Council has taken steps to comply with Municipal Act

By DOUGLAS GLYNN Midland Free Press September 27, 2012

Council has taken steps to ensure its closed meetings comply with the Municipal Act, Mayor Gordon McKay said in a news release issued Monday.

McKay’s comments came on the heels of a report released by Andre Marin, Ontario’s ombudsman, that said council contravened the Act, breached its own procedural bylaw and engaged in improper voting behind closed doors.

“Council has invited the ombudsman to conduct training sessions for council and staff in October,” he said. “I want to assure people council will turn its full attention to the ombudsman’s recommendations. We are committed to open and transparent government.”

Asked in an interview if he thought there should be a course created with the ombudsman’s assistance to ensure that people new to political office would have a better understanding of their role, McKay said: “I’d go beyond that.”

McKay said he believes there should be a set of procedures for closed meetings, much as there is for meetings under the Planning Act.

“When you have a public meeting under the Planning Act, there is a prescriptive regimen. It should the same way for closed meetings,”?McKay told The Free Press.

“Many of these things were done inadvertently. It was a practice propagated through the years. I’ve had the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) training and have been on council six years and was unaware of some of these things,”?said the mayor. “The show of hands and informal voting has been in place for some years,”?he added.

“To have it suddenly brought to your attention that it’s not the way to do things is certainly disconcerting to say the least. I’m probably as upset as the ombudsman,”?McKay said.

“As you well know, at council meetings and closed meetings,” he continued, “staff and council will play off each other and we look to staff to prepare us properly for those meetings. Again, not to criticize staff or anything, but if they have not properly prepared you then quite easily you can get off track at a closed meeting and be talking about topics that are inappropriate,”?McKay said.

He said he welcomed the ombudsman’s recommendation that closed-door meetings be video or audio taped.

“A full recording would be useful for the investigative process.”