Dear Editor,
On Sept. 6 there was a public/information meeting on mandatory recycling where some commenters were booed and told to sit down. As one of the people who gave presentations to council and spoke out at the first meeting, I am somewhat embarrassed by the rude behaviour of some.
I believe the people wanted to talk about the mandatory question and they found just promoting recycling was off topic. All the people at both meetings were ardent fans of recycling already. They also didn’t really want to hear about the town’s current recycling efforts (mostly) and when the topic diverged from the mandatory topic, they thought council/administration just wasn’t listening.
I have two recommendations. The first is that our residents, administration and council all deserve respect and nobody wants to listen when they are spoken to, impolitely. My second suggestion is to have a new kind of meeting that I have tentatively called a “Residents Meeting”.
We have council, committee, information and public meetings but all these are council/administration meetings where the public is mostly just a spectator. My suggestion is to be able to call a “Residents Meeting”, from time to time, where the public could interact with administration and council members so they have a mechanism to articulate their ideas and to get some of their questions answered directly. The purpose of these meetings would be giving information to administration/council rather than just passively getting information using the existing meeting formats.
These meetings would still have to run by somebody that would keep the conversation on topic and limit the length of speaking time so that all get a chance to have their say.
The residents can’t expect to always get their way but there should be a forum where they can at least be listened to.
Council does allow a five minute presentation at their council meetings (and they don’t have to), but I think this just isn’t enough.
David Clark
Okotoks
