Starting on August 10th, the City of Fernie will reintroduce a public input period for both online and in-person attendees to its Regular Meeting of the Council at the Community Centre.
The City said the input period allows for in-person, online, or telephone participation and will be open for 15 minutes at the start of the meeting.
Public input must pertain to items on the agenda, except for items such as bylaws coming to a public hearing, or permits requiring scheduled public input such as development variance permits.
Parameters for participating in the regular Council Meeting will be different depending on your preferred method.
For people attending in person, there will be a number of COVID-19 safety policies that have been put in place:
- Maximum public occupancy of 10 attendees.
- Separate entry and exit.
- Hand sanitizing upon entry.
- Sign in for contact tracing purposes, and affirmation that attendee is free of COVID-like symptoms.
- Mandatory mask-wearing, except where contraindicated (i.e., health preclusions, etc.).
- Signage directing traffic flow.
- Sequential entry to and exit from the centre:
- The public will be allowed entry 5 minutes before the meeting is called to order.
- Council will not exit the building until all public attendees have cleared the area.
Fernie said the meetings will also be streamed via Facebook and Zoom and will be available after the meeting has finished on the City of Fernie’s website.
Residents who wish to participate online can do so via a link that will be provided prior to the meeting. Members of the public will be muted and will not be visible, excepts as part of the attendee list, which will be visible to the host. Those wishing to contribute can click the “raise hand” button and the host will unmute them when appropriate. After they have finished their contribution, the host will mute their microphone and lower their hand.
The following steps will allow the public to attend and participate over the phone:
- Please call 1-778-907-2071. You will be prompted to enter the meeting ID, followed by #.
- Press # again to wait until the host joins the meeting.
- You will be automatically assigned an attendee number based on your place in the telephone queue.
- If you would like to contribute during a public input period, the following commands can be entered using your phone’s dial pad:
- *6 to mute and unmute.
- *9 to raise a hand.
- The Host will indicate to the Mayor your wish to provide input and will send you a prompt to unmute your mic when appropriate. Once you have completed your comments, the Host will lower your hand and you must mute your handset.
Regular Fernie Council Meeting dates for August are at 7 p.m. on the 10th and again on the 24th.
