WESTLOCK – Starting in January 2023, Westlock County’s second council meeting of the month will start at 9 a.m. instead of 4:30 p.m., while the governance and priorities committee (GPC) meeting will be getting a name change to committee of the whole (COW).
In addition to electing the reeve and deputy reeve at the Oct. 25 organizational meeting, councillors also signed off on their 2023 regular meeting schedule as well as the at-large and council committee appointments (see list below).
Coun. Jared Stitsen, who admitted they went “round and round” on the meeting start times last fall, wanted the second regular meeting of the month to remain at 4:30 p.m. and was the lone dissenting vote for the change — council’s regular meetings are the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, while the third Tuesday will be for COW.
Administration recommended having all council meetings start at 9 a.m. to “keep staff banked time at a minimum” noting that while directors and the CAO do not bank time for after-hours meetings, any other staff in attendance do bank time at a rate of 1.5 times regular hours. As it stands, Westlock County is only local municipality to hold daytime council meetings, although the Pembina Hills School Division, based in Barrhead, holds its meetings during the day.
“It’s difficult because with the three meetings in a row all at 9 a.m. on Tuesday isn’t the best for me,” said Stitsen. “We used to have the GPC in the evening but that became a midnight meeting so we moved it to daytime so we would actually have time to get through it.”
Although deputy reeve Ray Marquette wondered why they couldn’t start the change immediately, reeve Christine Wiese noted that “we’ve approved our calendar for 2022 and it would probably be better, especially for people who have a set schedule.”
Municipal clerk/council executive assistant Dianne Johnston said administration also recommended changing the name of GPC to COW “in light of trying to keep it the same as other municipalities” — council embraced the change 7-0. COW meetings provide the opportunity for council to hold discussions on any matter, determine process, and receive detailed information from administration, delegations or subject-matter experts and are meant for council research and information sessions that are held in a less formal atmosphere than a regular council meeting.
Council also voted 7-0 to drop all four regular council meetings in July and August 2023 and will hold one COW in each of those months, while in December 2023 there will only be one regular meeting Dec. 12 after four days of budget deliberations which are slated for Dec. 4-7.
