There have been a lot of questions surround the concept of “in camera” meetings, as I mentioned in my midnight post last night, so I’m expanding on that concept in my midday post. While there is a general rule that all local government council meetings must be open to the public, there is a list of possible exceptions to the rule where you can have a meeting that’s closed to the public (known as an “in camera” meeting).

The part that is very interesting, is that these exceptions have proven to be the rule in Langford. While other municipal councils typically go “in camera” only rarely, Langford Council does so routinely. This raises the obvious question: Read the rest of this entry »

**Update: I checked Sunday evening, and someone went to the trouble of changing the agenda on the City Hall noticeboard as well.**

Earlier I raised the concern that the agenda for tomorrow night’s Council Meeting myseriously had Bylaw 1148 (Spencer Road Interchange financing) coming up for adoption again. It didn’t have the appearance of being a copy/paste error in the agenda either, as someone had gone to the trouble of attaching and updating all the requisite documents (they even attached a document showing that the bylaw had already been given final reading and been adopted by the municipality, which is kind of amusing).

I was informed by Cheryl McLachlan (author of a recent article on something important possibly being forgotten) that she went to Langford’s site and that someone at City Hall must have been burning the midnight oil (or should that be “weekend oil”?). Despite City Hall only being open Monday to Friday, the agenda for Monday night’s meeting has been changed at some point over the weekend. Bylaw 1156, which creates the Local Area Service for the interchange, was up for final reading/adoption, and now it’s struck from the agenda. (So we’re facing at least two more weeks of interchange-related costs building up without Council finalising both of its own bylaws.) Bylaw 1148 which authorised the funding is gone now too.

There’s another important difference between the two agendas. Langford goes into “in Camera” mode at the end of virtually every Council Meeting, where the public is instructed to leave the meeting. Originally the “in Camera” announcement read: “That it is the opinion of Council that the public interest requires that persons other than members of Council and Officers be excluded from the meeting to consider confidential information regarding Personnel and Legal Matters under section 90 (c) and (i) of the Community Charter;” but the wording has been changed to read Read the rest of this entry »