Andrew councillor fed up with extended meetings

BY JANA SEMENIUK

Andrew Councillor

Evan Genung voted against extending the most recent regular meeting of council Apr. 26, when it reached the two-hour mark after being called to order at 7 p.m.

As a result, 12 items on the council agenda were pushed to the next meeting on May 10. Genung said the length of the agenda was unreasonable to complete in two hours, and spoke on Deputy Mayor Tammy Pickett’s motion to extend the meeting.

“When the agenda is prepared, is there any consideration made to have the meeting done in two hours? Because this agenda is a four-hour package,” he said.

“Are we doing it with the intent that every meeting is going to be extended? Because that needs to be corrected.”

The lengthiest agenda items were the Chief Administrative Officer’s report which took 30 minutes and a first reading of council meeting procedures which took 43 minutes.

One of the meeting procedure bylaws read by Mayor Merwin

Haight dealt with the length of council meetings and read, ‘in accordance with the provisions of the municipal government the length this could not be done in two hours,” said Genung. “I’m saying no to the extension.”

In a later interview, Mayor Haight explained of time between a number of CAOs, we have our budgets we have to work on and just the large volume of business we have to catch up on,” he said.

“Plus dealing with the potential school closure, and having to relocate the Duckstop, the library and the village offices. That alone is a phenomenal amount of work. If the school closes, we have 90 days to relocate.” of council meetings at the meeting shall be no longer than two hours. If the council meeting is to proceed longer, a unanimous consent is required to extend the meeting for an additional 45 minutes with a 15-minute recess before the meeting is extended’.

Andrew council meet the second and fourth Wed. of every month at 7 p.m.

Genung said that Haight and CAO Tim Melnyk must have known how long the meeting would take when the agenda was being prepared.

“What I'm saying is, you knew what was in the agenda (and) you must have known that that he would eventually like to see the meetings be finished in under two hours, but felt there were simply too many important items to cover at each meeting.

“Due to the volume of work this council needs to do, this includes updating bylaws, some we have been working on for extended periods

The council’s agenda at the previous meeting, Apr. 12, also could not be completed after two hours with one 45minute extension, pushing several items to the Apr. 26 meeting.

At least 12 agenda items were then pushed from the Apr. 26 meeting to the upcoming May 10 meeting scheduled for 7 p.m.

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