Eye catching passage in City Council's Closed Meeting notice offers little in way of clarity on secretive topic

City Council may be setting in  motion the prospect of another round of speculation for their followers on Social media today; with a somewhat cryptic explanation as to why they can't discuss an item in public forum tonight.

That as City Council cites a rarely used section of the Community Charter to keep the proceedings behind a closed door at their 5 PM session, prior to tonight's Public session to address regular business.

In their Notice of Closed Council session of Thursday January 24th, Council observed that tonight's 5PM Closed session will include an item related to law enforcement, with the passage to restrict the public need to know stating:

(f) law enforcement, if the council considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the conduct of an investigation under or enforcement of an enactment.

It makes for a rather vague explanation that could provide for more questions than answers as to the nature of tonight's business.

It's a passage which could leave those who have an interest in the work of City Council to hope for a little more clarity, with a bit more explanation as to how the disclosure might infringe in the investigation and to what fashion the City's elected representatives need to be particularly cautious.

While no one would ever want the actions of City Council to have any negative impact on the work of the RCMP in the community, there is perhaps a need to provide just a bit more background.

Council could expand on the scope of that section of the Charter and the decision that has come from it; explaining if the issue is one related to the Council itself, or one that is directed  towards the larger community interest.

Regardless, a cryptic one line overview as to why you can't talk about something in public, probably will mean that the public will most likely start talking about it.

And with that, considering the apparent agitation that social commentary causes, some of the city's council members may want to stay away from Facebook for a while, just in case the city's social media audiences take to the range of discussion forums available.

For more notes related to Monday's City Council session see our Preview Page here.

For more items of note related to City Council can be found from our council Discussion page here.


Cross posted from the North Coast Review.