Quinte West Council has changed their hours.
At Monday’s city council meeting, councillors vigorously debated about a new start time for council meetings.
A motion was approved to hold council meetings every second Wednesday, with the public portion of the meeting beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Council will hold closed session from 4 p.m. to the beginning of the public session at 4:30. It was also decided to release council agendas to the public at the same time that council receives them, on the Thursday of the week before the council meeting.
The debate was so intense, that during the debate period, Mayor Jim Harrison spoke over Councillor Stedall when she proposed to start the meetings at 4:30 p.m. After bring spoken over a few times, Councillor Stedall asked the city clerk if there was a procedural rule against that. The clerk responded that there is and that it is the responsibility of the chair, Mayor Harrison, to stop people talking over each other.
Originally, it was proposed to start new council meetings at 3 in the afternoon, however, that was first moved to 4:30 p.m., and then 4 p.m. after council failed to pass the resolution to start at 4:30.
Concerns were raised that an earlier start time would make it more difficult for working members of the public to attend meetings in person or watch it during the live stream. Moving meetings to Wednesdays was also a point of concern as it would interfere with the fire chief’s duties, as he supervises training for firefighters on Wednesday evenings and would have to make time to attend council as well.
The earlier start times were proposed to prevent meetings running long into the evening, sometimes requiring overtime for city staff required to attend.
Moving the meetings from Monday to Wednesday was proposed to help avoid meetings on statutory holidays or that conflict with other staff duties.
