Councillor Stafford Lumley brought up an interesting complaint at Gibsons council last Tuesday night. Lumley, it seems, thinks that the council reports portion of the meeting is a) a waste of time, and b) a kind of Big Brother approach to ensuring that Town councillors do their jobs.
I hear what he’s saying. I’m even going to admit that I sit through the council reports wishing they would hurry up so I can leave earlier. But, they serve an important purpose.
If you’re reading this and you’re not a frequenter of council meetings, council reports are when councillors discuss some of the community events and meetings they went to during the last two weeks.
I get why that’s not super interesting for anyone to listen to – especially if you’re a journalist who has already covered most of those events. And it’s pretty clear that most residents aren’t that interested, because they usually leave before council even gets to the reports.
Last Tuesday, council heard from delegates for two major development projects in Gibsons, and they had seating backed all the way out of the room and into the foyer of Town Hall. It’s pretty obvious that everyone cares about the big picture stuff.
So why have the reports?
Basically, they serve to remind everyone (who stays for the entire meeting) of who a town council is actually serving. The community.
Big issues like the George get so much attention that it’s easy to forget there are people in the community who aren’t really on either side of the issue. They just want to take their kids to Jazz Week, or George and Charlotte Gibson Day.
Having a system in place that encourages Town councillors to go to community events is essentially about connecting the decision-makers with the people who are affected by their decisions.
Probably councillors aren’t thinking that much about what they did last weekend while they’re in the middle of deliberations over zoning amendments (or street sign colours).
However, if there’s a nice memory of being out in the sun, listening to live music with the rest of the townspeople, some of that is going to filter through into the big decisions.
