MRC council passes revised meeting management bylaw

MRC council passes revised meeting management bylaw

At the MRC Pontiac council of mayors meeting on March 19, council voted on a revised bylaw for the management of meetings.

The new bylaw passed 14-2, with Otter Lake Mayor Jennifer Quaile and Alleyn-et-Cawood pro-Mayor Sidney Squitti voting against. There were no representatives of the municipalities of Bryson or Fort-Coulonge present.

While the original draft bylaw introduced at the February council meeting had banned filming or photography of any kind during sittings, the revised version has an explicit allowance for members of the press and also allows it at the discretion of the presiding officer.

The revised bylaw also changes the public question period to “question and statement period”, allowing members of the public to speak at the meeting without a specific question for council. A second question and statement period at the end of the meeting, originally set at 10 minutes, now has an allowance to be extended to a maximum of 30 minutes.

The final major change to meeting management would mandate that the full text of all resolutions be read aloud in full by either the person presenting it or by the Clerk-Treasurer.

Speaking after the meeting, Quaile said she voted against the bylaw because it didn’t go far enough with regards to openness and transparency. She said she wanted the full text of resolutions to be released to the public 72 hours prior to the meetings, when the mayors receive them.

Speaking after the meeting, MRC Director General Kim Lesage said that the exact wording of resolutions can be amended right up until they’re adopted, and said there was concerns about confusion if the versions presented didn’t match up to the previously released ones.

Here are the draft and revised versions of the bylaw.