In One "Special Council Meeting" (Sept 23, 2024): The Majority of Saanich Council Voted to Eliminate Open Forum, and then Chose to Continue to Allow Unrecorded, Unminuted Backroom Meetings that the Public Cannot Attend Between the District and a Lobby for Developers.
In a "Special Council Meeting" where the public were not given the opportunity to provide input, at Saanich City Hall on September 23, 2024 the majority of Saanich Council voted to eliminate Open Forum, and also chose to continue to allow unrecorded, unminuted backroom meetings that the public cannot attend between the District and a lobbying organization that represents the interests of developers.
The public were only able to speak immediately after the "Special Council Meeting" at the Committee of the Whole including as the Mayor noted: ironically at Open Forum, the last of which is to take place at the end of this year. Saanich will cease to provide Open Forums after that, as a result of the decision made the evening of Sept 23, 2024.
Couns. Chambers, Bondaroff, and Westhaver voted to preserve Open Forum. Couns. Brownoff, Plant, Harper, De Vries, and Brice voted to eliminate Open Forum.
Already there had been signs that Saanich was moving towards a likely removal of Open Forum.
The previous year on May 8, 2023 at a Council Meeting, Councillor Harper proposed that public input be sent to the Finance and Governance Standing Committee for review, with Councillor Plant commenting on some of his negative views towards Open Forum. (See resources section at end of the article for the transcribed quote.)
In 2024, Saanich broke its own Bylaw regarding Open Forum by not holding Open Forum in March, as it was required to do so at the first Committee of the Whole of each month, according to the Council Procedure Bylaw in place at the time.
At the March 18, 2024 Special Council Meeting and Committee of the Whole (the 1st Committee of the Whole of the month), Open Forum was not included on the agenda for that night. Councillor Chambers at the beginning of the proceedings that evening, proposed a motion that Open Forum take place. Councillor Chambers did not receive a seconder for the motion from any member of Council. Thus Open Forum did not occur in March even though it was required to take place according to the Council Procedure Bylaw at the time.
By the September 23 Special Council Meeting, not one member of the public had spoken, nor written in favour of eliminating Open Forum. On the contrary, numerous members of the public had previously spoken and written in favour of preserving it. At the previous council meeting (Sept. 9), many members of the public were made to wait until 10 p.m. before they were able to speak in favour of preserving Open Forum.
Soon after, during the same "Special Council Meeting", all but one councillor chose to continue allowing the unrecorded, unminuted, backroom meetings (that the public cannot attend) between Saanich and the UDI, a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry that offers representation and political influence to its paying member companies that profit from development and real estate.
Coun. Chambers had put forth the following motion: "That committee and other meetings that could include staff and/or members of Council with the Urban Development Institute are minuted, recorded and open to the public."
Couns. Brownoff, Westhaver, Plant, Harper, Brice, De Vries, Bondaroff, and Mayor Murdock all failed to provide Chambers with a seconder for the motion, thus immediately ending it in its tracks.
A video of this segment can be viewed here:
Two weeks prior to the motion, the majority of Port Moody council voted to release details on an unlisted UDI liaison committee. The District of Saanich has not listed on its website the UDI liaison committee that it meets with.
Resources:
THE CORPORATION OF THE DISTRICT OF SAANICH (Council Procedure Bylaw, 2021, NO. 9660)
"Open Forum – Comment and Question Period
a) Council will hold a fifteen (15) minute Open Forum session at the beginning of the
first C/W meeting of each month providing an opportunity for the public to address
Council on District-related topics."
Special Council Meeting and Committee of the Whole Meeting (granicus.com) March 18, 2024 video segment 3:10-4:24, where Councillor Chambers put forward a motion to have Open Forum take place that evening. The motion did not receive a seconder from a member of Council, and thus failed.
Schedule, Agendas & Minutes | District of Saanich
Transcript of Councillor Plant's speech during the May 8, 2023 Council Meeting, where he spoke negatively about Open Forum:
"I personally find that the open forum has not met my expectations and in my hopes as a councillor I anticipated open forum to be something that would likely lead us in potential new directions to understand significant new approaches to things, but largely has become an opportunity for people to perhaps express concerns about specific projects that have come, so I'm not sure that is something that we benefit from, I think that when people come to council they should talk about issues that are on the agenda. They should talk about issues that are on Committee of the Whole. They should talk to us about issues that are at the public hearing, so I don't know if you are going to make that recommendation when it comes back to us, people on finance and governance, you may have a better discussion and decide that that is something we should keep. I do want to acknowledge that it is unfortunate that there is a perception that perhaps this motion is seen as trying to limit public input." - Coun. Plant
https://saanich.ca.granicus.com/player/clip/749
At the 1:41:25 time point in the video Councillor Colin Plant upon seconding Councillor Harper's motion to forward public participation to Finance and Governance, speaks negatively about Open Forum.
