North Battleford City Council could be holding some of its meetings in places other than City Hall this coming year.
The agreement among councillors that it would be worth trying out a few alternate locations came about during a budget meeting Monday.
City Hall is in need of some more renovations, and a facelift for council chambers is on the list.
Councillors seemed less concerned about its appearance, however, than about its accessibility to the public. Being on the top level of City Hall, which has no elevator, makes it difficult for all citizens to attend council meetings or events.
Councillor Don Buglas has frequently brought up the issue, and he has done some research among other municipalities. One municipality holds its meetings in different facilities, changing it up every six months. Another holds its meetings on the stage of the community theatre, making it easy to have the public attend a "town hall" type of meeting, with face-to-face and open mike communication. That council was able to minimize costs and make meetings totally accessible, he said.
Councillor Buglas said he sat on council when the late Julian Sadlowski was serving as mayor, and if Mrs. Sadlowski wanted to attend a council ceremony the fire department had to be called out to take her up and down the stairs.
He also said he has seen cases when people wanted to attend, but didn't give City Hall enough notice to get the support they needed in time to get them up to the meeting.
Parks and Recreation Director Bill Samborski, whose department is responsible for all city buildings, cited council chambers' shortcomings as one reason to look forward, even at the value of building new as opposed to renovating.
City Hall should ideally take the city well into the future, he said. But the current building is cramped, although there is space on the third floor of the Breton Building portion of City Hall that could be renovated.
The other issue is that the floors of the main City Hall building and the Breton Building, used by numerous staff next door, are not on the same level.
He suggested the issue should be addressed once the new city manager is on site and acclimated.
There are a number of people with great ideas and there are probably several scenarios that could work, said Samborski.
"Ultimately they need to be chewed out and then direction set."
