The City of Orillia is looking into providing more input to members of the public at its council meetings.
As it stands, members of the public can voice their opinions on city matters during the open public forum portion of council meetings, but only if those issues are on the agenda for that particular meeting.
Coun. Luke Leatherdale wants that to change. He brought forward a motion to allow the public to speak on any city-related matter – regardless of whether it’s on the agenda or not – during open public forum.
Leatherdale gained support from his council colleagues, so city staff will report back on the feasibility of the idea at a later date.
“This is just one more voice for the public, and it would give us better opinions of what the public is thinking, and we can make better decisions going forward,” Leatherdale explained of his reasoning.
Coun. Ralph Cipolla agreed.
“I think this is a great idea because people have always asked me, ‘Why can't I ask a question on certain aspects of the community that we're having problems with?’” Cipolla said. “I think it's just information that we can take back and look at it from a council perspective, so I will be supporting this.”
However, councillors Tim Lauer and Whitney Smith raised concerns about the idea.
Lauer said council formerly did something similar at the end of its meetings, but he wasn’t sold on opening up the beginning of the meeting, when open public forum takes place, to any and all city-related matters.
“In the long run, I'm pretty sure that this one is not going to work. What we're talking about is creating a town hall meeting before every council meeting, and I don't know exactly how long that could go on … there could be lots of speakers,” he said. “I'm not convinced that this is going to work at the start of the meeting as an open forum.”
Smith said there are already avenues for the public to express their concerns on city matters.
“As a municipal government, people have the most access to us than any other government. They can email us; they can call us, so that's a point where they can bring up questions,” she said. “I agree. It turns into a potential town hall or a debate, and I don't think that that's necessary.”
In response to Smith, Leatherdale added that easing open public forum topics would allow for councillors to hear citizen concerns together.
“I think the biggest difference here is that we're together as a group, the entire council, and we're listening to people as a whole,” he said.
Despite Lauer and Smith’s concerns, the majority of council supported Leatherdale’s idea.
“I'm actually an adamant supporter of this,” said Coun. Jay Fallis. “I think what this does is provide the opportunity for anyone who's coming to council to speak on an issue … that's impacting the city, but might not be on the agenda that day.”
Fallis also noted that holding such a session at the end of a council meeting might limit the number of people who show up.
