Town of Sundre council workshop meetings are no longer open to the public.
Dave Dubauskas, the town's chief administrative officer, said the meetings are now for administration officials to discuss items on the agenda with councillors before making decisions at public regular council meetings.
ìThis council has made it very clear to me that they want more information,î said Dubauskas.
ìWe will try it out for six months and see how it goes. See how the citizens accept it and see how it's working for council.î
As well, before every regular council meeting there will be a half-hour administrative debriefing session. As a result of this, the regular council meetings will now begin at 6:30 p.m., rather than 6 p.m. This became effective at the council meeting on Jan. 20.
ìThey're executive briefings and basically I get a half an hour but I'd like more time,î he said.
ìNo decisions are made. It's just giving council more information so that when the issues do come to council they're at least informed because it takes a lot of time on some things.î
The workshop meetings are held once a month and the last one that was open to the public was on Jan. 13.
Public presentations will now be held at regular council meetings, which are twice a month.
ìIt gives council an opportunity in a more relaxed environment to ask questions and get information they need to make better decisions in the future.î
Dubauskas is not sure at this point whether the meetings will still be referred to as council workshop meetings or if they will be referred to as executive briefings.
ìWe're kind of in transition. Nothing is really black and white yet,î he said.
Mayor Terry Leslie said he doesn't want members of the public to feel like council is hiding things from them.
ìThat's not the intent,î said Leslie.
ìYou really don't want to ever have the perception that you're keeping things from people.î
He said councillors are sometimes reluctant to speak in public meetings.
ìAs a new council we struggle trying to catch up with some of the information and it's often after the fact that we end up saying ëwell gee I wish I'd asked this or that question' and then it's too late,î he said.
ìWe want to get as much information as we can so we can make good decisions in council meetings but we don't want the public to feel that we are eliminating them from being part of that process.î
Coun. Myron Thompson believes the meetings should be open to the public.
ìThese meetings can't be closed,î said Thompson.
ìI haven't had any input on that decision, and I will have some, because I am totally against that.î
In the past, the workshop meetings were referred to as governance meetings. Interim CAO Doug Wright proposed the change to switch from governance meetings to council workshop meetings, which was approved and came into effect in October.
