Governance Committee today

A resident’s observations sent to Councillor Bell and myself..

I enjoyed sitting in on the Governance Committee today, as strange as that might sound! Governance has always been an interest of mine.

I appreciated the amendments you were making today – taking notifications of oral presenters as close the meetings as possible, accepting e-petitions, and allowing the reading of written presentations even if the original presenter couldn’t make it.

I agreed with the principle you were upholding in each case – open government.

I appreciated that the staff recommendations were trying to tidy things up, but democracy is messy, and councillors have to protect the mess even when the professional staffers find it troublesome. We certainly don’t want “open government” to become a meaningless buzz-word !

Thank you for standing on guard today !BM