Welcome to the first installment of our ‘How To’ feature, where our Chamber staff and volunteers give you comprehensive advice on how to tackle various tasks. This week’s guide deals with how YOU (yes you) can go before City Council.
The Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce regularly goes before City Council to advocate on behalf of our membership and to talk to Council about important issues that affect the business community, but you can go before council yourself if you have an important issue that you would like to see addressed. Any resident of Lethbridge is entitled to make a presentation to council, either to present important information or to make a specific request for consideration.
Topics can include almost anything, so long as you have a clearly specified issue that is relevant to the community. For example, if you have a petition for City Council to consider that deals with a developing issue in the community, you are very likely to be heard. However, if your issue is not immediately relevant to the community, you might not get put on the agenda.
Topics also should address something that is either valuable for council to know, or should cover an issue that council can actually do something about. It is not the place to discuss federal or provincial politics or policies, or to take up minor disputes between neighbors.
So if you have a relevant topic, how do you actually get before Council?
Step 1: Fill out a Public Submission Form
The first thing you need to do is go to the Speaking at City Council page on the City of Lethbridge’s website. Here you can download a Public Submission Form which you will need to fill out. The form is pretty straightforward, but you can ask questions about it or get detailed instructions by contacting:
Bev Burke
Bev.burke@lethbridge.ca
403-320-3822
Or
Aleta Neufeld
Aleta.neufeld@lethbridge.ca
403-320-4083
On this form, you will need to fill out some basic information and spell out why you want to go before council and what you want them to do. You will also be able to request a presentation date. The presentation date must fall on the day of a City Council meeting. Although you can request a date, City Hall may not be able to fit you in on that day, and you will need to be flexible. City Council meetings typically occur every Monday from 1:00 pm till 4:00 pm.
Step 2: Prepare all of your Other Materials.
When you submit the Public Submission Form, you will also have to submit any other documents that you want Council to consider along with it. It all has to go in at the same time. If you submit the Public Submission Form and then try to submit additional documents later on, they may not be accepted. So, make sure everything is ready to go early on.
Additional materials include Powerpoint Presentations (if you plan to have one during your presentation to council), supporting documents or reports, letters of support from other members of the community or organizations, and financial statements.
You may not be able to submit revisions to your materials after they have been accepted, so make sure you are happy with everything before you hit send.
Step 3: Submit Everything
Send it all in and wait for someone from the City Clerk’s office to contact you. When you request to go before council, your request has to go before an agenda-setting committee which looks at requests and schedules them in to future council meetings. All of your documents and your form need to be submitted by noon on Monday, one full week before the council meeting that you wish to present at, but we advise you to submit your request at least one full month before the date you would like. Council agendas fill up fast and the earlier you submit, the more likely you are to be scheduled for the day you request. It is very hard for City Hall to accommodate last minute requests.
The Submission Form has the info for where to submit everything to.
Step 4: Your Day in Council
The City Clerk’s office will advise you of the day and time that you’ve been scheduled for. You can always keep up-to-date with agenda’s for City Council meetings by checking the Agendas and Minutes page which is updated weekly.
You will be given a presentation time at the City Council meeting. However, make sure to show up really early. City Council meetings often move fast or slow through agenda items, and you want to be there and prepared should your turn come early.
The City Clerk will cue up the Powerpoint presentation that you have already sent and you’ll have a clicker available to advance your slides manually.
Your time in front of Council will follow this format:
- Presentation: 5 minutes
- Questions from Council
- Motion from Council on your presentation
- Council debates your motion
- Council votes on the motion
The Presentation
You will only have 5 minutes for your presentation, and council will not allow you to go over. (There’s actually a timer) Make sure you’ve practiced your pitch to fall within this time. Don’t worry about presenting all of the complicated details of your plan in the pitch, if you’ve got a complicated, detail-heavy issue, that’s why you are allowed to submit as many documents as you think are necessary along with your original submission. City Councilors are supposed to read through all of the attached documents before so that they are educated on the issue you present before you even get there.
