Grey Highlands council hosted the public input sessions, which also included its new procedural bylaw, at its regular meeting held on February 11. The  small audience that attended the two meetings were mostly interested in the fees and charges bylaw.

Grey Highlands is contemplating some changes to the fees it charges for use of its community halls throughout the municipality. The proposed changes drew questions and comments from some members of local community hall boards.

Council is looking at the possibility of implementing a new 5 per cent surcharge for community hall rentals. The amount collected from the surcharge would be deposited in a reserve account set aside for future community hall repair/replacement needs.

The new reserve surcharge will be applied at the time the rental fee is paid by hall users.

"We're trying to recover a portion from the users for future repairs to the halls. We're trying to protect the future of our facilities," Treasurer Glen McAllister said of the new charges.

Council also held a public meeting about its new procedural bylaw. Grey Highlands adopted a new council meeting structure in 2010 and as a result asked staff to prepare a new procedural bylaw to govern meetings.

At the beginning of January council started meeting on a new four-meetings-per-month schedule. Two meetings are committee of the whole meetings, while two are regular meetings. The first regular meeting of the month (the second Tuesday of the month) begins at 4 p.m. The other three meetings all begin at 10 a.m. Council plans to have the committee of the whole sessions replace the various council committees that met at various times throughout the month previously.

The proposed procedural bylaw received few comments from the public. Clerk Debbie Robertson said agenda packages for council meetings would be available the Friday before the meeting on the municipal website. She added the Grey Highlands website will receive a facelift in the near future.