Changes recommended for Sarnia advisory committees

Sarnia’s five municipal advisory committees should no longer set their own agendas, and should not be subject to council’s code of conduct, the city’s clerk says.

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Those are among Amy Burkhart’s recommendations after a review.

“Right now there is some flexibility at the committee level to determine what they’re considering … so they’re essentially establishing their own agendas,” Burkhart said.

If council accepts her recommendation, advisory committees — for accessibility, heritage, transit, environment, and pathways and trails in the city — would only discuss matters referred by council or city staff, she said.

“So, really focusing their efforts, making good use of their time,” she said.

“They are volunteers after all.”

Staff already often refer reports to committees for review before they come to council for consideration, she said.

Some committees, meanwhile, have terms of reference that apply council’s code of conductBurkhart said.

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But it wasn’t written for committees and has led to some confusion, since the code doesn’t expressly delegate responsibilities to the city’s integrity commissioner when it comes to advisory committee members, she said.

Recommended instead are simpler standards of conduct for committee members, with council having the ability to remove committee members for non-compliance, she said

Details would likely come to council for approval in December, if Burkhart’s general recommendations are approved when council meets Oct. 28, she said.

Other proposed changes include not requiring members of council to sit on committees, having staff take care of administrative functions like minutes and meeting agendas, sometimes now tasked to volunteer members, standardizing quorum to mean a majority of committee members for meetings to proceed, and capping committee memberships at nine.

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Sarnia also has a number of ad-hoc committees looking at specific issues, like the United Nations Declaration of Rights on Indigenous Peoples working group, or a Bright’s Grove Library committee, and adjudicative committees for things like property standards.

None of those would be impacted by the proposed rule changes, Burkhart said in a report.

The rules review began in 2022prompted by a court decision in Hamilton, Burkhart said.

“We needed to ensure that our advisory committee structure was operating in compliance with the Municipal Act, in response to that court decision,” she said.

Turns out it is, she said, since Sarnia advisory committees don’t meet the act’s definitions for “local board — a body that has power under legislation with respect to the affairs or purposes of a municipality — or “committee,” where at least half the membership also are members of councils or local boards.

“So, we are operating in compliance, in my opinion,” Burkhart said.

Plans initially were to complete the review in 2022, but there were delays amid that year’s municipal election and other pressures on the clerk’s office, Burkhart said.

Instead of changing the rules for committees mid-term, she was directed to make the review’s recommendations near the end of the 2022-2024 advisory committee term, she said.

“It was essentially just deferred until this two-year term is concluded,” she said.

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@tylerkula

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