Barrie’s next city council could hold its main meetings Wednesdays instead of Mondays.
Councillors gave initial approval Monday night to the switch.
Coun. Robert Thomson, whose motion asks for the change, says there are two main reasons.
“The real purpose of it is to give council a little more time, information, reaching out and working together to come out with solutions is my main goal for the next council,” he said. “It’s not so much reading the reports. It’s more about the working with staff to get information or ask them inquiries
“There’s (councillors) with full-time jobs, they receive the agenda on a Wednesday, they go to work Thursday, they glance through and they start… kind of dissecting it,” Thomson added. “Then they really dive into it on the weekend. It’s hard to sometimes get a hold of people.”
Councillors would continue to receive their general committee agendas on Wednesdays, their city council agendas on Thursdays, for the following week.
The other purpose is to comply with the Working for Workers Act, which is Ontario law.
Its intention is to help employees disconnect from the office, to create a better work-life balance. It requires Ontario employers with 25 or more workers to have a written policy about employees’ rights when it comes to disconnecting from their job at the end of the day, such things as expectations about response time for e-mails and encouraging employees to turn on their out-of-office notifications when they aren’t working, the government has said.
“Now the legislation is that you have to have a disconnect from work policy… they have the right to disconnect,” Thomson said. “So when you’re not on the clock, you can turn your phone off. We (councillors) do rely on (city) staff to call on weekends.”
But with the meetings on Wednesdays instead of Mondays, the questions for city staff can wait until Monday or Tuesday, instead of Saturday or Sunday.
Council and committee meetings in Barrie have been held on Mondays since at least 1988.
Coun. Mike McCann wondered aloud when the meeting schedule would change again.
“At what population will we start, would staff be recommending, that we actually have council meetings during the day, and not at night?” he said. “I believe the night-time meetings were designed because we were a farming community.
“Obviously, I know that some councillors work out of town and wouldn’t make it, but when would that threshold be?”
Michael Prowse, the city’s chief administrative officer, fielded that one.
“I think generally… the daytime meetings tend to go hand-in-hand with full-time members of council, and the City of Barrie has had part-time members of council… and that has gone with evening meetings,” he said.
The meeting day change would be effective for the 2022-26 council term, following the Oct. 24 election to determine the next mayor and 10 councillors.
This year’s meeting schedule would also be changed to remove the August meeting and those in September.
Staff would also investigate the feasibility of amalgamating general committee and planning committee meetings and report back at the beginning of the 2022-2026 council term.
City council will consider final approval of this motion at its June 6 meeting.
