A longtime rural resident, I use my 60 plus years of life learning to opinionate here and elsewhere on the “interweb” on everything from politics to environmental issues. A believer in reasonable discourse rather than unhelpful attacks I try to give positive input to the blogesphere, so feel free to comment upon rural issues or anything else posted here. But don’t be surprised if you comments get zapped if you are not polite in your replys.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Chatsworth Council News

It appears that long standing CAO Will Moore is no longer with Chatsworth Council, although as far as I can tell no “official” announcement has been made there are a number of changes in staffing shown on the 'Contacts' page.
The administration staff is now given as:-
Acting CAO/Clerk - Norm Gamble
Deputy Clerk - Grace Nayler
Treasurer - Valerie Manning
Admin Assistant Finance - Teresa Buys
Admin Assistant Clerk & Finance - Heather Stirling


In other news it seems that after a couple of citizens expressed concern regarding a change in document retention on the website policies (see June 5th item) council is now reviewing its entire method of document filing, retention and access. Reading between the lines of the new Deputy Clerk's report its long overdue


https://www.scribd.com/doc/315508753/DCL-01-16




(click to enlarge)
Staff then recommend that


“Council approve the purchase of TOMRMS (The Ontario Municipal Records Management System) for Record Retention and Management and that a new Records Management and Retention By-law be enacted as soon as it can be prepared.”


It is not specified anywhere (that I have found) what the policy regarding the website is, except that it should follow the general retention policy.


Whilst I have no major beefs with Chatsworth Council I do believe that they can do a better job of keeping the public informed both through the use of local media (radio & print) and online on their website and elsewhere. The change in staffing in the top administrative hierarchy one would think would merit such a announcement.


It has also been suggested to council that there are methods to make it much easier to keep up with items that are (often belatedly) posted to the website. Both RSS feeds and Subscribe to posts should be available so that interested citizens do not have to visit and troll the site to lean of new activities, reports or other content. I remain optimistic the the new CAO and his assistant will recommend and institute such modest but important changes soon.

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