City ‘learning series’ puts onus on citizens to get on agenda rather than encouraging councillors to be flexible
The City of Iqaluit’s summertime campaign to make residents better-informed about the mysterious world of municipal governance smells like damage control after councillors wouldn’t hear dozens of residents who wanted to speak about a change the animal control bylaw council voted on last month.
The city launched what it calls a “summer learning series” to help people “become familiar with how city council meetings work and how decisions are made.”
Hey, who doesn’t love spending summer days boning up on the world of bylaws, motions, seconders and first, second and third readings?
The first lesson, published online on June 30, was titled Understanding Municipal Governance: A Summer Learning Series. The second one — Making Decisions: How City Council Meetings Work — dropped Tuesday.
Anything a government can do to help citizens understand how it works is worthwhile.
But it can’t be a coincidence this campaign began two weeks after the June 10 meeting where councillors ignored dozens of people opposed to a controversial amendment to the city’s animal control bylaw.
That change lowered the wait time before killing stray dogs rounded up by municipal enforcement officers to 24 hours from seven days.
The amendment had been working its way through council since May. When it came up for third reading on June 10 — the last step in the process — approximately 50 people packed the council meeting to show their opposition.
Mayor Solomon Awa said he had never seen the chamber so full.
When the people weren’t allowed to speak, some were angry they hadn’t been heard by the people elected to represent them.
But the city turned it around, blaming them for not understanding how council meetings work.
When a bylaw is at its final stage, “no further public input is permitted during that meeting,” this week’s instalment of the summer learning series says.
“For this reason, residents are encouraged to speak up early in the process while council is still considering the issue.”
If you want to speak to council, you need to ask the clerk’s office to add you to the agenda two weeks before the meeting. Those are the rules.
But rules are made to be broken and there are always exceptions to the rule.
A lot of councils have the authority, flexibility and discretion to pivot and add a latecomer to the agenda at the last minute … if they want to.
Also, there was no reason the animal control bylaw had to be voted on at the June 10 meeting. Seeing the dozens of residents — voters — who wanted to be heard, councillors easily could have deferred the vote to a later meeting. That would have created an opportunity to hear the concerned citizens before voting on the controversial bylaw change.
The rules that govern council meetings can be a mind-numbing mystery to the average person not fluent in the Cities, Towns and Villages Act and the Council Procedures Bylaw.
Certainly, the more informed citizens are, the better able they’ll be to participate in civic affairs.
But instead of putting it on the unwashed masses for not knowing how to navigate the confusing and unfamiliar world of municipal governance, there should be some willingness among councillors to exercise discretion when the people they serve want to be heard.