Kawartha Lakes Mayor to look at options for council to handle deputations better

DAN CEARNS The Standard

KAWARTHA LAKES: The City of Kawartha Lakes’ Mayor, Doug Elmslie, is going to look at options for how Kawartha Lakes council can better handle deputations.

In an unscheduled discussion at the end of a meeting, on Tuesday, February 6th, Mayor Elmslie told councillors he was uncomfortable with the way council was reacting to deputations from the public.

“I’m not happy with the way we deal with deputations. I think a good portion of it is my fault, for perhaps being too lax. I think we have deputants who come here and they’re very passionate and they have a point of view. It’s the first time they’re coming here and it’s the first time many people on council are hearing it,” Mayor Elmslie said. “There may be, as I usually find out later, another side to the story.”

During deputations, those who apply to speak to council are given five minutes to talk about their issue, provide their input or present ideas to council. Mayor Elmslie stated, the fault he’s found is, councillors may be acting too quickly to try to solve an issue.

“We start making motions on the fly [which] I don’t think are always fair to staff. I think in some instances, when we fumble around with the wording, and we don’t get things exactly right, it makes us look amateurish and I don’t think we are.”

Mayor Elmslie suggested, deputations, not meant simply for information, could be received and referred to staff before decisions are made. However, he said he’ll be having discussions with CAO Ron Taylor and Clerk Cathie Ritchie on how best to move forward with fixing this issue.

“I don’t think we’re doing ourselves justice, I don’t think we’re doing the deputants justice and I don’t think we’re doing staff justice,” Mayor Elmslie concluded.

There were a total of six deputations made to council at the February 6th meeting.