Chestermere City Council tabled the scheduled third reading of the new Procedure Bylaw during the April 5 Regular Meeting of Council.
The bylaw will be brought back to council at the April 19 Regular Meeting of Council.
The bylaw focuses on how virtual council sessions should be conducted, the terms of the deputy mayor’s role, and points of order and motions.
When the bylaw was first presented to council, during the March 15 meeting, it had not been reviewed by legal counsel.
“The Procedure Bylaw is how to conduct meetings and definitions within the meetings. It will help council move through meetings and understand the different areas,” Legislative Advisor Jerry Gautreau said.
Councillor Shannon Dean expressed concerns about some aspects of the Procedure Bylaw before it was given the first and second reading in March.
Dean’s concerns included councillors not being able to participate during in-camera sessions if they were not physically present in the council chambers, how long councillors would serve as deputy mayor, and the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) or the Director of Corporate Services approving every committee meeting agenda.
“This council has talked a lot about empowering our committees to do things and removing red tape. I feel like this adds red tape, and does not empower our committees,” Dean said.
The procedure bylaw takes into consideration any committees that council sits on and was designed for any committee to have one policy in place for how they are going to conduct their meetings, Gautreau explained.
Dean also raised a concern of some items getting taken off of the council meeting agenda, that residents expect to be on the agenda.
“We all ran on the idea of being transparent, wanting to answer, and should have the opportunity to do that in the chambers,” Dean said. “I’d like to see the items on the agenda as they are outlined, to continue to be outlined in the new procedure bylaw we create.”
