Brighton Council is moving ahead with the creation of a policy regarding Town Hall meetings.
A staff report recently recommended against hosting a general town hall meeting allowing residents to raise individual service concerns or operational issues for several reasons including limiting council’s ability to properly consider matters without adequate background information and creating expectations that council will immediately respond to or resolve issues raised.
However, at their most recent meeting council directed staff to create a policy regarding town halls anyway.
Mayor Brian Ostrander says the policy would go into effect for the next council.
As it is an election year, he says holding a town hall in the near future may give current members of council seeking reelection an unfair campaigning opportunity over candidates who don’t currently have a seat.
He says calls from the public for a town hall meeting appear to be related to a survey from Brighton’s Rural Advisory Committee that came forward without any recommendations.
“We received it as information and the sense was that we should have taken action. So we have, we have sent it back to our Rural Advisory Committee to say what would you like us to do? What actions would you like us to take? Please provide us some recommendations and advice.”
Ostrander expects them to have more information on both fronts before council goes into lame duck mode in late August.
