The meetings that were supposed to happen on June 12 were put off to June 19.
The Committee Of The Whole meeting may be viewed below.
Viewing of the Regular (evening) meeting is on hold pending legal consultation.At some point in the future the meeting in whole or part will likely be available but at this point all I can offer you is my words to council at the end of the meeting.
The Regular (evening) meeting of council was less exciting than the Special meeting just a few hours earlier – though from the sparring at the beginning it appears that the issue which appeared to be resolved earlier isn’t.
There are 3 agenda packages for your perusal: The regular meeting agenda and two reports from Urban Systems. Use the button to download the agenda and these links to download the reports: Flood Study and Airport Fire Flow
The Regular meeting.
In the afternoon City Council met with representatives from the Boundary Regional Chamber of Commerce to discuss the Board election held at the recent Annual General Meeting of the BCRCC. The Mayor, and some on Council, wanted some assurance that they weren’t giving taxpayer money to an organization that doesn’t follow its own rules.
The meeting followed a rather long and torturous path of discovery during which it appeared that the Bylaws the city was expecting they should have followed weren’t theirs at all. They might have been those from the previous Grand Forks Chamber. The city had looked on the Federal records but BCRCC board / executive people both current and previous mentioned they were following Provincial rules. At times it almost seemed like they were talking about different things. And at one point it strayed off into personal things and relationships and got a bit heated.
While I’d love to be able to explain it all in a clear and concise manner that isn’t really possible – as you will learn if you sit and listen to all 2 hours of the discussion.
Unlike other council meetings there is no pie – there was only one topic of discussion.
The City’s agenda can be found in the link to their website.
The BCRCC came with an information package which you can read below the video.
Enjoy – or not.
Some may have wondered if council had turned over a new leaf considering the brevity of the last few meetings. May 15th has shown they haven’t.
The Committee Of The Whole meeting was the longest I’ve attended and, at 5 hours, likely the longest so far. The reasons for this can be found in the discussions flowing from the delegations and topics: water rates, money, marijuana and recording inCamera meetings.
At one point emotions ran so high that two councilors left the room leaving only the Mayor and two other councilors in the chamber – not enough for a quorum.
The Regular Meeting
The main part of the meeting went relatively smoothly. It was the Late Items that carried the heated discussions from the COTW into the evening meeting. On of the main results of this is: The funding that the city provides to the Boundary Country Regional Chamber of Commerce has been put in abeyance. For a non-profit with a new board and a large part of its remit to support tourism this is extra bad timing: tourism season is about to commence and they have to hire a new Executive Director. All with a gap in funding.
The meeting videos in their entirety
Committee Of The Whole
The Regular meeting