Peachland council meetings move to afternoons

Photo: District of Peachland

Peachland municipal council

Peachland’s regular Tuesday council meetings will move to afternoons for the rest of the year.

Except for the next one on April 22, which will start at 10 a.m.

Council generally meets twice a month at 6 p.m.

The new start time, on a trial basis, will be 3 p.m.

The move will save the municipality money and make it easier for councillors to attend virtually when they’re in Europe, said Mayor Patrick Van Minsel on Tuesday.

Coun. Keith Thom has a trip to the Netherlands upcoming. Van Minsel has family in Belgium.

“We don’t have a lot of public in the evening anyway,” said Van Minsel, explaining why the time shift was proposed. “By moving this, we make some cost savings because our staff doesn’t need to stay here that long.”

Coun. Terry Condon said the new start time will make it harder for the public to attend.

“This is the opportunity to make it even more difficult for people that work to come to a council meeting,” he said. “In my mind it’s just a question of diminishing the ability to enjoy the transparency of a council meeting.”

Thom said hardly anyone shows up at 6 p.m. anyway.

“If we were loaded at the 6 o’clock meeting with the public, I would have some problems with this, but we have one, sometimes two, maybe,” he said.

“If somebody wants to be here and it’s really important, they will be here,” added Van Minsel.

Public hearings, which are less common now under new provincial zoning rules, would still be held in the evenings, the mayor said.

Peachland’s meetings range from half an hour to two hours long. One hour would be about average.

Tuesday’s meeting lasted 45 minutes. Council also had a three-hour workshop in the morning and a closed-door meeting before the public session began.