The days of the public being able to record inside Nanaimo City Council chambers are essentially over.
The council passed changes to its procedural bylaw last night (April 7) outlawing any recordings in the chambers seen as intimidation of staff.
The final vote was 7-2 with Councillor Hilary Eastmure and Councillor Sheryl Armstrong against.
Much like Parliament and courts, Councillor Tyler Brown said conduct needs to be addressed.
“Fundamentally, governing or judgment or anything like that is in the business of making decisions and weighing information and those environments need to be free of any sort of intimidation,” Brown said.
Councillor Ben Geselbracht added this change was prompted by “one or two individuals” and their conduct over the past six months to a year.
“When I think of being in charge of the city and being responsible for the work environment, to think that staff would have to have somebody come in and put a videotape in front of their face and then post it…and then having complete strangers make intimidating remarks, hurtful remarks, that’s a horrible environment to have to come work in.”
Geselbracht said reporters will not be stopped from doing their job.
Councillor Hilary Eastmure said the “optics were not good” with rushed changes and felt it would be “functionally impossible to enforce.”
Based on a proposal from Councillor Paul Manly, there will be an exception for accredited journalists. The proposal to have an accreditation process passed 5-4.
The city still needs to figure out a process for accreditation in the coming weeks. It will come back to the council for a further amendment to the procedural bylaw.
