Richmond council will receive its agendas five business days before its meetings.
The decision came after a debate about what the best schedule for councillors was to prepare for upcoming meetings and, in the end, the motion, brought forward originally by Coun. Carol Day, was modified from the staff recommendation of four days to five business day.
The original motion, put forward by Mayor Malcolm Brodie, was to have the agenda packages distributed four days in advance, which would have been on Thursdays.
Brodie pointed out that reports for council and public hearings all come through committee meetings, so the reports are already available with perhaps a few tweaks.
“I can’t imagine we need anything earlier than that,” Brodie said. “I can understand wanting the committee agendas a day ahead of time to give more time for reading and for digesting them.”
The Thursday posting would have meant council received reports four, five or six days in advance of the meeting, depending on which day the committee was meeting the following week, Brodie pointed out.
Day argued against the four-day advance and proposed that council receive them five business days in advance. She said it wasn’t just about reading the information, but about talking to staff and asking questions as well as talking to the public. The five-business-day option would also allow the public to go on the website to see the reports as well, she added. She pointed out that Metro Vancouver sends its packages out a week in advance of meetings.
Brodie said, however, with his experience on Metro Vancouver and TransLink boards, there are a lot of changes that happen between the first version of the agenda package and what eventually is on the agenda at the meeting.
“The result of having that early distribution is you supplement and change the agenda and you add reports and you change the agenda – it can be very, very confusing,” Brodie said.
A final amendment by Coun. Kelly Greene to have them distributed six days in advance was defeated.
Staff pointed out that the five-business-day motion would change the cycle of items coming to council meetings.
In the end, council voted for the five-business-day motion with Couns. Alexa Loo, Linda McPhail, Bill McNulty and Brodie opposed.
The city clerk is currently working through how the process will work and what the timeline will be, clarified Ted Townsend, city spokesperson.
