City seeks new ‘hybrid’ model as it returns to in-person council meetings

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The city took its first tentative step toward resuming in-person council meetings after 20 months, when a committee chairman stepped into council chambers on Monday as committee members and delegations participated via Zoom. .

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“It was perfect? No. But we have to start from somewhere and make those continuous improvements as we go along, ”City Clerk Steve Vlachodimos said Tuesday of this initial version of a hybrid council meeting that is being tested this month at all four meetings. standing committees of the council. These meetings are typically smaller in scale, with fewer committee members, staff, delegates and people watching, so they are used to diagnose any faults and make improvements, he said.

“And then hopefully, whether in December or January, we can open it up to the full council in the council chambers for a council meeting.”

In-person council meetings were closed at the start of the pandemic, replaced by Zoom meetings. But recently, with meeting restrictions easing, IT and City Services staff have been running test and mock meetings to resolve any issues associated with this hybrid version. The first in-person council meetings likely won’t allow people to sit in the gallery, which is currently restricted to 32 people, Vlachodimos said. Eventually, up to 32 people will be allowed into the gallery, as long as they adhere to the rules of masking and social distancing. Individual councilors can choose to attend in person or continue online.

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“This is potentially the new normal,” he said. “As restrictions are lifted, we must regain some normalcy, but also remember that we are still in a pandemic, so we must follow some additional precautions and a different approach than what we were used to before the pandemic.”

Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin, who chaired Monday’s meeting of the permanent committee on development and heritage, said he is excited about the hybrid model because it combines the benefits of a zoom meeting with the face-to-face advantages of being in person. Basically, it takes the multiple cameras available in the council chambers and splices all the people who are on Zoom.

“We listen to a delegation as if it were in the council chambers and they will have the presence as if they were in the council chambers,” he said.

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Bortolin said the hybrid model will be particularly useful in lengthy board meetings with multiple problems. Someone wishing to speak as a delegation will not have to wait in council chambers for hours. Instead, they can monitor the meeting from home or work, and receive an email from the city when it is time to speak.

“What it does is remove all these barriers of having to be in the council chambers, the technology now really removes all those things that made it awkward or awkward,” he said. “Actually, it moves very fast and it works very well.”

Bortolin said that when the pandemic struck in March 2020, the council chambers, created as an open and welcoming public space as part of the 2018 new city hall, became “almost useless” because in-person meetings were prohibited. “But I think now, between the new cameras and this new hybrid model, we may have one of the most open and transparent meeting systems out there.”

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He said virtual meetings were a good pivot for the first 20 months, but there is a different feeling to being in the same room with people.

He hopes that hybrid meetings will still have delegates showing up through Zoom, while the council and senior management will be in person, with junior staff or staff dealing with a single issue.

A report from Vlachodimos going to the council on Monday recommends that the start time for these hybrid council meetings be changed to 1pm as a pilot project, starting from the 6pm pre-pandemic time.

A survey of Ontario cities of similar size shows that most start during the day. Vlachodimos explained that running a hybrid meeting will require more backstage staff than a pre-pandemic meeting, and he wants to have all staff available “on deck” during those meetings in case something goes wrong.

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That happened a few months ago when Zoom went down globally and IT staff had to struggle to switch to a different platform at the last minute. That would have been difficult to handle after hours, Vlachodimos said.

The afternoon begins with council meetings that are used to help members of the public attend or watch television. But times have changed, he said. New technology means that people can participate as delegates through Zoom without having to drive downtown, and meetings can be viewed on demand through the city’s broadcast platform.

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