If observers were confused, you'd have to forgive them.
On Monday night, Elliot Lake City Council, met virtually for a regular meeting via Zoom, a meeting that lasted just under an hour.
Then council adjourned to Collins Hall on Hillside North for a special meeting a few minutes later. That meant Councillors and city staff had to repair to Collins from their homes and offices, to attend.
To clear up the confusion, Elliot Lake CAO Daniel Gagnon, issued the following statement:
We held a special Council last night at the Collins Hall. The agenda was posted on Friday and met all our procedural bylaw requirements.
We had a bit of a backlog of closed session items that needed attention and Council felt more comfortable for the closed items to do it in person and not via Zoom. Our plexiglass is not installed yet in the Council chambers so we opted for the Collins Hall to maximize social distancing.
It has never been our practice to televise or stream special meetings (let alone closed ones) and we don’t have that capability at the Collins Hall. So I hope that explains why we adjourned a meeting via Zoom to open a new separate meeting in person at the Collins Hall minutes later.
I did record with the iPad the opening and the ending of the meeting in open session. For some reason, the video cut off after a few seconds (see attached) but all we did was move the agenda items into the closed session and move to enter the closed session. I also shot video of the motions after returning to the open session.
That file is 57 Megs so too big to email. I will ask IT to upload it to the website like other videos but in the meantime I simply plunked the link on the page below. You may need to use earbuds and/or increase the volume.
https://www.elliotlake.ca/en/city-hall/meeting-webcasts-and-video-archives.aspx
We passed one motion in open and the confirmatory bylaw and adjourned at 10:15 pm.
The motion passed is below, as a result of a closed discussion of a property that came back via tax arrears. I am planning an open session report on that property and the neighbouring property at a future meeting: 'That the property at 22 Philip Walk be vested in the name of the municipality by writing off the taxes and charging the education portion back to the school board.’
Among the items up for consideration at the special meeting were:
- 6.1 Freedom of information access request
- 6.2 Letter of intent to purchase 17 Perini Road
- 6.3 Update on vacant commercial property, downtown core
- 6.4 Re 2020 salary evaluations/terms of employment non union
- 6.5 Memo from CAO re recommendation for future development from the Elliot Lake Residential Waterfront Development Corporation
- 6.6 Negotiations with CUPE Local 170.