OLDS — The new town council has set start times for its meetings, and they will not be in the evenings, despite a suggestion to that effect from Coun. Darren Wilson.
Policies and priorities meetings will occur the first Monday of every month, starting at 10 a.m. The first such gathering will occur Nov. 1.
Those meetings serve as an opportunity for council to be provided with information on governance and policy matters and as an opportunity for staff or members of the public to provide proposals or updates on projects to council.
Regular council meetings will begin at 1 p.m.
The next organizational meeting, slated for Oct. 24, 2022, will also start at 1 p.m.
Under previous councils, the meetings that occurred on the fourth Monday were held at 6 p.m.
However, when pandemic lockdowns began and council began holding meetings via Zoom, meetings were held at 1 p.m.
"Administration believes that amending the evening meeting time from 6 p.m. to 1 p.m. is supported with greater access to technical support during regular business hours while holding virtual meetings for transparency with public and staff access to meetings, cost effectiveness by not incurring overtime by having staff present in the evenings," a request for decision from town staff said.
Wilson wondered if at least the policies and procedures meetings could be held in the evenings because some people might find it hard to get to daytime meetings because they work during the day.
Mayor Judy Dahl echoed administration's position.
“Our experience has been that we’ve always had the policies and priorities meeting in the afternoon,” chief administrative officer Michael Merritt said, adding that hasn’t seemed to be a problem.
He said while some people might prefer appearing in the evenings, others prefer appearing before council in the afternoon.
Besides, he noted people have managed to appear before council via Zoom.
"Policies and priorities meetings are typically very long. They could go on for four, five, six hours and if you started at 6 o’clock, we would be here until midnight sometimes so that would not be a good idea," Coun. Heather Ryan said with a short laugh.
Dahl agreed.
"They do tend to get you all tied up with conversation and information-sharing because basically, it’s the opportunity for the public and volunteers to tell us who they are and what they do, and it can become quite lengthy,” she said.
Motions setting those start times passed.
