West Nipissing council is reducing the number of meetings it holds.
Under the current format, meetings of council occur the first three Tuesdays of the month.
After a lengthy and at times a complex debate, council opted for two combined meetings of council to take place on the first and third Tuesday.
Council also agreed that if issues arising from those first two meetings were not fully address, Mayor Joanne Savage could call a special meeting for the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Councillor Jeremy Seguin maintained having three meetings in a row covering the first three Tuesdays of the month was not only taxing for staff but also lead to a lack of information.
He said having that one week break between meetings allowed for more research time and councillors would also have more time to go through their council documents.
Councillor Yvon Duhaime preferred the status quo saying three scheduled meetings a month allowed council to communicate with the public.
When it came to reducing the number of scheduled meetings, Duhaime said, “I’m not a happy camper with this issue.”
Councillor Denis Senecal’s concern with going to two meetings a month was that sometimes councillors will schedule non-council activities for that fourth Tuesday.
Senecal said he may have something on the go on that fourth Tuesday, but now it becomes more difficult to plan something at that time if there’s a possibility that council may have to meet to deal with unfinished matters.
Mayor Joanne Savage’s concern with going to two meetings a month was that with one less meeting, it means the public has fewer opportunities to appear at council as a delegation.
However, the majority ruled and council will reduce the number of scheduled monthly meetings to two followed by a third meeting on the fourth Tuesday at the discretion of the mayor.
With the number of monthly meetings settled, council still has to decide on how cell phones are used in the council chambers.
That debate is expected to come up at the December 3rd meeting.
Also expected to resurface at a future meeting, which could also be the December 3rd meeting, is the Mayor’s desire to see council meetings end at 9:30pm with no extensions.
That would make meetings no longer than three hours assuming they begin at 6:30pm.
“All meetings should not go beyond 9:30pm,” Savage said.
“If you’re sitting here at 6:30pm you should know that the meeting will not last longer than 9:30pm. We should be able to conduct business within that time.”
Savage says by the time 9:00pm rolls around and members of council and staff have been in the council chambers for two-and-a-half hours, she says people’s mindsets are no longer operating like they were earlier in the evening.
The Mayor wants to amend the procedural bylaw to state there would be no extension of the 9:30pm curfew and that if all business isn’t finished by the curfew, then the unfinished matters would be carried over to the next meeting.