For the last two and a half years, Cochrane town council has been holding briefings behind closed doors for “educational” sessions conducted by senior administration on current town issues.

It’s not the first time these informal meetings have been used by Cochrane councils, and by other elected bodies around the province, and as long as there is no decisions made at the meetings then they are well within the Municipal Government Act.

But at council Jan. 11, council heard that to be more transparent to the public these meetings should be held in a public forum.

The suggestion was made by the recent Municipal Health Check, which looked into how well Town council and administration is serving Cochrane.

After a long debate, it was decided to include these “briefings” into regular council meetings, which happen twice a month under the section “Strategic Planning,” which would fall near the end of the council agenda.

The briefings would include updates from administration on current projects and emerging issues.

The motion was tabled by Coun. Tara McFadden, who said council could be doing a better job at communicating what is happening in Cochrane to the community.

“We don’t communicate them as well as we could,” said McFadden.

Coun. Brenda Sine agreed, and said while this council is very careful to not make behind closed door decisions this will set a good precedent for future councils.

But Coun. Ivan Davies disagreed. He felt there is no information that council is privy to that the public cannot access.

He was wondering why council would change something that works so well, and he feels it won’t work as well if the “informal discussions” at the briefing meetings go public.

He was mostly concerned that the discussion would be so formalized that council would have to think of topics in advance so they could be listed under the Strategic Planning, instead of spontaneously bringing up an issue he had heard from someone off the street.

“There is nothing cloak-and-dagger about it,” said Davies. “There is nothing I wouldn’t share with the public.”

He later said that a lot of the questions that came up in the sessions were a “rolling thought process” and he “got to pick everyone’s brain in the room.”

Coun. Ross Watson opposed making the briefings part of council, but said council should invite the press to the meetings.

In the end council voted 4-3, with Coun. Joanne Churchill, Coun. McFadden, Coun.  Sine and Mayor Truper McBride voting for the briefings to go public, and Coun. Miles Chester, Coun. Watson and Coun. Davies voting against it.

For Mayor McBride it was a no-brainer.

He has heard from some in the community that think the briefings show a lack of transparency.

“I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with (the meetings),” he said.

“I think there are a lot of things (that come up in the briefings) that are good news stories that show progression.”

He said two councils back, the big debate was whether or not to make the budget debate public. McBride said the opponents of making it public made the same argument, that “there would be no open discussion,” which he thinks is ridiculous.

He said having the briefings in a public setting can also bring clarity to council’s decision-making process.

If there does happen to be any information that can’t be shared with the public due to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), usually dealing with staff or business transactions, then council can request to go into in camera (behind closed doors).

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