City of Powell River Council has adopted its updated procedure bylaw, which dictates how council will organize its agendas and conduct council business.
At the February 20 city council meeting, councillors unanimously voted in favour of adoption of the bylaw.
Councillor Earl Almeida said council had previously gone through three readings of the procedure bylaw and he then read the recommendation that the bylaw be adopted.
Councillor George Doubt said he wanted to point out that council has worked hard to create this new procedure bylaw, which replaces the previous one from 2015.
“There’s a huge number of changes,” said Doubt. “There’s too many to talk about in a short speech, but one of the most important things it does is that it creates more diverse opportunities for the public to have input on decisions that council is making – some of them before council actually makes a decision, which is a step in the right direction.
“If we can all stick to what the different input opportunities are, it will improve our council meetings, I’m in favour of this. Everyone on council worked long and hard to get it to this stage and I hope it passes.”
Councillor Cindy Elliott said she was in support of adoption. She said she had noted a concern about what a quorum constitutes and wondered if staff could address the section in the bylaw that talks about the quorum and how it applies.
“The concern seemed to be that the definition allowed committees to have a quorum of council and make decisions,” said Elliott. “While I know that is not what is intended by the definition, I would like for staff to explain how that definition applies to the various levels of things. It was under a title that included council and committee of the whole, and the definition was a little broader, including committees.”
Interim corporate officer Stephen Fleming said a quorum constitutes half the group plus one. He said the way the section is worded, it’s half plus one, depending on the size of the committee.
For council and committee of the whole, with seven members, a quorum is four members, he said. With committees, there are odd numbers of people on the committees, so that half plus one quorum for a committee would depend on the number of members on it. He said a quorum is needed in order for the committee to conduct business.
Elliott said her understanding was that at no time is a quorum of a committee able to make decisions on behalf of city council.
Fleming said a committee of council can’t make decisions for council.
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