City Hall Re-orgapalooza!

A substantial reorganization of City Hall process in response to recommendations found in the Cuff Report has just been made public.

Gone are the traditional entities like Committee of the Whole, Advisory Planning Commission and other committees like Cycling and Environment along with the traditional portfolio assignments.

In their place will be a series of standing committees and advisory committees that will do a lot of the detail work, freeing up Council to work on larger issues.

The goal is a more holistic approach to referring projects to the public or Council, breaking down those silos. For instance, instead of a cycling committee, there will be a Public Advisory Committee that meets monthly and deals with environment and infrastructure issues. The other new committee is Community Development. The Advisory Design Panel and Heritage Advisory Committee are the only two entities to survive the reorganization.

The four public advisory committees connect with four Standing Committees, each comprised of three councillors. The Mayor and other Councillors are invited to attend for informational purposes as desired as non-voting attendees. The work of these groups flows through an Agenda Committee that decides what to send to Council meetings or Governance & Priorities Committee (the new name for Committee of the Whole)