Richard Froese
South Peace News
Big Lakes County council has backed off on a poroposed policy for elected officials to present regular written reports of meetings and conferences they attend.
At its regular meeting Jan. 10, council reviewed the attendance report policy and decided to give oral reports to council instead of written reports.
The policy was adopted by council at its meeting Aug. 9 and was recommended by then-CAO Jerry Gau- treau, who was employed with the County from April 5 until Sept. 25.
Under the policy, council members “shall each submit a non-mandatory report to the CAO no later than the first Wednesday of each month detailing meeting dates, locations and a summary or highlights of each meeting and conference they attend”.
Council directed administration at its meeting Nov. 9 to return to return the policy for council to review.
Rather than written reports that would be included in the agenda package, council decided to add a roundtable at the end of the second meeting of the month for council members to report on the meetings, seminars and conferences they attend.
Council passed a motion to direct administration to update the council meeting procedure bylaw to add the roundtable part to the meeting agenda.
Reeve Tyler Airth reminded council about the purpose of written reports.
“It (is) about public transparency,” Airth said.
“It’s important that we report to the CAO.
“We would submit reports to the CAO and he would include the reports in the agenda package.”
CAO David Reynolds restated the role of council council reports in the policy.
“The purpose of the policy is to provide guidelines to council members in reporting requirements to increase and improve public transparency, accountability, trust and access to information,” Reynolds said.
Grouard Councillor Jeff Chalifoux first suggested council members add meeting highlights to their monthly expense claims then and later spoke in favour of full written reports.
“If it’s for our records, if its for transparency, we need to report to the public,” Chalifoux said.
Several councillors spoke against written reports.
Kinuso Councillor Roberta Hunt suggested council members report on their meetings during a roundtable discussion at regular council meetings.
North Gilwood – Triangle Councillor Jim Zabolotniuk and Faust Councillor Robert Nygaard expressed their support to give oral reports.
“I like the idea Roberta brought up before to have a roundtable,” Zabolotniuk said.
“Discussing in a roundtable would be more beneficial.”
When the policy was introduced by Gautreau he said written reports are transparency to ratepayers and good community relations.