the audio for the open meetings was broadcast via the City’s live stream accessible through the City website.
As comfort with electronic meetings progressed, the City moved to implementation of open session video meetings, first via the WebEx platform and latterly via the Zoom Meeting platform. For security reasons, the in camera meetings have continued to be held via teleconference.
In addition to City Council meetings, Council Standing Committees and many Advisory Committees have met, either via the video meeting formal or by teleconference.
Delegations:
As Council is aware, during the time that the City has been holding electronic meetings, “live” delegations have only been accommodated for the Development & Heritage Standing Committee of Council as that meeting is the statutory public meeting pursuant to the Planning Act.
Live delegations have not been accommodated for City Council Meetings and this approach was taken for a variety of reasons. The inclusion of “live” delegations make the technical management of the meetings quite challenging and labour intensive. For example, during a video meeting, delegations all have to be managed by staff in the “waiting room” function which can be difficult with citizens that may not be technologically savvy. Such management takes a dedicated staff member to ensure that delegations exit and enter the meeting smoothly and successfully. In addition, if delegations have video or other presentations another dedicated staff member is required to load and manage those items. Increased IT support is also required for these meetings as the connections with delegations have to be tested ahead of time to ensure all will run without error in the meeting. This process can take up to two hours prior to a meeting.
As a result, citizens have been encouraged to make written submissions which then get included on the Order of Business and the public record. In this way, people can participate in the issue and are actually more free to do so as they are not limited to the five minute delegation maximum. As all members of Council have and read this information prior to the meeting, if there is any delegate material that a Councillor would like to highlight during the meeting, that can also be done.
However, moving forward, and as the reality of the ongoing nature of the global pandemic continues, Administration recognizes that any future meeting format should include provisions for live delegations, which will be discussed below.
Future Meeting Format:
As the Province moves forward with its re-opening plan, and given the proposed amendments to the Municipal Act contained in Bill 197, consideration needs to be given to the format that future meetings of City Council will take.
Administration has identified three options for the format of future meetings:
- Continue with solely electronic, video meetings: