Therrien heading new task force on pandemic recovery

City council holding extra meetings later this year to make up for missed decisions

Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien plans to strike a new community task force to help develop ideas for post-COVID economic recovery.

The group will be formed in addition to the mayor and warden’s economic recovery task force, struck in April and co-chaired by Therrien and Peterborough County Warden J. Murray Jones.

That task force includes more than a dozen business leaders in various sectors.

This new group is meant to complement the mayor and warden’s task force.

The new community group will include at least 22 people such as city staff members, city councillors and citizens.

The group will have expertise in various areas such as arts and culture, sports, parks, transportation, food security and renewable energy.

Therrien will choose community members for the group, and they will serve a term of at least six months from July to December. Meetings will take place virtually or via teleconference.

Therrien proposed the formation of the new group in a report to councillors at a committee meeting on Monday. Councillors gave preliminary approval to the plan; it will need final approval at a council meeting on June 22.

Additional council meetings

Councillors approved a plan to add some extra meetings to its schedule this summer and fall to make up for meetings cancelled in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The idea is to ensure council can receive and review a surfeit of staff reports expected in the latter half of 2020.

The plan is to add committee meetings on some Monday evenings when there were previously no meetings booked. The additional meetings will take place on July 20, Sept. 21 and Oct. 19.

Councillors gave preliminary approval to the plan on Monday.

The plan doesn’t match a recommendation made by city staff in a report.

Staff had suggested adding additional meetings on Tuesday evenings following the previously scheduled Monday meetings. But that was too much for some councillors.

Coun. Keith Riel said his workload has increased 200 per cent in the pandemic, for instance, and he said he wouldn’t have the time to read all staff reports to be prepared for a series of “back-to-back meetings.”

Coun. Lesley Parnell said it made more sense to gather on Mondays that weren’t already scheduled for meetings; she said the agendas coming later in the year will be busy and the reading requirements on councillors will be “too heavy” if they meet on consecutive evenings.

Additional meetings are scheduled to take place on July 20, Sept. 21 and Oct. 19