City of Powell River Council has deferred discussion of a new council procedure bylaw until its July 9 committee of the whole meeting.
At the June 27 special council meeting, councillors were presented a substantial report on updating and amending the procedure bylaw. Deputy corporate officer Jessica Lefort said the procedure bylaw had previously come to council in workshop sessions. In the second workshop, a consultant brought a new bylaw for councillors to review based on discussions from the first workshop. Lefort said that attached to the meeting agenda was the bylaw based on all the feedback the consultant received from councillors.
“Everything in the report is fairly self-explanatory,” said Lefort. “Staff recognizes that council may have questions and feedback about the draft bylaw in the agenda, which is why this has not come for readings today. It is for council to provide that feedback so that staff can then provide a draft bylaw to come back to council for readings.
“Once it receives first reading there will be opportunity for the bylaw to be edited. After second reading we do public notice, then there is third reading and adoption. If we use every meeting starting in July, it likely won’t be adopted until September or October.”
Councillor Jim Palm said the procedure bylaw had generated a lot of comments from the public.
“I have some concerns in terms of due process, making sure the public has ample time to review,” said Palm. “Because of a number of issues that I read, I am going to ask that council defer this until the next committee of the whole meeting for further discussion so we can fully wrap our heads around this and the public has more time. We can weigh in with some comments that would be more appropriate at that time.”
Councillor George Doubt said the procedure bylaw process didn’t start yesterday.
“I went through my notes today,” said Doubt. “On May 30, 2023, the committee of the whole directed staff to prepare amendments to the procedure bylaw. It listed eight items after strategic planning discussions. We decided in May 2023 that we needed a new procedure bylaw and asked staff to come back with some changes. Staff did and it only took until the December 5 committee of the whole meeting for staff to come back with changes to this procedure bylaw.
“We had two workshops to discuss the procedure bylaw. Those were open public meetings that anyone could watch and attend. Here we are today on June 27, 2024, with a new draft procedures bylaw. I would actually like to get into it.”
Doubt said he had a page and a half or two pages of amendments that he could bring to the discussion, having spent about five hours going through and comparing the existing procedure bylaw with the new draft.
“I would rather go forward and try to get some work done on it,” said Doubt. “If we do it according to staff, we are maybe going to have a procedure bylaw by October of 2024. If it doesn’t go that smoothly and we keep delaying it, who knows when we are going to be finished?”
Councillor Trina Isakson said she also had a number of notes that she would like to propose amendments on. She said the difficulty was that some of the items might benefit from a workshop conversation as opposed to straight-up motions. She said she would rather be in committee of the whole.
Councillor Cindy Elliott said at the last workshop, there was a lot of new wording in the draft. She said she wishes that council had another crack at adjusting some of the draft language. She said she supported delaying the discussion and wondered if there could be a workshop at the July 9 committee of the whole meeting to try and address the bylaw.
Mayor Ron Woznow said he also supported the deferment and said there are legal issues.
“There is an opportunity between now and July 9 to have an open mic event with members of the public so they can express their opinions on this,” said Woznow.
Councillor Earl Almeida said he was inclined to agree with Doubt.
“We have discussed this a lot,” said Almeida. “We are not here to vote on any readings today, we are here to provide some edits and tweaks so staff can come back with an actual draft. It doesn’t limit the opportunity for community engagement and feedback and it doesn’t prevent us from making further edits on July 9.”
Doubt said the last two workshops were open to the public and there were a couple of people in the room for the first hour, and after, there was nobody there.
“We’ve finally got to where we have a draft,” said Doubt. “I have a number of amendments that I’d like to make, and after, we’d get to a bylaw approval process, which takes three readings and public readings and public comment.”
The motion to defer the draft until the July 9 committee of the whole was carried, with Doubt and Almeida opposed.
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