate over amendments to the City's Communications Policy
On one side - you had WL City Councillors Ivan Bonnell and Surinderpal Rathor stating that they didn't want to be limited by policy on speaking out on issues & that there should be "one spokesperson" for all issues (policy and operations)
On the other side - you had City of WL Mayor Kerry Cook and WL City Councillors Geoff Bourdon/Sue Zacharias who felt the proposed amendments to the Communications Policy struck the right balance - politicians speak on policy and staff speak to day-to-day operations
For myself - I tend to agree with Councillor Bonnell - if there is an operations question - get the info from Staff then make your statement(s) to the media and of course, on decisions around policy - nothing new would change there. They shouldn't be an issue on individual members of WL Council speaking out, provided that they make it clear that they are not speaking of behalf of WL Council but on their own
The proposed amendments were referred back to Staff for further work, based on last night's discussions
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