It's a good 76 page read containing an overview of what a councillor should know and points to further readings.
My recent interest in the content of Seguin's Official Plan and the Questionnaire used as an input to its development (see previous post) is touched on in the guide. I discovered that a municipal council and planning department is not required to do exhaustive public consultation in either developing or reviewing official plans.
Here's an excerpt from The Municipal Councillor's Guide (p. 51):
When preparing an official plan, municipalities must inform the public and give people an opportunity to voice their concerns and opinions. For example, council must hold at least one public meeting before the plan is adopted. A special meeting open to the public, prior to the public meeting, is also required for a five year official plan review.In effect, nothing even close to a mail-in questionnaire is required by the province for Seguin official plan development or review. Taking this to an absurd level of compliance, councillors could be listening to their iPods, playing video games while constituents "voice their concerns and opinions" during the single, proscribed public meeting.
So, my brief analysis of Seguin's Official Plan Questionnaire is that it was more than what the Province of Ontario requires of council to consider as public input for creating an official plan. I leave it to the reader to judge the merits of the Questionnaire.
