3 Apr 2023 Council meeting Community

Neighbourhood Association Annual Engagement Event

Motion
That Council direct Staff to proceed with organizing the proposed neighbourhood association annual engagement event on 2023- APR-26.
Minutes, page 4
Sources
Agenda itemCity agenda
Staff reportPage 1
Purpose
To outline a proposed neighbourhood association annual engagement event for Council’s consideration in accordance with the Neighbourhood Association Supports Policy and City Plan.
Staff report, page 1
Staff recommendation
That Council direct Staff to proceed with organizing the proposed neighbourhood association annual engagement event on 2023-APR-26.
Staff report, page 1
DocumentsStaff report about Governance & Civic Engagement

Ian Thorpe Yes

Council any other thoughts or questions? We do have a recommended motion if somebody is prepared to make it. Councillor Armstrong moving the motion. Councillor Gesellbrocht is seconding. Any other discussion on this? I'm seeing none so I'll call the question. All in favour? And any opposed?

Questions and answers

Councillor Sheryl Armstrong
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Two questions, if I may, please, through you. The date is Wednesday, I think the 26th, from 6 to 9. How come 6 when that's when most people eat? Because I've heard that, you know, especially for those that have kids and stuff, have we looked at maybe 6.30 to 9.30 even?
City staff answered
Well, I guess I can say, I mean, ideally, generally three hours gives us a sufficient amount of time to have these sort of discussions. We are looking at providing assistance for folks with children if they attend, so there will be some care element there. If that's, we'll reach out to the neighborhood associations and ask if that's something of interest. Food provided, there will be food provided as well at the event.
followed up
And my second question, and this goes back to the same ones I had before, I'm concerned that we're only recognizing the neighbourhood associations that meet the city standard. When we know that there's lots of Facebook, like I know in my neighbourhood and the discussion was did we want to do a 411? No, because people don't have the time nor the inclination to do every jump through the hoops. So would it be possible to do a future meeting for those that aren't recognized neighbourhood associations? For those that are like the Facebook sites, I know that we've got emails from people in community that don't have a recognized neighborhood community association but do have a lot of community involvement or even such as like their stratas that you know have their strata meetings
Lisa Bhopalsingh
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Community Development
which represent five or six hundred people in some of the places thank you okay through the chair to council armstrong if council wishes to direct us to do a second engagement event with a different criteria council can do so i think it's council appreciates we brought forward the recognition policy based on actually initiated by neighbourhood groups themselves and it's we recognize it's a challenge for council balancing all those pieces so you are quite able to give us direction as you see fit thank you thank you thank you I

Councillor Paul Manly
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
have councillor Manley and then councillor Perino thank you chair through you that was a similar question just about the recognized and unrecognized so the unrecognized neighborhood associations just aren't meeting the policy requirements? Are there, is there assistance provided to them to help meet those requirements? Are they organizations that are meeting somewhat or what's the, curious?
City staff answered
Sure. Thank you. Yes, I mean, there is some policy. There's actually on our website, the city website, there is some direction about how you go about building a neighborhood association and sort of the actions that can be taken there. We're certainly as supportive as we can be of groups taking that action. We certainly don't want to exclude anyone from any form of discussion, but in order to comply with the policy requirements, we need to, Council has some certainty that a group that's from an area actually has an organization, at least in existence, that has some un-elected structure and some connection to the neighborhood itself. It's a tough one, but it was a process that we went through trying to find the best, the most equitable way of recognizing neighborhood groups short of, for example, at one point there was a thought maybe we could look to non-profit society status for groups but we found that in the NIMO most of the groups do not have that status six of the neighborhood associations currently have that status but we felt it would be fairer to actually provide a serious organizational criteria that we felt were fairly easy to satisfy to become an organ to be recognized and we went with that with that process or at least I was recommended to Council and that was the process that Council adopted okay thank you for that thank you

Councillor Ian Thorpe
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Thank you, Councillor Perrino. And if I may, to Ms. Bhopal Singh or Ms. Brinkman or Mr. Schulberg, maybe this is getting too much into the details, but do you foresee an opportunity for, would councillors be assigned randomly to the groups or would there possibly be an opportunity to rotate among the different
Lisa Bhopalsingh
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Community Development
Organizations or do we know yet? Through the chair to Councillor, Chair Thorpe. This is a very timely question and we have put a little bit of thought to this. So one option is for Council to be randomly designated a table and then rotate every 30 minutes so they have a chance to listen to the different groups and their perspectives.
followed up
Great.

Councillor Hilary Eastmure
Speaker identificationConfident
Yes

asked
Councillor Eastmere pops up. Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify, so is it is it true that there's six not recognized neighborhood associations that have not been invited to participate in this in this engagement session? Is that do I have my number right there? Through the chair to That is correct, yes. And would it be possible, like, is it just that we have a capacity issue at this particular event that we wouldn't be able to include them? Because I feel like it might be a good event that could help them get the information that they would need and get the engagement that they would need from their community in order to become recognized. It just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to bring them into this conversation.
Lisa Bhopalsingh
Speaker identificationConfident
answeredDirector, Community Development
Through the Chair to Councillor Eastmore, at this stage what staff is proposing is in compliance with the neighbourhood association supports policy, but if we receive different direction this evening from Council then we can proceed accordingly. And just to clarify, the invitations haven't been sent out yet to the events, so we're first checking in with Council on how to proceed and then following this evening we will move into the next steps of organizing