New Westminster city council is taking a step aimed at increasing openness sand transparency at city hall.
Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas put forward a motion that council commit to publicly releasing all in-camera minutes on the city’s website as soon as practicable and once a decisions or discussion is no longer required to be secured as confidential. The motion’s preamble stated that openness and transparency are the cornerstones of any function democracy and noted that mayor and council are required to conduct some of the city’s business in camera, as per the Community Charter.
According to Fontaine, the motion would bring the City of New Westminster into alignment with several other cities in Metro Vancouver, which, once an item has been discussed in camera and is not longer considered confidential, release the minutes of that decision to the public.
“I ran on a platform of openness and transparency,” he said. “I really want to make sure that we have as many items that are in camera brought out into the public domain so that they're not behind closed doors and that we can see, where possible, what council is discussing, and what is being approved by way of the release of in-camera minutes.”
Mayor Patrick Johnstone expressed concern about the motion’s reference to the release of “in-camera minutes,” saying that’s not consistent with what’s done in other cities and is not best practice.
“In-camera minutes are not normally released,” he said. “What is actually released is a record of decisions, which I think is a very different thing. And I support doing that.”
Johnstone said it’s important that people know that in-camera decisions do become public, such as the hiring of a new corporate officer or the inclusion of former in-camera items that appear in the city’s budget.
“But this does provide an opportunity for some clearer understanding of when the decision was made and how decision was made,” he said of the motion.
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative officer, said minutes and decisions are “very different” so she suggested the motion’s wording be changed.
After some input from Spitale and Hanieh Berg, the city’s new corporate officer, council unanimously approved a motion that: council commit to publicly releasing all in-camera resolutions (as opposed to minutes) on the city’s website as soon as practicable and once a decision or discussion is no longer required to be secured as confidential.
“We could bring resolutions of council back publicly, whether it's somewhere on the agenda or a separate staff report that comes forward just highlighting the date that it went to and the actual decision that went through,” Berg said.
