There’s been a change noticed lately to the format of planning committee meetings at North Battleford City Hall.
As Mayor Ryan Bater puts it, “we’re actually doing some planning during planning meetings” now.
Until January, planning committee meetings followed a familiar format where reports were submitted by the city’s department heads: fire, the CSOs, leisure services, utilities, infrastructure, and other areas.
But at the Jan. 21 committee meeting, instead of receiving the usual reports, council used the time to discuss a number of issues that would come back to them as resolutions the next week when they would be sitting as council. Planning committee meetings are a more informal format, one in which councillors cannot vote on resolutions, only recommendations. (In some municipalities, these types of meetings are held in-camera.)
Recommendations from last week’s planning committee meeting included: UPAR work on 100th Street and the declaration of the street as arterial; the lease agreement at Twin Rivers Curling Club; the management agreement for David Laird Campground with the Canadian Mental Health Association (Battlefords branch); handicapped parking; and the proposed council remuneration policy.
Recommendations to council were voted on for each of those items. Those recommendations then came back to the full council meeting on Monday night, Jan. 28 to be voted on as resolutions.
A change was also noticed to Monday’s regular council meeting. Reports previously presented to planning committee – leisure services, utilities, infrastructure, fire and so on – were instead included on council’s agenda.
Mayor Bater made it known to reporters Monday the change in format is a deliberate one. Finance and tax are among the items receiving more attention at planning committee from now on.
“We’re going to be a little forward thinking now, looking at initiatives coming up,” said Bater.
“We will be devoting a large portion of this time to finance in particular, taxation, assessments, this type of thing, for council to be able to leverage all the tools at its disposal for the future benefit of the city. We haven’t been giving that enough attention, and now we’re going to, and I’m excited about it because it’s more forward-thinking.”
As for the monthly reports from city departments, Bater says that is information council still wants to receive, but he adds a “planning committee ought to be for planning. We may even change the name of it to reflect a bit of a change of mandate.”
The latest planning committee changes are not the only ones in the new era of Randy Patrick as city manager. This is also the first month of the new 6:15 p.m. start time for council meetings on Mondays, moved up from the previous start of 8 p.m.
Planning committee meetings are normally scheduled for the third Monday of every month in council chambers, and are open to the public beginning at 6 p.m.
