OLDS — The town's municipal planning commission (MPC) held its first in-person meeting in months on Aug. 20.
However, it wasn’t quite the same as the old days.
The MPC makes decisions on development or planning issues referred to it by town planning staff.
Members used to meet in town council chambers, sitting at the same big circular desk as town councillors did when they met there.
However, once the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown hit, the commission met for months virtually via Zoom.
Aug. 20 marked the first time the commission had met in the town office in months, but things were different.
Instead of meeting around the council table, they sat behind portable tables that had been arranged in a big rectangle in the area where the public normally sits.
There are seldom any members of the public at MPC meetings anyway, except for the occasional applicant or two.
At the end of the meeting, commissioners were asked for their thoughts about the new format and they generally said they were fine with it.
Scott Chant, the town's director of operations, said this may be the new normal for the commission for at least the next little while.
“This may be the future for quite some time,” he said. “We’re looking at how do we get back around that (council) table with some of the different rules and stuff, but this table here, it’s set for this type of crowd.
“This format did meet all the criteria for COVID restrictions and social distancing.
“So unless something drastically changes, I don’t see why we wouldn’t have another MPC meeting around this table in the next month,” he said.
During an interview, MPC chair Rudy Durieux said he was OK with doing meetings by Zoom but prefers to meet his fellow commissioners in person.
“This is what I’m thinking; people will probably find that the in-person contact, as long as it’s in a safe environment, is much more conducive to understanding the thoughts of people,” Durieux said.
“Sometimes you can read what’s on peoples’ faces easier in person than you can on a Zoom, right?
“And sometimes you’re interrupted with static or the Zoom’s not working properly or stuff like that, so it’s a little bit harder on a Zoom,” he added.
“It was accomplished and we appreciate what the administration did to allow us to do that, but having people sit in front of you, you can see how they’re reacting; kind of what they’re thinking – body language – those kinds of things.”
