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THUNDER BAY – City staff will present proposed changes to how city council operates later this year, including a recommendation to dissolve the anti-racism and equity advisory committee.
It's one of 10 advisory committees city staff are proposing to dissolve as part of a broader restructuring of city council governance.
Chris Krumpholz, chair of the anti-racism and equity advisory committee, said dissolving these committees is the wrong move for council.
Monday's committee of the whole meeting, Krista Power, director of legislative services and city clerk, will present a first reading of the city governance structure report, which, if passed by council on June 23, would replace council's committee of the whole meeting with smaller standing committees and dissolve 10 advisory committees.
Also marked for dissolution are the audit committee; the clean, green and beautiful committee; the community communications committee; the community, youth and cultural funding appeals committee; the coordinating committee; the downtown Fort William revitalization committee; the EarthCare advisory committee, teh official recognition committee and the waterfront development committee.
Power told Newswatch in an interview that the city has over 20 advisory committees, and the 10 chosen to be dissolved are all non-legislative.
“One of the things we did was look at all of the committees that we have that are not legislated to determine is this the best way to do this work or could we do it differently,” Power said.
“So, one of the things that I think is important is that in dissolving council advisory committees, it doesn't mean the work goes away. All of the tremendous work that has been put into the building of the clean, green, and beautiful program doesn't go away.
"What we are proposing is that the construct of the city council advisory committee is dissolved, potentially for a taskforce team or a working group or an opportunity for a review team similar to what we do in other departments.”
Krumpholz is skeptical of the idea.
“I mean, if they want to turn to a working group, I don't know that that's a good idea. I mean, they said the same thing with the parking board. We were dissolved, and then they made us into a working group, and we never really got together again, despite all the things that are happening in the community,” he said.
“I think the working group by angle would work, but I mean, you have to have the different groups in on it. That's part of the issue. There are so many different moving parts. Like when you look at the makeup of the committee. There are so many different membership organizations to be able to put in that you need to factor in.”
Power, in her report, mentions that advisory committees often have recruitment challenges.
There are 111 citizen positions available for 16 committees. More than 15 per cent of citizen positions are currently vacant.
Due to this challenge, the advisory committee aren’t reaching quorum at their meetings.
Power said, “all advisory committees have to follow the procedural bylaw, which means members can't make decisions by consensus.”
This means a minimum number of members must be present at a given meeting to conduct business. Any less, the meeting is cancelled.
According to the report since September 2024, 25 per cents of committee meetings have been cancelled or have been conducted as information sessions because of a lack of quorum.
Power said the anti-racism and equity advisory committee has this particular issue.
With 16 comittee members, Krumpholz said it can be hard to schedule meeting. You try to do it when it's best for everybody, but it's not always ideal,”
The anti-racism and equity advisory committee has two members of council, five citizen representatives - including Krumpholz – and eight community organization representatives, and Fort William First Nation as a community represented.
“Especially when you have the problem with this particular committee — and I've been attached to multiple committees over the years and boards — and one of the things that I noticed with this particular group right now is that with this type of involvement from all the different committee members, like community groups as well as members, it's hard to get everybody's scheduled together to get the quorum.
"That's where I think that we're kind of stuck, because we need so many members just to make quorum,” Krumpholz said.
Power said one solution to this challenge is to lean on the work done through the legislated community safety and wellbeing committee, which also deals with issues of equity and anti-racism.
She said the anti-racism and equity advisory committee could be turned into a task team that reports to the community safety and wellbeing committee, so there would be no need for quorum.
Aside from allocating the workload to taskforces or grassroots working groups, the Power's report states that the work being done by the anti-racism and equity advisory committee, EarthCare advisory committee, waterfront development committee, community communications committee, and downtown Fort William revitalization committee could also be done by administration.
“I don't know how much more administration is going to get taxed. I mean, it can be done in-house, but if we're always looking at taking workload off, you go to city council meetings, and it's always, at budget time, well, we're already putting so much on admin. This is work that is done by volunteer people with the exception of the city support,” Krumpholz said.
