Moncton City Council is on its way to passing a new Meetings Procedures By-Law, which governs how council meetings, and public presentations, and public hearings are run.
City Solicitor Nick Robichaud says one new thing is a Notice of Motion process – to be used by elected officials to bring forward a motion for consideration.
“You would have the first step to provide notice of that motion, and then it will give administration the opportunity to come back for the following meeting, or at a determined later date for the background information on that particular motion so that council can make an informed decisions,” explains Robichaud.
Robichaud says for public presentations, they are keeping the two choices of registered speakers, and those who choose to speak on the night of the meeting.
“We’ll have I guess two separate time guidelines for those types of presentations,” says Robichaud. “Registered presentations would have five minutes to present, and the unregistered presentations would now have two minutes to make their presentation.”
Robichaud says other changes including new provisions for electronic participation, and a permanent public council meeting start time of 4 o’clock year round.
Currently, public meetings of Moncton City Council being at 5 o’clock from September through May, but the meetings in June, July and August begin at 4 o’clock.
The new by-law has to pass second and third reading at the December 17th council meeting, and if it does, the changes will take effect for the first meeting in 2019.