City of Kingston Committee system review 2008-02-20

[posting]

Kingston City Council is considering the elimination of a number of committees and a return to a single "Committee of the Whole" system. This would reduce the number of committee meetings councillor members would need to attend. But it would also make it more difficult for public participation. The present committee system tends to be more accessible to the public and low key in nature. The alternative would consist of full formal meetings of City Council meeting as Committee of the Whole to consider matters and then reporting to a regular meeting of City Council to confirm the decisions at commitee.

You can express your views on this issue at a public meeting on February 20th - see details below.

-- Kingston Electors

City of Kingston

PUBLIC NOTICE

TAKE NOTICE THAT Kingston City Council has appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to Review Bylaw 98-1, “Council Procedural Bylaw” and Bylaw 2004-360, “Committee Bylaw”;

AND FURTHER TAKE NOTICE THAT as part of the review process, the Ad Hoc Committee has been tasked with deliberating and reporting back to Council whether or not Council should move from the Standing Committee System to a Committee of the Whole System.

The Ad Hoc Committee will be hosting a Public Meeting at which time members of the public are invited to attend and speak to this issue.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 6 p.m.

Councillor’s Lounge, 3rd Floor, City Hall

Please note that the Ad Hoc Committee will also be holding their regular meetings to work on the Bylaw review on Monday, Feb. 11 and on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 4 p.m., in the Councillor’s Lounge, 3rd Floor, City Hall, 216 Ontario St. Similar to other Committees of Council, the Public is welcome to attend this and any other regular meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee.

Carolyn Downs, City Clerk

[Civic]

Here is a view from Vancouver on the importance of civic committees:

Vancouver council rejects mayor's plan to drop committees

CBC Dec 16 2005


A marathon 16-hour Vancouver city council meeting ended early Friday morning, with Mayor Sam Sullivan suffering a partial defeat at the hands of his own NPA councillors.

Sullivan wants to disband the city's 21 citizen advisory committees indefinitely, while they go through a review.

But in a surprise move, the committees will be reinstated, after all but one councillor voted against him * following a public outcry.

"This council doesn't care about citizen involvement," said Kate Sutherland, who was just one of the few people who lasted the seven-hour wait to speak to council after a day of lengthy debate.

She's one of the many critics of the mayor's plan to suspend the advisory committees, which report to council on a range of subjects.

The mandates of the committees were reviewed by the previous COPE-dominated council just two years ago.

New NPA councillor Kim Capri also questions the mayor's insistence that the committees disband until the review is done.

"It's been raised a couple of times tonight, and I'm not sure why we're not getting an answer to that. And that question is, 'What is the harm of reinstating the committees at this point?'"

Sullivan's answer failed to persuade councillors * and four of his five NPA colleagues vote with the five opposition councillors to reinstate the committees.

Sullivan had argued it was unlikely the committees would face any real change if they were allowed to continue.

"One of my favourite examples of governments and their inability to change once momentum is established, is the fellow who was hired in 1813 to stand on the white cliffs of Dover, and he was supposed to set up a fire when he saw Napoleon's boats arrive. And his position wasn't discontinued until 1902."