After a brief experiment with the occasional town hall meeting, that was used to justify the elimination of what were previously a monthly open forum segment at Saanich committee of the whole meetings, the district has decided to allow for open-topic public addressing of council to only take place at City Hall for one hour at a time, up to three times a year, for a total of three combined hours annually for the public.
The catalyst for this latest clawback of open public participation was a staff report that observed a strange phenomenon: clapping, having taken place at a Saanich town hall meeting in May.
The mayor himself, despite not having been present at the town hall where the clapping was observed, noted in the press that the council chambers were a better place to keep order.
As this fear of clapping appears to have reached epidemic levels, I’ve decided to coin a term for it: plausophobia, a condition observed affecting populations of politicians and bureaucrats.
Sasha Izard
Saanich
