Quinte West council will eventually return to in-person meetings, but it won’t be happening until the new year.
At Monday’s council meeting, council discussed at length the angle they should take when returning to in-person meetings for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Early on in discussions Councillor Leslie Roseblade proposed they defer the in-person meetings to January.
“I don’t see the point in putting council back in council chambers without the public. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it wholly, all the way. The other thing is, we only have one council meeting left in 2021, which is one in December. Why not defer this and try to go back to council chambers in 2022 and we see what happens over the holidays. Our first meeting in January is on the 17th, so that gives us quite a while to go through December, for a full month, to see what happens and at that point maybe we could go back fully with the delegations in the council chambers so they’re not virtual.”
Discussion then leaned towards deferring it to January but preparing for what that would look like now.
After further discussion about how to proceed, Chief Administrative Officer David Clazie specified that staff need direction on what to do about accommodating staff, council and members of the public safely in the council chambers and what regulations they would like to have in place should they desire to allow members of the public into the meetings.
After two failed motions and more discussion, the third time was the charm and Clerk Virginia LaTour read out the final draft of the motion.
“That staff be directed to make preparations and report back to council – I had written at earliest convenience – with regard to securing screens for council and also review spacing at meetings for staff, public and council for safety and following all public health precautions.”
Council voted on and approved that motion and will likely see a report back from staff at its next meeting in December.
