Evening council meetings will start earlier

Olds town council has changed the start time of its evening council meetings in order to make it easier for members of the public to attend, should they have any issues they want to address.

During the Oct. 23 organizational meeting, council voted to move the start time for those meetings from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Coun. Mary Anne Overwater brought up the idea, suggesting the start time be lowered to 5 p.m.

"Sometimes our meeting gets going late and it is late for everyone and it might be late for staff as well," Overwater said. "I think if we started at 5, then sometimes then we can go a bit longer, without everybody sort of fading away."

Coun. Debbie Bennett agreed with that, but Coun. Heather Ryan thought a 5 p.m. start time is too early. She noted council meets at 1 p.m. some weeks and in the evenings during others.

"I would have thought that you would have a 7 o'clock meeting so that we allow people to get off work and get to a council meeting," she said.

"If we have one at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and then you have another one at 7, that allows people to come after work. If we have one at 1 and one at 5, it doesn't necessarily give them enough time to show up if they wanted to speak to anything."

Coun. Wade Bearchell suggested a compromise.

"I would like to start at 5, but I tend to agree with councillor Ryan. I don't think it's about what necessarily I would like; it's what's fair to the citizens," he said. "I think perhaps maybe a 6 o'clock start allows people to eat and get to that thing."

Coun. Overwater said she could live with that.

Coun. Mary Jane Harper suggested a further compromise ñ moving the start time to 6:30 p.m., thereby providing even more time for citizens and town staff to eat and arrive on time.

However, in the end, council voted to move the start time for evening meetings to 6 p.m.

Council also voted to move the start time for its policies and procedures meetings down to 1 p.m. from the previous start time of 3 p.m.