Muskoka Lakes settles meeting schedule

Allen Edwards.

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MUSKOKA LAKES - During yet another meeting about meetings, Muskoka Lakes finally settled on a schedule that only partially satisfied councillors.
Just before officially changing the meeting schedule from a three-week to a four-week cycle, adding a fourth day of meetings and changing all start times to 10 a.m. to accommodate seasonal residents who wanted to attend the meetings, councillors discussed one more change – they requested to change the meeting time for the committee of adjustment back to 9 a.m.
Allan Edwards, chair of the committee of adjustment, said many of the seasonal residents send agents to attend the meetings in their place anyway.
“Our rationale (to change the time to 9 a.m.) was to allow staff to have a proper lunch hour,” Edwards said.
Mayor Alice Murphy suggested starting earlier in the day also allows them to adjourn at lunchtime if they are finished or allows them more time in the afternoon if they have a full schedule that day.
Following the airing of differing viewpoints on whether to change only the committee of adjustment start time or go back to a 9 a.m. start time for everyone, Coun. Ruth Nishikawa said she wouldn’t be voting for a change.
“We’ve changed this so many times and at the beginning of our council term the reason we changed it was to go with our seasonal residents so I’m confused,” she said.
Coun. Phil Harding was in support of changing only the committee of adjustment start time.
“We sat here in committee of the whole making a decision, do we want to redo our decision? I really don’t like redoing my work,” he said.
Though several councillors voiced their preference of a 9 a.m. start time for all meetings, all councillors except Nishikawa, voted in favour of changing the committee of adjustment start time back to 9 a.m. and leaving the remaining meetings at 10 a.m.
Council also passed the final decision to change its meeting schedule so that committee of adjustment will meet on Thursday, council on Friday, the planning portion of committee of the whole on Monday and the remaining committee of the whole items on Tuesday. The meetings will flank the weekend, just before the District of Muskoka holds its monthly round of council meetings.
Nishikawa also voted against the overall schedule change because the new meeting schedule will not allow her to attend meetings on Friday for district committee, which she was asked to represent.
“This interferes with my district meeting schedule and I was voted by the ratepayers to be a district councillor,” she said.
Prior to the schedule change, council was held every third Monday followed that evening by district council. The next day Muskoka Lakes held their committee of the whole meeting. Throughout that week, councillors also attended various district meetings.
The new meeting schedule will begin on March 15, except for the committee of adjustment, which will begin on March 8.

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