By Staff
October 8th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
In the days before Covid, a delegation would be sitting in the Council Chamber, often amongst their peers.
You would be called up when it was your turn and you would address the members of council. On many occasions there would be questions from the members of Council which at times got quite frothy.
Gary Scobie delegating. The public doesn’t get this kind of performance anymore – and we are the poorer for it.
I recall an occasion when Gary Scobie was delegating – and when it came to questions he was able to give as good as he got. That was during the days of the 2014-2018 council
A regular Gazette reader wanted to delegate on an issue that concerned him.
The Agenda for the meeting (and accompanying application form to delegate) was not online until Thursday afternoon. Our reader was busy until 7pm.
He filled out application form at 7am on Friday (to meet the deadline of noon the next day – weekends don’t count – for Monday’s Council meeting)
Friday morning – he was busy on a community matter.
Friday 4pm – open emails to find a note from Clerk’s department which read:
“I have received your request to delegate at City Council on September 28, 2020. Due to COVID-19, all requests to delegate must contain a copy of the delegate’s intended remarks which will be circulated to all Members of Council/Standing Committee in advance of the meeting as a back-up to any technology issues that may occur.
“Once I receive your delegation comments I will confirm your delegation.”
This was new to our reader.
The first of four images sent by the city to the delegator.
He is a quick writer but commented that there was no way he could prepare anything reasonable in 30 minutes. So I wrote something, anything, over the weekend and sent it in.
As a back-up he emailed his Councillor ask him to intervene just in case there was a hiccup – there wasn’t.
Sunday 7:20PM Clerks office emails, got your remarks, you’re good to go.
Monday 1pm – into the Delegates Room. Was asked in the instructions sent to me to “open my video (thought about it but decided not to).
The second of four images sent to the delegator
When it came to my turn to delegate and I was facing a screen with 15 little people staring back at me (council and staff). Just as well I didn’t open my video, I spent the whole time looking down to read.
Seeing the Councillors is also a new feature. Last time (one month ago) my screen displayed what you see at home “Delegate Speaking”. So when I did look up, it was a bit unnerving, and everyone’s face was too small to read reactions.
The “rooms” we are placed in are all virtual.
There was a virtual Room shared by the people getting ready to delegate and then a separate virtual room for people who were about to actually delegate.
The third image sent to the delegator
Everything I did was from the comfort of my home in Aldershot.
I was first in what was referred to as the delegate room where I could look at a screen and see who the other people waiting to delegate were.
When it was my turn I was moved (again virtually) to were it was me and the members of Council along with whichever Staff members were taking part.
All I could see where the 20 or so people taking part – all set out before me on a computer screen.
When a particular person was speaking a yellow box was placed around their picture so I didn’t have to look all over the place for the speaker.
The fourth image sent to the delegator.
Was it a satisfying experience? It certainly wasn’t the kind of experience that one had when they stood at the podium before council.
The request to send in the paper I was going to read from was offensive – the Council members were not going to reads my document; many of them have problems getting through the staff reports.
Is this the best the city can do in terms of giving the citizens a way to say their piece?
Could the technology not allow for something better.
To the person at home watching the event – there is something unreal; almost plastic. The public never gets to see the person delegating – which is possible with the technology being used. The city has chosen not to do that.
It is also possible to see the embers of Council when they are speaking. The image is not always that good – but at least it is an image.
Regional Council shows everyone taking part in a meeting.
It seems to be the best that can be done at this point.
The tradition of citizens delegating will be lost if the current Zoom process is all that is going to be available.
People don’t like the current process and are not comfortable with it.
We consistently get comments from readers saying they do not feel respected by members of Council. This was certainly the case with the 2014-18 council. Does it apply to the current council? Too early to make that call – but we are seeing dis-satisfaction galore with the on-line learning students who went the virtual route are getting and have every reason to believe that the same concern exists with the Council delegations.
We will look for some time to see what other municipal council’s are doing and report back.
A member of this council is going to have to take a stand and insist that something better be put in place.
Right now this council is fixated on telling each other how well everything is going.
Anything that prevents the sam e 1/2 dozen or so from delegating on every issue I am all for. They are representing their own concerns not necassrily those of the majority of us and it slows the process while not realyy meaning the general public has input as they do not represent any large number of others just their own view.
There is a huge public engagement issue with the requirement to have delegation notes before council before registered which we are presently working to address.with the Minister. . It is not required for statutory public meetings and there is nothing in the Procedural Bylaw to support this mayor’s desire to know what delegates are going to say. – It is claimed to be to address virtual meeting tech issues. We had such issues and could not connect and nothing was done regarding our notes which we believe should have been read into the record.