Windsor City council shifts regular meeting time to 10 a.m. during heated debate

Windsor City Council chambers on Dec. 11, 2023 during the final meeting of the year. (Rich Garton/CTV News Windsor)

Windsor City Council will have a new time slot for its regular meetings in 2024 — 10 a.m.

The debate was prompted by a city report by the clerk, Steve Vlachodimos, regarding the annual meeting calendar.

The clerk stated during Monday’s meeting that staff overtime costs associated with starting the meetings at 4 p.m. is making it difficult to keep costs at bay. When pressed by council on how much overtime is costing the city, Vlachodimos stated it costs between $10,000 to $20,000 annually.

His report suggested a start time of 1 p.m. would be better for a number of reasons, including a quicker resolution to any technical problems that may arise during a meeting, noting there are more troubleshooting resources on hand.

There were notable gasps in the crowd when ward 4 Coun. Mark McKenzie put forward a motion to move the report, with one amendment: change the start time to 10 a.m.

“I think 10 a.m. works, I think we can do our meetings at 10 a.m. There’s other municipalities that do them even earlier than that,” he said. “I think we’ve got to remember that we're never going to appeal to everybody, but we do whatever we can,” said McKenzie during his motion, indicating Windsor isn’t a “nine-to-five” city.

The vote was split six to five, with councillors Fred Francis, Fabio Costante, Angelo Marignani, Gary Kaschak and Kieran McKenzie voting against the change.

THINGS GETTING HEATED

The debate at times got heated, with McKenzie suggesting working council is a full time job with some people working as many as 80 hours a week, and that “eight out of 10 councillors are full time.”

Ward 2 Coun. Fabio Costante called a point of order, taking exception to the comments made by McKenzie, calling them a personal attack.

“I think all 10 counselors including the mayor, work full time and work in the best interest of their constituents and to suggest that only eight out of 10 do this is an absolute horrid allegation,” said Costante. “I heard it on the radio and I heard it again today and that's awful. And I think you should apologize.”

McKenzie responded: “Then let's say it's a full time job for everybody, that’s okay, we'll leave it at that.”

THE ‘YAY’ VOTES

Voting in favour of the motion to change the meeting time were Councillors Jo-Anne Gignac, Renaldo Agostino, Jim Morrison, Ed Sleiman, Mark McKenzie, Drew Dilkens.

One of the key arguments was that other cities across the country run their meetings during the day and it works for them, both operationally and with public engagement in the democratic process. They argued it’s also a chance to save on staff overtime costs and introduce more technology to improve transparency at council meetings.

Here’s what some of them had to say:

“It’s interesting to see, the younger people on council that don't want to look consider change. They want to look at it like it was 30 years ago, and it’s kind of interesting to hear, because things have changed. I mean COVID changed everything.”

-Ward 10 Coun. Jim Morrison

“We are never going to land on a time that’s going to be acceptable to everybody. So let’s try. Let’s try to move forward in a united way, observe the results and you know what, if it doesn’t work out, we can come back and change it.”

-Ward 6 Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac

“This is just solely my opinion, is to not look at the problems that may come from this, but the opportunities that exist by trying this and in general, as a council, if we see that this works great. If we see that doesn't work, just like everything else in the past, I believe we get to revisit that.”

-Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino

“Why not try 10 a.m.? If it's an abject failure, and it's not working, we can change time.”

-Mayor Drew Dilkens

THE ‘NAY’ VOTES

The key argument against changing the start time of the meeting was that it could remove people from the democratic process because the meetings would take place during the work day. They argued that not only does it make it harder for delegates to attend meetings, but also discourages people who work full-time jobs during the day to consider running for a council position in the future.

This group of councillors was hoping for an opportunity to defer the decision until after public consultation could take place to see what works best for the public.

“If the public after a consultation process wants 1:00, wants 10:00, if they want to meet at 3 a.m. in the morning, I'm here. But we should get that direction from the people we serve. We shouldn't tell them, we should ask.”

-Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis

“This discussion is about us telling them what is best for us. Not about listening to them, not about listening to and looking at what's happening in the community in terms of democratic participation... I would argue that it makes matters worse, because it makes City Hall less accessible to the people who want to participate in it.”

-Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie

“I blame that on a bad process. Listen, guys, council chambers does not belong to me. It doesn't belong to this council. It doesn't belong to administration, it belongs to the public, period. And if we don't consult the public on when they want us to meet, and look, by the way, their answer may be 10 a.m. It may be 1 p.m. It may be 3 p.m. It doesn't matter. We haven't consulted them. And if we don't consult the public on something that is theirs, there's a fundamental flaw in this.”

-Ward 2 Coun. Fabio Costante