A member of the media listens to council proceedings from behind the glass wall separating the City Hall foyer from the council chamber during an April meeting. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

COVID costs

Remote council meetings cost city $7,000

Sep 14, 2020 | 3:38 PM

Attempts to conduct Prince Albert city council meetings remotely during this spring’s COVID-19 outbreak cost taxpayers just over $7,000, according to numbers provided to paNOW by the City Clerk’s office. The money covered things like SaskTel connection, technical services, and additional equipment.

While at least one councillor says he is “appalled” by the price-tag, the mayor said the money was well spent and ultimately protected the health of everyone who attended meetings.

With businesses and facilities across the country closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, council moved to a mixture of in-person and remote attendance at the beginning of April. Five council and executive committee meetings were conducted with four councillors plus the mayor in the chamber, while another four joined via teleconference. The format was ultimately abandoned at the end of May after a series of meetings plagued by communication issues.

Coun. Evert Botha, who participated in the meetings over the phone told paNOW the system never really worked.

“It was chaos for us [on the phones],” he told paNOW. “We couldn’t hear each other. We couldn’t hear what was going on in the council chambers and we were totally blind.”

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Botha said other municipalities in Saskatchewan and Canada used low-cost video conferencing platforms for their council meetings and he would have liked to have seen Prince Albert do the same.

“I was quite appalled by cost of the teleconferencing solution that was used for these council meetings when we could have done it for $100 per month with a platform such as GoToMeeting or Zoom,” Botha said.

Meanwhile Mayor Greg Dionne told paNOW that just wasn’t possible given the city’s old equipment.

“The biggest reason that we couldn’t do any of the modern [meeting formats] was the age of our equipment,” he said. “It was not compatible with what we required to do those.”

Although he admitted the hybrid teleconferencing system had some shortcomings, Dionne said given how quickly it was put together, it worked quite well. Most importantly he said, there were no COVID-19 cases among council.

“At the end of the day, the whole issue was to keep everybody safe,” he said. “So, I think the amount is small and I think it’s more than reasonable.”

Dionne said upgrades to the council chamber’s audio system to allow for better conference calls, as well as the live-streaming of meetings online, will be included in the 2021 budget.

Asked what system council would use if the pandemic necessitated a return to remote meetings, Dionne said assuming the budget ask is approved, the improved technology should be in place early in 2021. Until then, however, he said council would be “stuck with the same system.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom