Mayor Lou Maieron found himself on the losing end of several 4-1 votes again last week.
One month after all four councillors voted not to approve a Maieron-initiated change to the town’s notice bylaw, they also shot down several of his proposed revisions to Erin’s procedural bylaw.
Maieron suggested council move to a “super-majority” (four votes) as the requirement to reconsider a previous decision by council, and not the simple majority (three votes) currently required.
But councillors Barb Tocher and John Brennan said they did not want to tie council’s hand or put up road blocks to reconsidering something.
“If you make a mistake, you make a mistake – own up to it and change it,” Brennan said.
Maieron argued if council makes an error, it would likely be a unanimous vote to reconsider anyway. He just did not want council continuously going back on its decisions and feels an extra vote will ensure the reconsideration is merited.
He suggested town staff investigate to see what other municipalities use, but Tocher wondered why that is necessary. She and the other three councillors verbally agreed to keep the simple majority requirement.
Next Maieron again made a case for moving up staff reports earlier in the council agenda.
He argued it costs the town $467 per hour to have six department heads stay at the evening meetings – and allowing them to leave earlier would save the town some money.
But several councillors noted three staff members are constantly needed at meetings – Clerk Kathryn Ironmonger, Town Manager Lisa Hass, and Finance Director Sharon Marshall – so the savings will not be as great as Maieron suggested. They also argued other staff members stay for other matters on the agenda and wondered what would happen if staff had long reports. Maieron then said shorter reports could be moved up in the agenda and longer ones could remain after delegations.
Tocher said she prefers all the reports to be together – and after delegations.
“I don’t like a moving agenda,” she said. “It’s going to slow the whole process down.”
Brennan said he is not opposed to the idea of moving up some reports, but he stressed it would mean members of the public would have to stay later (for delegations) and delegations themselves would also be inconvenienced by the move.
Hass hinted it is not really fair, under Maieron’s plan, to require other staff to travel back and forth from home to the town office for a five-minute report and then pay them 15 minutes of overtime.
Councillor Josie Wintersinger expressed concern with changing the agenda as required for staff reports – especially if it is done right before or during a meeting.
“I think we should just leave it the way it is and revisit it,” she said. She also expressed frustration that council was spending too much time talking about the changes without solving anything.
Councillors agreed to keep staff reports in the current order and also to stick with the simple majority for reconsideration. Other changes passed include approving closed session minutes in subsequent closed sessions and eliminating a monthly planning meeting in favour of a possible extra council meeting (as needed).
