{"id":5828,"date":"2014-03-12T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T19:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5828"},"modified":"2014-03-26T13:34:25","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T17:34:25","slug":"council-considers-restricting-open-forum-broadcasts-in-election-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-considers-restricting-open-forum-broadcasts-in-election-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Council considers restricting open forum, broadcasts in election year"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Broadcasts of Council and General Committee meetings, as well as Open Forum, could be shut down early this year as the 2014 Municipal Election approaches.<\/p>\n

Councillors are considering a recommendation from municipal staff to cease bi-weekly broadcasts of Aurora\u2019s Council meetings on Rogers-TV and alternate weeks of live streaming online General Committee meetings at the end of June to \u201cavoid any inappropriate use of the Town\u2019s resources for campaign-related purposes\u201d. Additional recommendations include terminating Open Forum, the time at the beginning of each Council meeting for residents to come and speak their mind on a variety of issues, also at the end of June. <\/p>\n

\u201c[This would keep Open Forum] from being misused for electioneering, which would put the Chair of the Council meeting in the awkward situation of having to interrupt members of the public from speaking out and dismissing them from the podium,\u201d said Town Solicitor Warren Mar in his report to Council. <\/p>\n

His recommendations were discussed at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting. Although a final decision has been delayed until next week, Councillors were reluctant to act on anything which might limit its interaction with the public, particularly when it came to broadcasting and live streaming. <\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil meetings are not televised for the benefit and convenience of Council,\u201d argued Councillor Evelyn Buck. \u201cThey are televised for the benefit of the people at home who want to pay attention to what we are doing and, more importantly, they want to pay attention immediately before an election [more] than any other time.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were concerns shared by the majority of Council, including Councillor Michael Thompson who said Councillors have the \u201cinherent responsibility\u201d to keep the public informed and a balance had to be struck between \u201copen and transparent government\u201d versus potential \u201cmisuse\u201d of the forum. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy preference is to continue broadcasting,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Rogers chooses not to broadcast it, then so be it, but that will be their decision. As long as we are conducting Town business, it is important that the Town be able to be engaged and informed.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Mar, municipalities such as King and Markham do not broadcast their Council meetings by live video, although Markham provides an audio feed, which they will continue throughout the election period. Newmarket does not stop broadcasting their meetings due to the impending election, but Rogers will cut their feed at their final Council meeting of September to allow for the campaign. Status quo will remain throughout the election period for Richmond Hill and Vaughan. <\/p>\n

Councillors, however, were more divided when it came to Open Forum. Speaking in favour of cutting off the microphone by the end of June, Councillor Thompson said it was in line with recommendations coming from other municipalities that follow a similar pattern where people can come up to the podium during an election campaign, make \u201coutlandish statements\u201d and Council, under proper procedure, has no way to formally respond to their statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople could come in and make accusations rightly or wrongly and there is no opportunity to rebut those,\u201d he said. \u201cThere may be greater potential in the run-up to an election for somebody to come in and make outlandish statements and there is nothing we could do. As a delegation [Council] would be able to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were sentiments shared by Councillor Paul Pirri, but others, such as Councillor Buck, said Open Forum should remain open to all until, in the words of Councillor Chris Ballard, \u201cthe bitter end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Open Forum is one of the better things we have done,\u201d he said. \u201cI love the spontaneity that at 6.55 on a Tuesday someone can be upset and passionate and be able to talk to us about it. If someone is saying something at the podium they perhaps shouldn\u2019t be saying, we have the opportunity to cut off their microphone and tell them to cease.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is being slandered, I guess there are always options for them. It is all part of the process. I would hate to see it ended because I think it is a fantastic way for people to come forward without having to do a lot of prep and tell us what they are feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mar\u2019s recommendations would also limit campaigning at Town-operated events such as Ribfest in September, or the summer Concerts in the Park series. Councillor John Gallo, however, said he didn\u2019t agree with that recommendation and questioned the harm if someone wanted to \u201cwalk around with a t-shirt and hand out flyers\u201d. Although Mr. Mar said that those events are there to \u201cfoster a sense of community\u201d and not for electioneering, he said it is just being fair. Councillor Gallo, nevertheless, pressed on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat better opportunity for the Town to facilitate these events than having the residents in the Town have a better understanding of who they could potentially be voting for?\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner, however, said she disagreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree when people come to our events they are coming to enjoy themselves and I don\u2019t think it is right that we campaign there,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we can wear buttons and t-shirts, but I don\u2019t think we [should] actively campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Broadcasts of Council and General Committee meetings, as well as Open Forum, could be shut down early this year as the 2014 Municipal Election approaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1w0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 14:23:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}