The City of St. John’s may be about to significantly change how issues arising get handled by council and communicated to the public — at least on a trial basis.
At Monday night’s general council meeting, a new report will be tabled, looking at the seven standing committees of council and recommending they be changed to a single “committee of the whole.”
The committees report to council and make recommendations, used in debates and final decisions at weekly (biweekly in the summer) general council meetings.
The review of council’s supporting committee structure has been ongoing since May and the final report from staff, just shy of 90 pages, was released Thursday — ahead of the upcoming council meeting, to encourage public discussion.
“Overall, through both the internal and external research, it is clear that the current standing committee structure and rules of procedure bylaw at the City of St. John’s require adjustments to better meet the existing and emerging needs of council and improve overall governance,” it states.
The seven, existing standing committees are: public works; finance and administration; planning and development; audit and accountability; economic development, tourism and public engagement; community services and housing; and police and traffic.
If council accepts the report and its recommendations, the work of these committees would be covered, one topic at a time, in a single “committee of the whole” meeting, at least twice a month in the Foran Greene Room at city hall.
The suggestion is these meetings might also be live-streamed, to allow for greater access for the public to early discussions, given people rarely attend current committee meetings — just under 50 in the last year — let alone the Monday night council meetings where decisions are made.
It is at the committee level where basic question and answers often come forward and there is initial discussion by councillors and staff, before recommendations to council are developed.
The “committee of the whole” as recommended would not cover audit work. Audit and accountability would remain a separate committee of council.
Advisory committees would remain in place, with advice from these groups going to the council’s “committee of the whole.”
If the change in committees is tried, a review on how well it is working has been recommended for the summer of 2018.
“Transparency in our decision-making process is extremely important to me,” St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen stated in a news release.
“This pilot project will help improve governance at city hall through enhanced councillor participation, consent agendas, and a review of the rules of procedure, and freedom of information bylaws. Moving to committee of the whole will better enable council to work together, share information at committee level, and enhance transparency and accountability to the public.”
Apart from committee changes, the report recommends consideration by council of more “consent agenda” — where items dubbed non-controversial, or not requiring debate, get packaged into a single agenda item for the regular, Monday meetings.
