It seems that our elected officials were scared off of the idea of holding a Town Hall as a means of promoting public engagement and giving residents an opportunity to question their past decisions on the record. Even Councillor Farmer, who introduced the motion to hold a “Town Hall Style” meeting in the Fall, voted for the staff recommended ‘Open House’ format.

However, this does not need to be the final answer on a Town Hall Meeting. This topic can be revisited by the council, if two-thirds of the council vote to revisit it. So if you want to see the council revisit this decision, phone or email each member of the council and ask them to put this back on the table.

My Thoughts on How We All Can Benefit from a Town Hall Meeting

There seems to be a belief that Town Hall meetings are somehow a bad form of public engagement and only encourage the loud voices in the community to criticize the council using disrespectful language. That does not have to be the case. A well-planned and structured Town Hall with rules, that provides a safe environment for all, can be very beneficial to fostering a healthy relationship between the council and the community.

As we discovered during the All Candidates Meetings, open public forums stimulate meaningful discussions on the issues facing our city and are extremely beneficial in providing the community with accurate information on the city administration. I recall Ian Boddy saying, during the last All Candidates Meeting, that we should have such forums more often than once every four years.

We all witnessed questions being punted to city staff at Public Question Period. A Town Hall is an opportunity for Residents to hear directly from those they elected. For this reason staff should not be in attendance unless they are Owen Sound residents. When I ask the mayor why he voted once again to add new positions to the city workforce given that Owen Sound’s population has not grown in 30 years, I want to understand his thinking as opposed to a staff crafted explanation.

Open public forums, structured as informal discussion sessions with elected officials, will provide members of the Council with an opportunity to dispel misinformation about city issues and provide the public with an opportunity to ask questions on the issues that they find are important. However, the most important benefit of holding regular “Town Hall Style" type meetings is that it will allow the Council to remain connected to the community as a whole so each member of the Council maintains a current understanding of the issues facing the community.

To stimulate meaningful discussion it is important to create a welcoming, stress-free environment that will encourage, even the most timid among us to participate. In this regard, meetings should not be recorded for broadcast. However, questions and answers should be recorded in the minutes of the meeting for future reference.

Suggested Configuration for Informal Community Town Halls

The seating should be arranged in a fashion more resembling a large family living room gathering than an auditorium. An open circle as mentioned by Councillor Merton would be perfect. The diagram below is one example of how this could be arranged.

By positioning the questioner and the member of council responding, in close proximity it will promote a more cordial environment and should discourage those loud, angry attacks that councillors fear and no one wants. The backup to control the tone and demeanor, should it be necessary, is the moderator who should be equipped with a mute button. This should only be used as a last resort.

Members of the Council are also members of the community and therefore should be seated among the general public and should be encouraged to make statements or ask questions on topics that are important to them. This should discourage a “We vs Them” perception that is often present at Council meetings. The reality is that we are all in the same boat when it comes to city affairs since every member of the council is either a resident or operates a business in Owen Sound.

Members of the public should be invited to ask a question or make a statement on a topic that interests them. Topics should be limited to issues under city or county control. Issues that are the purview of the provincial or federal governments should not be permitted. Each question or statement should be limited to a single topic and should be limited to a maximum of two minutes. If desired, the resident can return for a second question or statement at a later time.

To respond to the question a member of the Council, seated in the audience, should come to the microphone and deliver a response which should also limited to two minutes. The responses to the questions should rotate among the members of the council present if a particular member of council is not specified to answer the question. This format will provide members of the Council with equal exposure to the community.

Following the response from a member of the Council, the resident can ask a single follow-up question which should be limited to one minute. This can then be responded to by the member of the Council if appropriate. This will limit the time for each interaction to a maximum of six minutes.

Impartial Volunteer Moderators

A moderator will be necessary to maintain order and prevent the meeting from being dominated by any resident or group of residents. The Moderator should have a mute button to silence responses that go beyond the time limits. The Moderator should be an unbiased volunteer who is not an elected official, a member of any special interest group or a city staff member.

To be successful there will need to be a structured format for discussion and rules that must be followed. I suggest that these be established by a committee with equal representation from the council and the community. Some of the rules that I think are important for success are listed below. I'm sure that a representative committee will come up with many more.

Example of Rules

	Participation should be limited to Owen Sound Residents and business owners.
	Topics should be limited to city issues. These are issues under the direct control of the city council.
	Questioners exhibiting a loud and angry demeanor will be muted by the Moderator and asked to leave the microphone.
	Questioners engaging in personal attacks of criticizing the member of the council as opposed to their position on a topic or voting pattern will be muted by the Moderator and asked to leave the microphone

Take the time to leave your answers to these
questions in the comments section on this site.
or, feel free to email me: jim.hutton @ me.com