Concerns were vocalized last week about Princeton council policies when the newly-hired CAO shut down the traditional public question period at her first meeting.
Of course that was after people picked their own jaws up off the floor.
Cheryl Martens cited the town’s procedures bylaw, and supporting provincial legislation, when she attempted to bring a quick close to the session while promising to implement a new approach to allow for public comments at the next meeting.
This did not immediately stop people from asking questions. The questions just became all about why people were suddenly not allowed to ask questions.
The answer is straightforward.
The Community Charter – which is umbrellaed under the Local Government Act – requires each municipality to adopt and adhere to a council procedures bylaw.
Princeton’s bylaw was passed in 2014 and the agenda items it identifies for council meetings do not include a question period. A question period was also not part of the previous bylaw, written in 2000.
The Charter states a question period may be formalized in a procedures bylaw. But it doesn’t say it has to be.
The 18-page bylaw, while not allowing for a question period, does weirdly state in Section 16-3 that questions from the public during the public question period must pertain to items on the agenda.
That anomaly likely owes itself to how local legislation sometimes gets cobbled together – using templates and cutting and pasting from various sources.
All this legal minutiae, while possessing the consistency of chalk dust, is important.
Question periods attached to Princeton council meetings have, for the most part, been conducted after a meeting is adjourned.
And it’s been suggested that if it’s no longer a meeting then the public is really just enjoying some congenial social time with mayor, council and staff and maybe someone should serve food.
But that’s not right either.
Essentially for the past many years council has been adjourning its regular meeting and then moving into a second meeting – one that is unstructured, has not been advertised, has no circulated agenda and isn’t being minuted.
All of that is contrary to the procedures bylaw and the results are not always decorous.
Yes, the public has a right to be heard and leadership needs to be accountable.
Back to that pesky bylaw again…it does allow for petitions and delegations.
Moving forward – under Section 19-2 – at the beginning of each meeting members of the public can request to address any agenda item during the delegations period and council will vote on each application.
Delegations can also be requested beforehand, in writing.
Over the past couple of months there has been an increase in crowd size at council meetings, which is understandable given it’s an election year.
An off-the-books question period has the potential to be used to score political points.
If someone has a question for town staffers or councillors or the mayor, and genuinely needs an answer, there are some sneaky ways around the procedures bylaw.
You can pick up the phone.
You can send an email.
You can even walk into town hall and ask to see someone.
-AD