{"id":158,"date":"2015-03-18T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/18\/showtime-at-city-ha\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:40:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:40:34","slug":"showtime-at-city-ha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2015\/03\/18\/showtime-at-city-ha\/","title":{"rendered":"Showtime at city hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

New council rules put citizens ahead of politicians<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

By Rhonda Massad<\/b>
with files from Robert Frank<\/b><\/p>\n

\nwww.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Citizens will get priority from now on at Laval city council meetings. Question period has been moved from the end of the meetings, which often run late, to the beginning. <\/p>\n

To encourage more engagement by elected officials, city councillors can now answer citizens\u2019 questions, instead of just the mayor. <\/p>\n

In addition, they can submit briefs a month before council meetings. That will give fellow councillors and municipal bureaucrats time to analyze the proposals and prepare proper responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a preliminary step that will give everyone more time to make better decisions,\u201d said Councillor Christiane Yoakim, who chairs city council meetings.<\/p><\/div>\n

\nLights, cameras, action!<\/b><\/p>\n

The city has also committed officially to broadcast council meetings. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had our first dry run at webcasting at last week\u2019s council meeting,\u201d executive committee vice-chairman David de Cotis told The Suburban.<\/i> \u201cWe edited the video at midnight. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Mouvement lavallois<\/i> was the unelected opposition party at city hall, we would set up our cameras and film the city council sessions and the following day broadcast them on our website,\u201d he recalled in an interview. \u201cWe promised in our election platform to deliver live webcasts of city council meetings and, a year-and-a-half later, we\u2019re very close to delivering on that promise.\u201d <\/p>\n

Some work still needs to be done to enable the city to enter the television age, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have to change the lighting in the council chamber,\u201d de Cotis acknowledged. \u201cCouncillors will have to have individual microphones and we will be changing the blinds, which are very dark, to improve the lighting. We will also be removing some seating to accommodate the cameras that will be located in various positions.\u201d <\/p>\n

The city doesn\u2019t plan to stop at broadcasting its council meetings. It intends to piggyback on the new technology to telecasting other important municipal deliberations. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn future, we also intend to broadcast the public portion of the city\u2019s Wednesday morning executive committee meetings,\u201d de Cotis promised. \u201cThe technology will already be there.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still looking at a June timeline to implement webcasts of city council, which is the top priority,\u201d de Cotis affirmed. \u201cWebcasts of executive committee meetings will also be in the near future, but we\u2019re not targeting June for that. It\u2019s on the radar more toward the end of the year or early in 2016.\u201d
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nChristiane Yoakim consulted stakeholders of all political stripes.<\/b><\/div>\n
\n(Photo \u00a9 Robert Frank)<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New council rules put citizens ahead of politicians By Rhonda Massad with files from Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Citizens will get priority from now on at Laval city council meetings. Question period has been moved from the end of the meetings, which often run late, to the beginning. To encourage more engagement by elected officials, city<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nShowtime at city hall - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2015\/03\/18\/showtime-at-city-ha\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Showtime at city hall - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New council rules put citizens ahead of politicians By Rhonda Massad with files from Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Citizens will get priority from now on at Laval city council meetings. 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