OUTLOOK - The town of Outlook has hosted a number of quarterly open house events at the Civic Centre for some time now, but the upcoming one next week will now feature a new add-on for those looking to ask questions and learn about current projects and initiatives in the riverside community.
Set to be held on Wednesday night, September 4, the open house will now feature a public meeting from 7:30 to 8:30, where people can ask questions of their elected officials, as well as those with the town's executive team.
Town CAO Kevin Trew says a shift in attendance numbers from the last few open house events forced the team to look at the model and make some changes to try and ensure that as many people as possible can be reached.
"When we first started being allowed to have open public meetings following the pandemic, we started with an open house format in the spring of 2022 which was a great success," said Trew. "We were prepared to make changes to the format and have done so each time. In the fall of 2023, after our 4th public meeting, we noticed a decline in attendance, so we worked on ways we could ensure that those who wanted to attend were fully informed in a productive and respectful manner. You could say that the thoughts of including a public forum format has always been on the back of mind, but wasn’t deemed necessarily productive or necessary. Following the public meeting this spring, our team decided to tweak the format."
Trew says that the town is always trying to come up with ways to reach as many local residents as possible. That said, there is something of a narrative permeating around the community that there are "secrets kept" and that not all information is being shared with the public.
Holding such a meeting is the Town's way of putting such coffee row rumors to bed and trying to meet the demand for more openness and transparency between officials and taxpayers.
"Unfortunately, the narrative that the Town is not having public meetings and not operating transparently seems to have some traction with those who haven’t been reached by the many forms of public media and interaction that we currently use," said Kevin. "Our team keeps working on improving our communication with the public; it is not only the number two strategic goal in the Town’s plan, it is something that our team has focused on for a while now, even prior to the passing of the Strategic Plan. We will continue to grow, change, learn and pivot as needed, but we also need for people to tell us how better we can reach out to them with some specific examples. The methods must be reasonable, respectful and economically feasible and productive."
Trew says that the Town welcomes any and all questions related to current projects and initiatives, as well as things that are in the works for the future. People are encouraged to reach out with their questions beforehand, but the CAO recognizes that residents may bring their questions to the meeting. The goal of the night is to provide as many answers to the questions that are posed as possible in order to try and give people a deeper and wider perspective on what's going on in their community right now.
"We are hopeful that people will submit questions to our email [email protected] prior to the public meeting, as this will allow a robust response, however we respect that people will bring questions with them to the forum portion and if there is more information needed than what is readily available at the Civic Centre, we will follow up with more information on our website and with direct mail," explained Trew. "The questions will be moderated, a team member will ask the question of the panel, stating the name of the person(s) posing the questions and then the question. The panel will consist of Mayor Weiterman, Deputy Mayor Ryan Husband, Luke Lockhart, Superintendent of Operations and myself. We expect all other members of Council to be present, however they will not be on the panel."
Any topic is up for conversation at this meeting, and should it be a success with a high number of both attendees and questions/comments, Trew says that the public meeting format may become standard going forward at future open house events in Outlook.
"As with all open houses and all public meetings we have held, any topic is up for conversation," he said. "Of course, personnel matters or legal matters protected by LAFOIP will not be discussed, but even in those cases, we don’t expect anything will be verboten. If we see success and buy in from participants, I suspect we will include a forum format going forward as we are not stuck on any particular format and are always ready to provide information to individuals, groups or organizations."
Those wishing to ask questions are encouraged to send them to [email protected] and they will be answered both in writing and at the meeting.
