Draft procedural bylaw changes headed to open house for public feedback

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After about two years in development, the review of the procedural bylaw (the bylaw which governs the structure of Stratford city council meetings) is nearing completion – but before it goes to council for final approval it heads to an open house for public feedback.

On July 21, council held a special meeting to go over the draft recommended changes, as presented by clerk Tatiana Dafoe. As she said, its been a long process and it isn’t over yet.

“We've done a lot of work to put our recommendations forward,” Dafoe said. “We're looking for some feedback from yourselves, and then once we have that feedback, that's when we'll draft a fully new procedural bylaw, and that's what's going to go forward to a future public meeting to get additional feedback from the public … We will prepare another follow up report with any additional provisions or changes, and then work to have the bylaw adopted hopefully at the end of this year, with the implementation by 2026.”

Some of the key changes recommended include, but are not limited to, the date, location and times of meetings, as well as a rehaul of the various committees of council; the structure of meetings, including the possibility of having hybrid meetings that would allow public delegations, city staff or councillors to attend digitally; the length of citizen deputations; the implementation of a digital vote manager system; and the possibility of a regular open forum preceding meetings or hosting a semi-regular town hall.

Another big change recommended by the clerk’s office was to change from a three-step process (where items move through a subcommittee composed of five councillors, a standing committee composed of 10 councillors and then final council approval) to a two-step process where council would meet at the committee level once before a recommendation moves onto council for final approval.

The reasoning, the clerk argued, was that although the three-step process allows for three opportunities for an issue to be discussed, it can also take six to eight weeks for a decision to be made.

Coun. Brad Beatty, who has served on council for a number of terms, praised the recommendation.

“It was exciting when I saw this,” he said. “… We get enough conversation at the committee level that removing where we're having five voices listening at subcommittee and going to 10 – let’s just cut to the chase. Go to the committee of council then to council. That two-step process (is) much more streamlined, much more efficient.”

Coun. Cody Sebben disagreed. He made a motion to keep the three-step process, though it died on the floor with no seconder.

Council did agree on a number of changes to the draft recommendations. For instance, originally it was recommended that the time for council meetings would alternate between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., with the idea being that having different times would allow for members of the public with differing work schedules to participate in council; however, councillors largely felt that the differing times would confuse the public and voted to keep the meeting times in the evening.

One of the most contentious changes for council, however, was the proposed change of cutting a delegate’s time from 10 minutes at the podium to five minutes.

Some councillors, like Coun. Lesley Biehn, thought it was not the right message to send to Stratford residents.

“We’re elected to these rules for the purpose of representing people,” Biehn said. “So I think hearing them is part of that job and I just don’t like the idea of communicating that we want to hear less. I just think that it's very important to keep that space open for people to participate.”

“I think brevity actually helps people’s arguments,” Coun. Larry McCabe replied. “And given five minutes to hone their argument, to really hit the key points … The people who I've felt to have been most effective delegators to council have had a really strong, clear argument to make, and it helps us make decisions.”

“We want lots of input,” Coun. Mark Hunter reasoned. “But we also want meetings to run efficiently.”

In a razor-thin vote, a motion to reverse the recommendation and include the full 10 minute timeframe in the draft bylaw was defeated 5-5. Sebben, Biehn, Coun. Geza Wordofa, Coun. Bonnie Henderson and Mayor Martin Ritsma supported keeping the original 10 minutes, while Beatty, McCabe, Hunter, Coun. Taylor Briscoe and Coun. Harjinder Nijjar were in favour of the five minute limit (Coun. Jo Dee Burbach was absent).

After the lengthy debate on the changes reached a conclusion and council was asked to direct staff to create a draft procedural bylaw, Sebben said that he was “discouraged” by the events of the meeting and couldn’t in good conscience support that action.

“I think there are so many things that I am not okay with,” he said.

He was evidently the only councillor who felt that way, as a motion to move forward with the draft recommendations passed with him as the lone holdout.

Although there were aspects of the recommendations that Henderson disagreed with, she supported the motion, saying that she was hopeful that the final bylaw will be informed by the public and one final discussion by city council.

As Dafoe said at the beginning of the meeting, no final decision was to be made on the procedural bylaw that evening, rather that the meeting was to be the first of many steps to finalize the review.

To review the draft changes presented to council, visit: https://calendar.stratford.ca/meetings/Detail/2025-07-21-1830-Special-Council/e81ecebb-b572-4644-9513-b317014336cd.