WESTLOCK — The Town of Westlock will be making some changes to its procedure bylaw that includes who can attend a council meeting virtually, how delegations are approved and how long audio and video recordings of council meetings will be kept before being destroyed.
These changes were brought before councillors at the Aug. 12 regular council meeting and were introduced at a committee of the whole meeting on April 15. The procedure bylaw was established in June 2021.
“We did bring forward our procedure bylaw to council with some requests for guidance on some sections, back in April at committee of the whole. Since then, administration has reviewed some other municipalities procedure bylaws,” said Town of Westlock CAO Simone Wiley, who presented the amendments to councillors.
Several key changes brought forward include virtual attendance at council meetings and who will be permitted to attend via electronic communications.
“This is a new sub-section … (it says) councillors may attend council meetings by means of electronic communication, but it really limits it to councillors, (administration) and delegates in this section,” said Wiley, noting a clause in Bill 20 that allows for virtual attendees at public hearings. “In Bill 20, in the new legislation that has come out, there is a section for public hearings that you must require or allow virtual attendance, so that’s something that we need to add into the public hearing section.”
Coun. Murtaza Jamaly asked, “Who is this meant to limit?” Wiley pointed to the discussion councillors had in April.
“We really want people to be engaged and sometimes just having anonymous folks who join the meetings, we don’t have an opportunity to engage with people,” she said. “We know that our community is small so coming down to the meeting is not overly onerous for most people and on the flip side of that, if we are keeping our recordings of our meetings they could also listen to the meeting after the actual live time as well.”
The virtual attendance amendment also excludes all media from attending council meetings virtually.
There were several minor changes noted in the amended procedure bylaw, such as having councillors keep their electronic devices on silent mode during a meeting, moving department reports from the first regular council meeting to the committee of the whole meeting each month and placing agenda items for information, other than delegation requests, on the agenda no later than seven calendar days prior to a council meeting. Councillors will receive the agenda on Thursdays, and it iwill be released to the public on Fridays.
Councillors also discussed how many council meetings they should attend virtually a year if the need arises. The policy amendment in section five stated no more than four, however some councillors said that number was low and suggested a maximum number of eight meetings.
“I don’t think it’s a number. I don’t think it’s four, or six or eight or 21,” said Jamaly. “I actually think that the section should read that councillors should make the best effort to attend meetings in person and that a councillor may be permitted to attend meetings electronically,” he added, noting “a best effort should be made to attend the meeting in person” if a councillor is able to.
The section was amended to allow councillors to attend a regular council meeting virtually no more than six times a year.
Other changes include moving the deadline date for delegations and requests to present to council from five days to 10 days prior to a council meeting and removing the option for a delegation to be referred to a committee. The section was also re-worded to say, “after receiving the request to speak, the CAO, in consultation with the mayor, may place the request on the agenda or refuse to hear from the person making the direct request.”
Following some discussion amongst council, the sub-section was later amended to say “after receiving the request to speak, the CAO, in consultation with the mayor, or their delegate, may place the request on the agenda.”
Mayor Kramer asked whether or not a decision regarding a request to present to council should be communicated to all councillors or have “an appeal process” of some sort if residents aren’t being heard.
Coun. David Truckey said the mayor raised a very valid point and that council does not “have any book ends as to why somebody would be denied.”
“When we talk about transparency, approachability and open for business but yet we still deny people access to come to council — and I’m careful when I say — just because we don’t like what they’re going to say,” said Truckey. “We’re on a slippery slope there if we (aren’t) a community that’s open to everything. Just because you’re offended by something doesn’t mean that you can’t listen to what they say.”
He also thought it was “good to communicate to council” even if a person is denied a delegation.
Councillors also noted sitting down with residents to discuss concerns one-on-one rather than as a delegation, to ensure they are heard by councillors and Coun. Jamaly suggested adding several criteria that must be met before a delegation is approved to speak to council.
“The metric is well, if you do not meet the criteria and that is the agreed upon measure …if they check all the boxes and yes, it’s municipal business, yes it is something that we can actually make a decision on, then there should be no reason why that request would be denied,” said Jamaly.
A “question period” section will be added to the procedure bylaw which states that “members of the public and media shall only be permitted to ask questions pertaining to agenda items at that current meeting.”
Councillors were given three options to consider regarding audio and video recordings and an amendment was made to make the audio and video recordings available for public viewing by request only for 60 days after the council meeting and then permanently destroyed.
“We were using the minutes for accuracy of meeting minutes and that was the primary intent of recording the meeting,” said Wiley. “But to your comments earlier Mr. Mayor, in an attempt to increase our transparency and availability of information, we think we should leave our recordings available for some period of time.”
Westlock Mayor Jon Kramer asked whether there was a ‘best practice’ amongst municipalities when it came to recordings, but Wiley noted various ways municipalities deal with them and said there didn’t appear to be any best practices.
Kramer noted that video and audio recordings are currently not live on the town’s website, but are “available for those that request them,” and suggested the town continue in that manner.
“It’s not just 'here’s our YouTube channel,' like some municipalities are doing, but it’s available if folks have a request,” said Kramer, noting the 60-day time frame. “To me, that might be the way to go as opposed to having a lone video stream that we delete as we go.”
In a follow-up email, Wiley noted that “any member of the public can request the recordings, and they do not need to be a Town of Westlock resident,” she said, adding the request is made to the town’s municipal clerk and does not need to be in person. A link to the recording in its original, unedited format will be emailed to them.
