Kelowna city council votes to keep electronic devices in meetings
When it’s time for a board meeting Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas wants a distraction-free session, with nothing but the agenda at hand.
“What I see is heavy use of computers and what I know is outside sources bringing information into our meetings,” Dyas told the council at Monday’s meeting.
During a discussion of the council’s code of conduct, implemented about a year ago, the mayor introduced a motion Monday to ban all electronic devices at meetings. If the bill passes, council members would benefit from an observer tasked with providing only necessary information.
“It comes from the fact that we want to make sure that the decisions that we make are all based on the same information and that no outside information comes into play in any of those decisions,” Dyas told Global News on Tuesday.
Get the latest national news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up to receive breaking news alerts sent directly to you as they happen.
The motion was met with strong opposition, however, and the entire council rejected it.
Advice. Maxine DeHart said: “I think it’s too restrictive. To be honest, I find it rather insulting. Personally, I don’t speak for the rest of you. I have been on the council for 14 years and have never been challenged on anything I have said or done.
Advice. Luke Stack said it seemed like an excessive desire to “limit the independence of council members.”
Advice. Mohini Singh called Dyas the “team captain” during the meeting, advising him to call a board member if necessary.
“If he feels that one of us is doing something that we shouldn’t be doing, put us on the table, talk it out and just say, ‘Hey, did you get any additional information?’ “If you did, it was a mistake to bring it up in a discussion when no one else did,” Singh told Global News on Tuesday.
Although the council rejected the ban, it voted in favor of placing monitors around the council table.
“I think it will progress over time and they will work with these and we will see what other elements are implemented in the code in the future,” Dyas said.
All other points of the code of conduct were unanimously approved.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
