The Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation has decided to conduct its meetings digitally into the new year with a “hybrid” approach that would include some in-person meetings that “should be able to begin as early as toward the end of October,” executive director Mike Buda said Thursday.
“At the end of the year we can revisit it,” he said.
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said while “everybody, I think, is kind-of anxious to get back to what we figure is normal but we couldn’t go too quickly so a hybrid approach, video conference to the end of the year.”
New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Coté said the council will know better this fall what the “new normal” will look like for the mayors’ meetings. Its next meeting is set for July 29.
While British Columbia is currently projected to reach step 4 of its re-opening plan on Sept. 7, Buda noted “there is some uncertainty as to when Step 4 will be reached.
“Even immediately after B.C.’s restart plan reaches step four it’s going to take a little bit of time for TransLink’s corporate offices to transition staff back into the workplace at full capacity,” he said.
Surrey City Hall, meanwhile, is currently open by appointment only as council meetings continue to be held digitally.
According to a corporate report that came before city council on June 14, council chambers will see a “modified” reopening in September at the earliest with council members and staff meeting in person but socially distanced, with limited public participation in the atrium and phone-in with a “gradual increase to 100 per cent” in public participation.
Council’s first meeting that month will be on Monday Sept. 20.
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