By Chad Ingram

Minden Hills council held its first remote meeting using digitalteleconferencing platform Zoom on April 28 and the plan is for regularcommittee-of-the-whole and council meetings to be held digitallybeginning in May.

The purpose of Wednesday’s meeting was to amendthe township’s procedural bylaw to allow councillors to participate inmeetings remotely using technology a capability that was extended tomunicipalities by the provincial government as an emergency measureduring the COVID-19 pandemic. The link for the live streams broadcaston YouTube will be published on the township’s website and on agendas.Residents who plan to observe meetings are encouraged to download theagendas ahead of time as agendas will not be displayed as part of thelive stream.

Clerk Vicki Bull and Mayor Brent Devolin thanked thecounty’s IT department and other staff for facilitating the process andtraining for staff and council.
“A huge thank you” Devolin said.“This is a brave new world that we’re in . . . not only technicalitiesbut basically creating new law both municipally and provincially inthis. This is a mountain of work that in a few weeks we’ve been ableto do.”
“Our intention is in the month of May with council andcommittee-of-the-whole to be basically relatively as we can back tobusiness” Devolin said.

Council will also hold a meeting Thursday April 30.