Last week I co-sponsored a motion with Councillor Gilliland to reestablish the Environmental Advisory Committee. At the beginning of the term, we combined a few committees into one. The purpose for this was one of efficiency – we have seen over time that there were not enough items to fill an agenda and as a result meetings were cancelled, or committees were left with little to do. As committees are made up of volunteers that want to accomplish things that help our community, it has always been tough to see them show up for a meeting to only “receive” items and leave after 30 mins. That is not an efficient use of anyone’s time let alone that of our valuable volunteers! So Council decided to combine a few of the committees to allow for full agendas and give our much appreciated volunteers meaningful issues to deal with. As a Council we said that we would monitor the new joint committees and, if the workload was found to be too much, we would reevaluate and adjust. This is exactly what we did. We found that the Community Advisory Committee was overwhelmed with items on the agenda.
As part of our discussions during our regular one-one -one meetings, Councillor Gilliland raised the issue that it may be time to separate the Committee. And I agreed. We brought forward the joint motion to last week’s Council meeting.
I was glad to see that Council unanimously agreed. The applications for the new EAC will be advertised shortly and I encourage residents with a passion for our environment to apply. #WorkingTogether #GettingThingsDone
