February 27th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
We won’t know until the end of October who is going to be sitting in the seven seats around the horseshoe in the Council chamber but we do know that the space they will occupy will look different and have much more in the way of technology that will make it easier for council members to vote and to take part in council meetings should they have to be away from the city and unable to get to a meeting.
There was considerable debate Monday afternoon on whether a Council member should be allowed to vote if they are not in the room and if they can be counted as part of a quorum if they are not in the room.
The Halton District School Board has state of the art software that records the votes and a system that lets a school board trustee take part in a meeting should they be unable to get to the board offices to attend.
Burlington city council has software to record their votes that looks like something put together by a couple of high school students. It doesn’t always work and several of the members of council still have difficulty know which buttons to press.
All that will change. City staff held a kick off meeting recently to start the process of working towards that day when, as Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward put it , “we can enter the 20th century technically”.
Most of the other Regional municipalities have upgraded their facilities – Oakville is by far the best – and provide a visual link that is superb.
Now if the voters in Burlington can select from some of the excellent young men and women who have expressed a strong interest in running for public office the city just might take on a more modern approach to how it interacts with the its citizens.
Related news content:
How the other Regional municipalities reach their public.
I think your recent article here in the Gazette highlighting this may have helped spur them on!