Rocky View County (RVC) councillors voted 6-2 on Sept. 9 to allow council meetings to proceed past 5 p.m. with a majority vote rather than a unanimous one.
“As inconvenient as it is for people’s workdays to extend past 5 p.m., this should make for a tidier completion of agendas,” said RVC Reeve Margaret Bahcheli. “It’s been frustrating recently, when you have one or two items that you think you can get through quickly, but you can’t quite get there because 5 p.m. hits and everything shuts down.”
According to Bahcheli, this amendment gives council the option to continue the meeting beyond normal workday hours, push the remaining agenda items to the next council meeting, or recess for as long as necessary before resuming the meeting.
However, a recess would have implications. For applicants, lawyers, and other members of the public who have hearings with the council on the agenda, a recess could be problematic, according to Councillor Lois Habberfield.
“We know a year ahead when our council meetings are,” she said. “Some people wait 10 months to get a public hearing, and we need to consider that.”
Under Section 8(2), the bylaw states that a motion to proceed past 5 p.m. should take into consideration the maximum working hours noted in RVC Bylaw C-7085-2011, which is currently 12 hours.
Bahcheli explained that in the future, whoever is chairing the council meeting will need to be aware of the 12-hour maximum working day.
“There is a limit to how far you can push your staff,” she said. “In past years, there have been meetings where we have gone until 2 a.m., and that’s not only not healthy, but it doesn’t comply with employment laws. We just can’t do all-nighters; it’s not fair to the staff, public or press. But it’s important for us to be able to go past 5 p.m. to put a few more things to bed before we reach our limit.”
While the majority of councillors were in favour of the motion, councillors Al Sacuta and Jerry Arshinoff opposed the amendment. Arshinoff admitted there is significant merit to the amendment, but he would prefer to keep the system as it is.
“We should always have the option to stay past 5 p.m. when it’s necessary, but I think this would make it easier to push motions through far too quickly, without giving them proper consideration,” he said. “Doing three motions within a few seconds of each other defeats the purpose of having motions one, two and three. The idea behind that is that you can give the issue the so-called ‘sober second thought,’ and I think this amendment will make it more likely to have three readings in rapid succession.”
In order to proceed with a third reading, a motion must receive a unanimous vote. RVC Municipal Clerk Nona Housenga clarified that the amendment would not affect this procedure, and if a motion didn’t receive a unanimous vote, it would still carry over to the next meeting.
“I agree that there are simple matters that come before council that you might as well give readings to immediately, but more often than not, that’s not the case,” Arshinoff said. “I think that by prolonging meetings, as I’ve noticed in the past, there seems to be a big rush to get things done. I know there is a certain amount of business to be taken care of, and people who are waiting for it to be done, but we need to be sure it is done properly, fairly and reasonably, to the best of our ability.”
Sacuta is also concerned about the amendment, and said that unanimous approval should be required before proceeding.
“I’m not a big fan of running past 5 p.m. because everyone is tired at that point,” he said. “Debates can become drawn out, tedious and sometimes, downright surreal. As a result, we make poor decisions – even worse than normal.”
Despite the objections of Sacuta and Arshinoff, the motion was carried. Bahcheli said the amendment will make meetings easier for council as well as the audience.
“There is definitely a sense of frustration when members of the public are taking a day off work to do this and you can’t get to the next item on the agenda, it really is frustrating for everyone,” Bahcheli said. “The pendulum swings hard to one side and then the other, but I think we are finally finding our happy medium. I’ve always driven hard to get the agenda done within the workday, but there have been a handful of times where it’s been necessary to go a little longer. It’s nice to have that option.”
