The City of New Westminster believes “extra due diligence” is needed before the video of a controversial council meeting is posted online.
Recordings of city council meetings are posted on the city’s website the morning after meetings take place. The video of the Feb. 5 evening meeting, which was adjourned before all of the meeting’s business had been completed, has yet to be posted on the city’s website.
Dennis Back, the city’s corporate officer, confirmed there have been discussions regarding the posting of the video, given that the Feb. 5 regular council meeting was terminated early.
“With respect to informing the community, we understand that this delay is outside the normal process for council meeting video recordings,” he said in an email to the Record. “However, given the tone and content of the meeting, we believe this issue requires extra due diligence.”
According to Back, senior staff are currently speaking with other municipalities to learn their approaches.
“We look forward to having more to report on this reasonably soon,” he said in a March 7 email to the Record.
Following the Feb. 5 meeting, then-corporate officer Peter Dejong said the city would be releasing an “edited version” of the video the following week.
What happened?
After breezing through the bulk of the Feb. 5 regular agenda, the meeting took a turn in delegation period.
Saeed Naguib, the second of 10 delegates who had registered to speak that night, told council that he was concerned about statements made by a councillor at the Jan. 8 meeting, when council considered a motion calling for a cease fire in Gaza. He stated that some of the comments made at the January meeting were not true and words “have consequences” and can lead to hate crimes.
After reaching his five-minute limit as a delegate – which was interrupted by several calls of “points of order” – council asked Naguib to submit his presentation in writing and allow council to hear from the next delegate.
When Naguib refused to leave the area where delegates sit, council members left the room, planning to return when they were able to hear from the other delegates. They returned nearly an hour later, and Naguib was still sitting at the delegates’ table.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone asked Naguib if he was willing to allow the meeting to proceed and allow other delegates to address council, and he replied: “No.”
“We are not in a practice in this city of having people forcibly removed from chambers, and I don’t think it’s a practice we should begin today,” Johnstone said. “The only option I think is available to council right now is that we just adjourn the meeting.”
Because of council’s meeting schedule, there have been no public delegations since the Feb. 5 meeting.
