Council debates reducing the number of monthly meetings

West Nipissing council is debating reducing the number of monthly meetings.
Councillor Chris Fisher raised the issue saying he believes council has too many meetings.
“I couldn’t find other (municipalities) that do what we do,” Fisher said.
“The way we do it puts quite a bit of strain on our senior staff.”
Fisher suggested meeting twice a month adding it would be more productive.
“A lot of places even go much less than two (meetings) a month when you include summer months,” he said.
Council took a straw vote to see what kind of support Fisher’s suggestion had and the informal vote was 5-4 to reduce the number of monthly meetings.
Mayor Joanne Savage was one of the elected officials who preferred the status quo.
Savage noted when a municipality holds two council meetings a month, those are not the only occasions council meets.
“If you look at North Bay, they have two council meetings a month,” she said.
“But they also have standing committees. They have standing committees for three committees where they have members of council and the Mayor. So they have five meetings a month.”
Savage went on pointing out that although the Municipalities of French River and Markstay-Warren don’t have standing committees, they refer matters to advisory committees.”
Savage indicated staff could examine the number of meetings a month issue, but added as an elected official she wasn’t willing to reduce the number of meetings because she said there are many issues that need council’s attention.
Councillor Yvon Duhaime said it would be nice to have fewer meetings but believed it was more prudent to maintain the status quo.
Denis Senecal and Lise Senecal also preferred the status quo with Denis Senecal questioning how council could get all its work done with just two meetings a month.
Councillors Leo Malette and Roly Larabie opted for the two meetings a month as did Jeremy Seguin and Dan Roveda.
Roveda said he felt he didn’t have enough time to do research with council material under the present format and Seguin agreed and added one less meeting would give council members time to meet with staff on issues.
Seguin said there have been times when he has been unprepared at some meetings because of a lack of time.
He also said under a two-meetings-a-month format, council could always hold an extra meeting during the month if the need arose.
With the informal vote calling for two meetings a month, CAO Jay Barbeau and staff will now look into more detail to determine how other municipalities run their affairs with their regular council and committee meetings.
The results will be reported back to council.