HMC Management Inc. oversees council meetings via webcam. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

New dates

La Ronge council makes changes to scheduled public meetings

Jan 9, 2020 | 2:36 PM

La Ronge Mayor Ron Woytowich believes council meetings will become more streamlined as changes have been implemented for 2020.

In the next three months, there will only be three regular council meetings on Jan. 15, Feb. 12 and March 18, before there will be an increase of such meetings to twice per month for April, May and June. The latter three months will also include three separate Committee of the Whole meetings, which is a new feature to the schedule. There will be one regular meeting in July and another in August.

Traditionally, regular council meetings were held the second and fourth Wednesday of every month with exceptions for July and August. Woytowich noted the changes were recommended by HMC Management Inc., which council hired to overtake administrative duties and find a new CAO.

“They have come up with this idea that for the first three months, we only need one meeting a month,” he said. “There’s a few other changes as well. We’re changing from having separate committees to a Committee of the Whole and that will be one day per month and it will kind of take the place of a council meeting.”

Woytowich expects the Committee of the Whole meetings to be open to the public unless council is discussing matters required to be done so in-camera. Council can speak privately about issues surrounding staff, legal problems or budgetary considerations.

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At Committee of the Whole meetings, Woytowich said staff are usually briefed by town employees about ongoing operations. In the past, he added much of the discussions were done prior to regular meetings.

“This is my own personal opinion, but I think for the next couple of meetings, it is going to take a little bit of doing,” Woytowich said. “We as a council should be able to do that once per month if we have all the staff working behind the scenes to get everything ready.”

A full list of council meeting dates for 2020 can be found online here.

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno