West Nipissing council is taking democracy on the road.
Council’s next meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19, takes place in Field, at the Golden Age Club at 65 Jarbeau St. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.
For those who enjoy tuning into council meetings via the municipality’s YouTube channel, be warned that due to limited technology at the new site, the meeting will not be live-streamed. However, a recording will be made and posted to the channel as soon as possible.
Why the mobile council? Soon after the current council was elected in 2022, it decided to revive the practice of hosting two council meetings per year in a different ward. The idea was to bring the meetings to the people, who may not want or be able to attend meetings live in Sturgeon Falls.
West Nipissing’s Chief Administrative Officer Jay Barbeau emphasized, "West Nipissing is a municipality that spans a vast area. This is one strategy that Council adopted to assist in ensuring that our residents are informed and engaged.”
Meetings have already been held in North Monetville, River Valley, and most recently, this past spring in Lavigne. Next week, it will be Field’s turn, and if all goes as planned, next spring council will pull into Verner and perhaps Cache Bay in the fall.
Barbeau added, “The meetings held remotely have been met with positive feedback in the communities that we have visited."
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
