Even council is allowed to change its mind sometimes

The solar-heating issue in which City council has been embroiled the past week points to the usefulness of rules of order for working through procedurally tricky issues.

A week ago, against the advice of its staff, and by a 5-4 margin, the new council voted at its first business meeting to require that new homes be “solar hot water ready.”

The question first came up last month when a delegation asked the previous council to support the concept. The council turned it over to staff to talk to the homebuilders association.

That group, the Central Interior Branch of the Canadian Home Builders Association, gave it a thumb’s down based mainly on cost.

The new council went for it anyway. Coun. Marg Spina tried an amendment that would have put off the implementation date until the HST has been removed.

The attempt failed, after which Spina voted in favour of the main motion.

In effect, her vote carried the day in favour of the proposal, but it also gives her the option of raising the matter for reconsideration. Under Robert’s Rules of Order, by which Kamloops council operates its meetings, a member who votes with the prevailing side can raise the matter for debate all over again at a later meeting.

Back in the ‘90s, then-councillor Shirley Culver used it to change her vote, which resulted in the Real Canadian Superstore being approved.

There’s no time limit on it, either. The possibility is open for Spina to pursue either at today’s regular council meeting or later.

Here’s why she might do it — a couple of days after last week’s meeting, she met with Brian Hayashi, the local homebuilders’ president, and developer Doug Wittal to talk about what had happened.

Spina is of the view — wisely, I think — that green initiatives should be the subject of a broad plan rather than dealt with as one-offs in answer to pressure from delegations. The CHBA thinks so, too.

As Hyashi said in a letter to council last week, “In the future there may be other options developed that would negate the need for solar hot water systems.”

Spina may simply put forward a notice of motion that council appoint a community committee of stakeholders to put together a comprehensive strategy.

A notice of motion is a procedural device that lets other council members ponder one member’s proposal for a week or so while everybody gets their ducks in a row.

It can be useful but if employed too often it just gums things up. Instead, a tabling motion can be used when something is raised that council wants to think about for awhile (a motion to table isn’t debatable and must be voted on at once).

If a green task force is favoured, the previous motion on solar hot water would get in the way of a no-holds, unencumbered look at options. So the easiest way to clear the slate is for Spina or any of the other four members who voted for it last week to simply ask for reconsideration first.

Then it would be voted on again, and a changed vote by any one of them would relegate solar to the back burner, at least for the time being.