WEDNESDAY May
13 2015
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City flirts with cutting public input Council backs off on outright ban, instead looks to enforce conduct
BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com
The City of NorthVancouver won’t muzzle members of the public from speaking up at council, but let it be known, anyone who is disrespectful to staff could be banned. Council voted 6-1 Monday night to toss out its old council meeting rulebook and start fresh. Most of the changes are in the realm of clarifications and housekeeping but a plan to eliminate the public input period drew the most heated response.
For the last 10 years, council has allowed residents to sign up and speak carte blanche for two minutes at the start of each council meeting. Most often, it is used to comment on issues on the agenda, but as a city staff report noted: “Quite often the public input received is off-topic, accusatory, repetitive, untrue, promotes goods and services and, at times, includes electioneering.” Ending the pubic input period would bring the city in line with some other Lower Mainland municipalities and still meet the statutory requirements set out in provincial law, staff stated, and residents could still apply to appear before council as a delegation, which allows 10 minutes to address council. But that wasn’t enough to justify banning the practice outright in the minds of 16 residents, representing an array of political backgrounds, who lined up for their two-minute turn at the mic.
Critiques of the plan ranged from the high-minded notions of standing up for democracy and respecting the soldiers who died for the right to freedom of speech to the more practical matters, like the fact residents only get access to council agendas on Friday afternoons, leaving no other opportunity to speak to a matter publicly before council votes or that it takes months to get a delegation. Council was persuaded. A motion from Coun. Craig Keating amended the wording of the bylaw to keep the public input period but also allow members of the public to be prohibited from speaking “...if it is determined they have targeted city staff, in any venue, by behaviour that can be seen to constitute bullying and harassment” under the city’s harassment policy. See Satirical page 9
Fin whale struck by cruise ship studied at shipyard JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com
A team of about 15 marine mammal scientists pulled on their rubber raingear and spent almost four hours examining a massive fin whale carcass at Seaspan’s shipyard Monday afternoon, looking for clues about how the giant animal died. The 14-metre-long body of the young male fin whale first came into Burrard Inlet Sunday, caught on the bulbous bow of the Seven Seas Navigator cruise ship from Alaska.The whale was only spotted as the cruise ship came into dock, when it slipped off the bow and into the inlet. Scientists don’t yet know if the whale was alive or See Fin page 9
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