20 Nov 2023 Council meeting Governance

Council Correspondence Policy & Council Support Policy

Motion

That Council endorse COU-238 Council Correspondence Policy as attached to the November 20, 2023, report by the Deputy Corporate Officer. That Council endorse COU-237 Council Support Policy as attached to the November 20, 2023, report by the Deputy Corporate Officer.

Sources

Agenda itemCity agenda, whole meeting

Staff reportPage 1

Purpose

To establish protocols for handling electronic and paper correspondence addressed to the Mayor and/or Council as well as protocols for responding consistently to groups or organizations that request support from the City of Nanaimo in their endeavors.

Staff report, page 1

Staff recommendation

1. That Council endorse COU-238 Council Correspondence Policy as attached to the November 20, 2023, report by the Deputy Corporate Officer. 2. That Council endorse COU-237 Council Support Policy as attached to the November 20, 2023, report by the Deputy Corporate Officer.

Staff report, page 1

DocumentsStaff report about Governance & Civic Engagement

Ben Geselbracht Yes

And when I read through the policy, I didn't see the thing about e-scribe, so I was confused. And I think that the, you know, there's discretion in the method of delivery. I think there's been strong feedback from Council that keep it simple on email. And I think, you know, if that's possible, I'm more than happy to support these policies. Thank you.

Ian Thorpe Yes

These motions, but I'm still a little bit concerned because when I read in my agenda on page 76 the information will be circulated to council in a package that's prepared in eScribe. So it is definitely referenced. So I would just like clarification on that again, please.

Questions and answers

Councillor Sheryl Armstrong
Yes

asked

I'm just wondering, instead of putting it on eScribe, could we just not get an email like we do at the RDN? Because a lot of times, I can speak for myself, eScribe goes down. We have a lot of issues with it. and it's much easier for me to work off of the email versus eScribe.

City staff answered

I think more in terms of why we thought that the eScribe agenda process might work is for records management retention purposes. Right now it is extremely difficult to try and manage emails. If it's in an eScribe agenda format, it is there. It's easily searchable. We would also provide a convenience link to SharePoint, the SharePoint page that, where it would also be listed.

followed up

Well, that's another one I don't like. Sorry. saying like for those of us that don't do a lot of work on computers it's much easier and all you have to do is for information purposes you just file the initial email under disclosure so I just like I don't know how others feel but I know that it's come up before at the RDN and and the preference was we want the email it's just so much simpler the e-scribe causes a lot of problems and a lot of times it's down on the weekend when a lot of us do our reading

Sheila Gurrie

answeredDirector, Legislative Services

Thank you, Worship. And through you to Councillor Armstrong, yes, I've heard that before as well as for public hearing submissions. And we will have the agenda available via a link that will be sent out in the PDF format, like when you click the link when the agenda comes out, it'll be in PDF format that way, like you do with your other agendas. But the reason behind it being more of an agenda rather than just an email with the correspondence attached to it, as well as what Ms. Robertson was saying about records retention and our records management program, which we do have to adhere to, is that we plan to expand upon that and add your calendar of upcoming events to it, as well as the news releases and newsletters that have gone out in the week and have like a whole weekly what's processes. But as this goes forward, we can and will make adjustments and this is a simple resolution to make changes once we've tried the process to see if you like it or not.

followed up

Thank you. I'll be opposed because I'm just totally opposed to anything more going to eScribe. It's very difficult for us to search. I can't even search or copy and paste from there. So I'll be opposing this based on the eScribe. Thank you.

Councillor Ian Thorpe
Yes

asked

Thank you, Your Worship. Thanks, Ms. Robertson, for your good work as always on developing policy. I do agree with the comments of Councillor Armstrong for the record. But my question is, in terms of correspondence, I suppose it would be considered related to operational matters, but what I would consider very, not unimportant, but relatively minor requests for support, such as requesting a proclamation or requesting the bastion be lighted on a certain week for a certain cause. We continually get those and the Mayor's Secretary has to spend time emailing Council to ask if we have any objections and we have to spend time emailing her back and I never really know if there was consensus on Council or not. Does this policy address those issues at all? I didn't see it in the report.

City staff answered

No, that is currently covered under a separate policy if I'm correct Ms. Gurrie and therefore if Council wanted to change that policy, that would be outside of what's being proposed here and there could be options. I mean, there is case law that states that if you're going to support one policy, you need to support all proclamations, I should say, instead of policies or Council could simply make a resolution to say we're not supporting any proclamations, but that would be a different research topic and policy.