It was a smooth Council meeting on Monday night - for the most part, that is. 

After the official signing of Heather Eby who has rejoined City Council, officials moved to the topic of the presentations and planning sessions of the '13 Ways to Kill Your Community." A motion was brought forward by administration to be approved and would see staff at City Hall continue to work on a plan for our city using tactics and strategies from the list of 13 things. 

The floor was given to Councillor Scott McMan first, who didn't have much to add, followed by Councillor Brian Swanson who clearly defined his stance on the matter. 

"From my perspective this a highly overrated process full of platitudes and cliches, and it kind of has the system backward. To me, it's the elected officials that provide direction to administration, we don't ask the administration to write a plan for elected officials. It's an expensive proposition, I've been through so many of these and this one was not that much different," said Swanson. 

It was right then and there that the line was drawn in the sand, as Mayor Fraser Tolmie argued that he didn't believe Swanson's opinion should be weighing so heavily when he wasn't present for the meetings. 

"Well, I would disagree Councillor Swanson. You walked out of this planning session, the fact that you weren't there while we were putting this together, I'm actually offended that you make comments on this," explained Mayor Tolmie. 

Agreeing with our Mayor, Councillor Eby didn't waste any time chiming in on the matter and express her opinion that the work put in so far and the work that's yet to be done is worthwhile and could have a major benefit to our city. 

"The greatest strategic plans are only as good as the actions that are taken afterward. I totally support this; it could be the greatest thing and if we don't do anything with it and put it on a shelf [then] there was no point in doing it. I really believe the success of the 13 Ways [to Kill a Community] session, as well as the branding, will be the actions that we take and that we allow the administration to build on. I absolutely support this."

Councillor Luhning also took to the microphone and pointed out to her peers that this could be a chance for our elected officials to make a plan for the city's future. 

"I think this council needs an opportunity to see what the seven of us want to do and I don't think we've done that yet in the two years that we've been here. I think it's a good opportunity for us to look at some good options and some different ideas."

Following suit was Councillor Chris Warren who also felt like there was a good lesson coming from '13 Ways to Kill Your Community' and it was something to use as a catalyst to create positive change. 

The motion was put to a vote and carried.