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Kamloops City Council has decided to pause public inquiries at council meetings for two months.
Public inquiries have been a contentious part of regular council meetings for a few months now, especially after a reported pornographic video was shown to council members and people watching a September meeting online.
Many of the inquiries have resulted in complaints for city councillors about disruptive behaviour and repeated reminders from city staff that public inquiries must relate to items on the agenda.
“I have been sitting in this horseshoe for six years now and the decorum that comes to us and the accusations and the finger pointing and the laughing has just gotten to the point where it hinders us to do our job,” coun. Sarai said at the Sept. 24 meeting.
On Tuesday, city council voted in favour of suspending public inquiries and directed city staff to come back with more permanent changes to that section of the council meeting agenda.
Initially the city’s Governance and Service Excellence Select Committee suggested a six-month suspension, however, a few city councillors thought that was going too far.
“I just don’t know where I stand with this. I get the intent of what we’re trying to do,” said coun. O’Reilly.
“Ultimately, (it) is to allow the business of the city to function and continue on at our business meetings. For me, it seems we’ve gone too far too quick if we do this. (...) I would be more open to looking at a six-month pilot of having a maximum of 15 minutes (for public inquiries) and two minutes per person.”
Councillors Bepple and Hall supported the suggestion of introducing time limits.
City staff said “tinkering” with the amount of time allotted during public inquiries will involve a bylaw amendment but the pause in public inquiries does not.
It was coun. Middleton that put forth the motion to pause public inquiries for two months while staff come up with bylaw amendments that better reflect what council is looking for during public inquiries.
Ultimately, city council agreed to have staff draft up bylaw amendment options to be workshopped at the next Committee of the Whole meeting, which is scheduled for Jan.21.