Council Calls Second Closed Meeting This Week

[Edited January 14, 2003: Meeting was cancelled after a fifteen minute delay when a quorum was unable to be met. A new Finance Committee meeting was called for Monday, January 16, 2023. This meeting has no Zoom link announced, and is scheduled to be held in camera.]

Lions Bay Village Council has called a special meeting to be held Friday, January 13, 2023 at 3 pm. The subject of the meeting, according to the village website, is financial controls. The bulk of the meeting will be closed to public participation, though a segment for public questions and comments has been included on the agenda, once the closed portion of the meeting has concluded.

Council cites Section 90 of the Community Charter for the in camera nature of the meeting. This section of the charter allows for closed meetings when matters discussed could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the municipality if they were held in public.

The issues identified for review, discussion and possible recommendations on January 13th include: security of Village finances; banking controls; and related liability considerations.

This is the second closed meeting to be called this week, with the first being a Financial Committee meeting that was posted to the village website on January 9, 2023, and subsequently held January 10, 2023 at 1 pm. The same explanation for closing the meeting to the public was offered.

In camera Council meetings are by no means unusual to the village. In 2022, Lions Bay Village Council gathered for seventeen scheduled meetings prior to the municipal elections, held in October. Over that time, council called an additional five special meetings that were open to the public for a total of twenty-two open meetings. Topics discussed at the special meetings of council included the death of the Queen, village finanaces, the upcoming election and negotiations with Metro Vancouver. A further four special meetings of Council were called in camera, each citing section 90 of the Community Charter.

Since the sitting Village Council was elected in October of 2022, they have met twice in November and twice in December for scheduled open council meetings. However each meeting, with the exception of the inaugural swearing-in, has been preceded by a one-hour in camera session. In addition, there have been seven special council meetings that have each been closed to public participation.

The first scheduled council meeting this month is set for January 17th at 7 pm. The agenda for this meeting has not yet been posted on the village website.