This is your chance to sell your idea, not only to council, but to the public. Always keep in mind that when you are before council, everything you do and say is recorded and is available to the public and to the media who are often in attendance.
Questions from Council
This is probably the most important part of your day in Council. Councilors will ask you specific questions about your presentation. This is when you get a chance to expand on all of those important details and considerations that you didn’t have time to get into in your presentation. Come prepared and spend as much time as you can beforehand thinking about what councilors might ask you and preparing answers.
Motion from Council
At this point Council will thank you for your presentation and ask you to go sit down. A motion on your presentation will have been prepared beforehand by one of the councilors. City Council’s motion will be one of the following:
- To receive as information and file (They take your presentation under advisement)
- To refer the issue to the administration or a city committee for review and report back to city council (They assign the issue to staff or volunteers to investigate)
- To refer to a future community issues meeting to facilitate additional discussion (They send the issue off to a specific committee to be dealt with)
- To table to a future meeting of City Council (They agree to bring up the issue at a later city council meeting)
Debate
Once the motion has been called, the chair opens up the issue for debate among councilors. This is when councilors can weigh in on the issue and present their arguments and opinions in an attempt to sway the opinions of other councilors, and to publicly express their own thoughts on the issue for the public record.
Vote
When everyone has had their say, the chair calls for a vote on the motion. A simple majority passes the motion.
Additional Advice
Here’s a few useful tips that we’ve learnt from spending time around City Council.
Be specific. If you are providing information to council, make sure the points you want to make are clear and concise. Don’t get sidetracked talking about issues that will only distract from your main message. If you are asking council for action on something – to vote on a motion – make sure that your request is
as specific as you can possibly make it. For example, if your request involves money, make sure you have a clear dollar value already picked out. If you don’t have specifics, you are less likely to get a decision, and there’s more room for council to interpret your request in different ways.
Be Convincing
If you’re asking for something, do your homework and construct your proposal to be as strong as it possibly can be. Ideally you want your proposal to be so convincing and so universally good for everyone that no councilor would want to oppose it. If your issue will face opposition, make sure your arguments are well-crafted, backed up by research and data, and make sure to list all of the many many benefits and good happy things that will come from Council accepting your proposal.
Gather Support
Your request will have a much higher chance of success if you can demonstrate that you are not alone. Get as many people or organizations as possible to write you letters of support, stating that they agree with what you are asking for. Submit these letters with your materials when you ask to speak to council. Alternatively, you can prepare a petition for Council and get as many people to sign it as possible. There’s some clear rules around how petitions need to be conducted, so make sure to read up on those issues
here.
Another great thing you can do to show that the community supports your request is to get as many people as possible to show up in the council chambers for your presentation.
Lobby
Council reads your material long before the presentation day, and councilors have often already figured out their position on the issue long before you present. Call up councilors well in advance of the day, ask to meet with them, convince them to see you and talk about the issues one-on-one to try to get them on-side. If you have friends who agree with you that already have relationships with councilors, enlist their help. Of course, always be respectful.
Get Expert Advice
If you’re new to this process, talk to someone who has experience. Get someone to look over your presentation and materials to help you strengthen them and ask others if they see anything you might be missing or forgetting. If you’re a member of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, we can help you with the processes and procedures and provide you with advice on your topic, and we
might be able to support your request if we have time to seek approval from our Board of Directors and if the issue aligns with our mandate. If you’re interested in our support, make sure to bring the issue to us 2 months ahead of your proposed presentation date.
Finally, Have Fun
Participating in the democratic process in our city is your right. Don’t be afraid to speak up for the issues you care about. If your request is denied by City Council, you can come back again in 6 months. Take that time to improve your presentation and arguments, to gather more community support, and to lobby more to bring councilors onside.
About the Author:
Peter W. Casurella is the Communications and Policy Analyst at the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy from McMaster University and two Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Lethbridge. His primary responsibility at the Chamber of Commerce is to advance our advocacy program – working for our members to make sure your issues and concerns are heard at City Hall, at the Provincial Legislature, and in Parliament. 
