‘We must make changes:’ Mayor calls for fewer secret meetings

A promise from HRM’s mayor to bring more openness to City Hall is being met with skepticism from critics.

The mayor issued a surprise release Tuesday evening announcing he had asked senior city officials to overhaul the process of setting meetings, “so that all items appear on the regular agenda, instead of some being routed automatically to in-camera.”

Kelly tells News 95.7 the public made its dissatisfaction abundantly clear with two recent, controversial, closed-door meetings.

“We need to overhaul the way we conduct council’s business in terms of the in-camera component,” he said. “Clearly the public has a greater appetite for openness, accountability and transparency and this will get us there.”

Last week, council met in-camera for four hours to award a corporation naming rights for the skating oval.

The decision won’t be made public until the oval is open.

Earlier this month, council took the heat for a close-door meeting on the decision to evict Occupy Nova Scotia protestors from Victoria Park on Remembrance Day.

“This is changing all those rules that you have been complaining about. This gets us to where you want to go,” Kelly told the Rick Howe Show, following his release to media.

Kelly explains the city charter allows council to go in-camera for land, legal, personnel and security issues and from now on council will vote on whether issues will be held in-camera instead of sessions being predetermined.

The announcement came as a shock to fellow members of Halifax Regional Council who received the Mayor’s announcement at the same time as media via an email.

Coun. Sue Uteck (Northwest Arm- South End) called the declaration “a joke.”

“It’s absolutely stunning that the Mayor after 10 years doesn’t understand his role as chair of council,” Uteck told the talk show. “Every Wednesday, before the Tuesday council meeting, senior management, the Mayor and the deputy mayor gather to set the agenda. That’s when they determine what should be in-camera and out of camera.”

Former HRM councillor and current MLA Andrew Younger said Kelly could have made the change years ago – and speculated that election concerns had prompted the change.

“Yah, there must be (an election), because the mayor could have done that from the first day he was elected mayor,” Younger told the talk show. “The fact of the matter is, the mayor sets the agenda and the mayor has the power now to ask council to vote to go in-camera on those items.”

One caller to News 95.7 urged residents to remember secret meetings held over the years when they cast their ballots next fall.

“With an election months away, hopefully people speak up and collectively get together and remember these types of things, because these types of things cannot happen on a go-forward basis,” said Jim.

Big changes are expected in the fall 2012 municipal election. The new electoral boundaries will be in effect and residents will be voting for 16 councillors plus a mayor instead of a council of 23.