Oliver next to trim council meetings
Oliver is the latest community in the South Okanagan to reduce the frequency of council meetings.
Beginning in June, Oliver council will meet every third Monday, abandoning its current schedule of meeting the second and fourth Mondays of each month.
The change, which is being delayed until after budget deliberations and will be reviewed after six months, mirrors one approved by Summerland council in November.
Top administrators in both communities pitched the move as a way to give staff more breathing room between meetings to write reports and the public more time to digest reports, while lessening the demands on elected officials’ time.
Oliver corporate officer Rochelle Lougheed said the new schedule will result in 20 regular council meetings this year — two fewer than originally planned and one fewer than in 2022.
However, when closed meetings, public hearings, budget talks and the like are thrown into the mix, council actually sat for 69 meetings last year, according to Lougheed.
“I have a couple of concerns with going to every three weeks. I think one of them would be for the public to keep track of the meeting schedule, which I guess like anything else they could get used to and it can be trialled,” said Coun. Aimee Grice.
“I just worry about it slowing the development process.”
Indeed, while switching to meetings every three weeks will give staff extra time to mail out public notices about development applications and give residents extra time to contemplate them, it could also add a few weeks to some approvals.
The town is, however, looking to make up time elsewhere by streamlining the process through which the B.C. Transportation Ministry comments on applications.
“There is no doubt (the new schedule) adds another two weeks, potentially, to the format, but there are some benefits,” said Randy Houle, the town’s director of development services.
While staff initially suggested switching meetings to Tuesday as Monday meetings are most commonly bumped as a result of statutory holidays, council decided to stick with Mondays for consistency.
“I think it’s worthwhile looking at it, seeing what the impact is on staff and seeing if it is making a life little easier,” said Mayor Martin Johansen.
“On development applications, there’s always the opportunity for a special meeting if something has to be dealt with.”