Councillor Randy Halyk brought forward a motion at the January 17 council meeting to have motions acted upon as soon as they are passed.
The motion would require city staff to act on council’s motions immediately, provide a date of completion and provide update reports to council until motions are complete.
As soon as the motion was introduced, Councillor Mario Feldhoff introduced an amendment to change the intent from immediate to ‘in a reasonable time’.
“I don’t think it’s reasonable to have all motions be acted upon immediately,” he said, but added, “by the same token, I don’t think it’s reasonable to have motions of council be acted upon seven years after they’ve been passed.”
Municipal manager Trafford Hall reminded council there is an existing list of council’s motions which are not yet complete,
“The reason resolutions are not acted on is because we’re short staffed, you [council] give us far more work than we actually can do, so what we do is prioritize.”
Hall continued, “If a resolution doesn’t get acted on it’s because we’re short-staffed and short of time to do it, and now you want us to write a report on every resolution not acted on, every meeting, so let’s just add two or three staffers so we can continue to write these reports, and that’s counterproductive to the exact objectives of what we’re trying to do.”
Councillor Halyk argued the reporting requirement would be as simple as a ‘to do’ list in Microsoft Outlook’s calendar function,
Hall countered, “That’s not true!”
Feldhoff’s amendment to the motion passed with councillor Rob Goffinet introducing a further amendment eliminating the reporting provision.
The municipal manager called the amendment to the original motion “reasonable.”
As amended, the motion passed calls for staff to implement council’s resolutions in a reasonable amount of time.