A change in venue: Coaldale town council’s regular Oct. 9 meeting moving to HUB

Sunny South File Photo

By Nikki Jamieson
Sunny South News

A change in venue will mean that Coaldale town council will not be live streaming their next meeting.

During their regular Sept. 24 council meeting, council was informed that their Oct. 9 meeting would be moved to the HUB building.

Noting that the topic was on the agenda for informational purposes, manager for economic development Cam Mills told council that a decision had to be made for the location of the Oct. 9 meeting prior to that day’s council meeting, to allow for proper advertising of the location change. The meeting will still start at 2 p.m.

“We had some public input sessions in respect to most specifically the issue of cannabis in respect to the land use bylaw and the amendments of the Land Use Bylaw that are forthcoming,” said Mills.

“In order to handle the retail sale of cannabis, we had an open house (Sept. 13), where we had the opportunity to present that to the public and receive some feedback and that feedback’s been consolidated.”

As the issue of cannabis sales in town appears to be a hot topic, administration decided to move the meeting the HUB in order to accommodate a potential large crowd of people who feel strongly about the bylaw. Coaldale town council’s chambers do not have the adequate space to seat a large crowd of people, so administration felt a change in venue would be appropriate.

“We basically take up half of our audience space sort of at the most standard of meetings,” said Mills. “We did opt to move to the HUB in the event that we have a large turnout. We may or may not — it’s never possible to know well in advance of these meetings, what the turnout will be. But we’ll have the opportunity to accommodate more people at the HUB, should they choose to come out to that public hearing and have their voice heard.”

However, due to the location change, the town will be unable to live-stream the meeting, as their current set-up is not mobile.

“We’re still looking into potentially recording the hearing, potentially putting in place an opportunity to post it online at a later date. In order to do it we want to make sure we can do it at a reasonably high-quality level, and also that the technology doesn’t get in the way of the sort-of efficient running of the meeting. We’re going to do what we can to accommodate that, but at this point, what we’re moving forward with is to move the council meeting to the HUB, for that Oct. 9 meeting, without the ability to broadcast the meeting.”

According to the accompanying document, the public hearings will take place at 2:10 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Mayor Kim Craig said he felt it was important to have it “well-stated” that live streaming will be available.

Council passed a motion to receive the report for information.

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