BONNYVILLE – During an organizational meeting on Oct. 26, MD of Bonnyville council passed a motion to change the dates of regular council meetings and committee of the whole meetings to a new day of the week.
While all of council’s meetings have been set for the second, third and fourth Wednesday for 2022, meetings slated for 2023 had not yet been set.
The discussion of changing the regular day that council meets was the result of a presentation by MD administration at the committee of the whole meeting on Oct. 19, proposing the day be changed.
Switching meeting days from Wednesdays to Tuesdays would bring the MD of Bonnyville’s meeting schedule in line with most other municipalities in the province.
According to administration, this would relieve scheduling conflicts that have come up in the past.
“We're just out of sync with the vast majority of scheduling that takes place in the province,” CAO Al Hoggan told council.
While the change of date would not affect the operational side for the MD’s administration, Hoggan noted that many provincial and fiscal events are scheduled on Wednesdays because most municipalities are involved in their own meetings earlier in the week.
“I think that if we are out of sync with the vast majority, we should maybe get in sync,” said Reeve Barry Kalinski.
Before council voted on the schedule change, Coun. Darcy Skarsen noted, “Whenever I signed up to be councillor it was based on Wednesdays, and there are going to be times when I’m going to be missing meetings and I just want [you to be] aware because my whole work schedule is based on a Wednesday meeting.”
Referring to information collected by administration, Skarsen also noted that while most municipalities do meet on Tuesdays, there are many counties and municipal districts that schedule their meetings for Wednesdays.
In the end, council approved the motion to switch meetings to Tuesdays in a five to two vote. Councillors Skarsen and Mike Krywiak were not in favour of changing the dates.
Beginning in 2023, regular meetings of council will be scheduled for the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, and its committee of the whole meetings will take place on the third Tuesday of each month.
The 9 a.m. start time for meetings will remain the same. MD council will have its first Tuesday council meeting on Jan. 10, 2023.
