Chestermere City Council is developing a question period policy for residents who are interested in asking a question in-person at city hall.
During the Oct. 18 council meeting, Legislative Clerk Kallen Morrison presented the question policy to councillors.
Following the presentation, council directed Legislative Services to further review the question period policy, enhance it, review public participation rights, and determine what the policy will allow.
“For the City of Chestermere to be more transparent and offer a resource for residents to receive answers to their questions about the city and its operations a policy has been developed,” Morrison said.
Residents who want to ask the city a question are encouraged to send their questions through email, mail, or through a web portal that is currently being developed.
Morrison explained that under the question policy, Legislative Services can alter the content of questions if the content violates Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP), is redundant, or there are grammatical and spelling errors. Questions will be rejected if the question violates FOIP, or is disrespectful to the mayor, councillors, and city staff.
“The structure and the language being used. Inappropriate language, slang, or insults Legislative Services can alter the question to remove offensive language,” Morrison said. “There are no criteria, it would be based on Legislative Services intuition.”
The updated question policy is to ensure appropriate questions are being asked, and residents are respectful.
“The point isn’t to restrict public participation it’s supposed to encourage it. The intent is not to bring questions from the public to council in this setting when there are other methods,” Morrison said.
Although Legislative Services will amend questions that have errors, if a question has offensive language, and slurs, it will be deleted.
“If a resident wants their question answered this is in addition to the many ways to get their question answered. If a resident wants to come here and make a show of themselves, that’s something we don’t want,” Morrison said. “We’re not discouraging transparency, or public participation, we’re trying to discourage residents coming and speaking at the podium for theatrics.”
City Councillor Mel Foat said he supported question period but believed the question policy needed to be taken back to city administration for revisions before council implemented the policy.
Foat explained that if a resident can’t ask their question at a council meeting, it would be sufficient for them to email Legislative Services, to have their question answered.
“I’m a supporter of question period. If they are concerned, they have the right to come and make their point be known,” Foat said.
City Councillor Sandy Johal-Watt expressed concerns about getting rid of the opportunity for the public to interact with council, in order to mitigate the risk of grandstanding.
“Knowing the majority of us ran on a platform of transparency, it seems like we’re going in the wrong direction, by not having the opportunity for the public in good faith to come and interact with their council,” Johal Watt said. “I’d like to see the opportunity re-established within the walls of this room, and ensure we have that interaction.”
Legislative Services will review the question policy and bring it back to council before the policy is passed and implemented.
