Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to call the Erdrey City Council meeting to order
for March the 18th, 2024. I'd like to welcome everybody. We're going to begin with a land
acknowledgement. Oki, Dada, Nasdada, Umbawathek, Tanshi. We're gathering today on Treaty 7,
home of the ancestral lands of Treaty 7 nations, home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsitsika,
the Kainai, the Bacani, the Satina, Stony Nicoda Nations, Good Stony, Cheneke and Bearspaw,
and of course the people of Métis Nation of Alberta Region, our sorry, District 4.
Just want to make sure I got that correct. That is correct. Bound together on a journey
of truth and reconciliation, a renewed relationship forged in trust, knowledge
sharing, cooperation, and mutual respect, hopefully ensuring a better future for all.
Any visitors to our gallery today or washrooms are just down the hall to my left.
If there is a notice of evacuation, we'll muster at the south point of the parking lot
and most likely reschedule the meeting for another day.
There's also an exit down here and there's obviously the exit that you came through probably to get here today.
So with that, we're moving on to item number two.
This is bylaws.
us.
Introductions are coming from Councillor Spearman, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. At this time, I would like to invite up our clerk, Charlotte. Oh,
there you are. I was like, where'd you go? There, Charlotte is the Tink Manager of Legislative
Services and IGM. Council is being provided with a procedure by-law and committee's
by-law to establish a new council committee governance structure. Go ahead, Cheryl.
Good afternoon, Council. Before you today, we have senior legislative officers Karen
Jang and Sonia Hope and myself, Charlissa Tink, the City Clerk. We are excited to bring
forward the new proposed Council Committee Governance struct model and the bylaws required
to establish it. I just want to double-check that our PowerPoint is being pulled up.
Thank you. So as the City of Airdrie grows, it is important that Council and the
organization improves how it receives information and makes decisions. This proposal is a more
coordinated and efficient approach of governance. It is what is required to allow council to
focus on being more strategic governors of this incredible city. This was also the perfect
opportunity to modernize our procedure bylaws. They have been rewritten so they are easier
you to read, understand.
and navigate. The procedure by-laws before you today are now more thorough and transparent
than ever before. This council committee structure is a big change for the organization and we
are also very thankful for the opportunity to lead this change.
Here is the new council committee governance structure. This was developed based on a thorough
assessment of the city's needs and a review of best practices across Alberta and the
country. We have also extensively consulted with council and administration over the
past year. You will see that our quasi-judicial committees and ad hoc
committees will not change. There will be one new advisory committee, the
Airdrie Board of Youth Affairs. A bylaw to establish this committee will be
presented to you later this afternoon. As discussed at the October 16th, 2023
council meeting, where you approved the principles of a standing committee
governance structure, the purpose of the standing committees is to streamline
applying council meetings and improved decision-making.
Each of these standing committees will meet regularly and their decision-making authority
and responsibilities are limited by the Municipal Government Act and Council.
Here is the standing committee's composition, which is the same structure we previously
shared with Council.
As you can see, the committee is comprised of three councillors who are voting members,
two non-voting citizen members who will bring related areas of expertise and community
review points to the table. And the mayor who is an ex-officio member. The mayor can
participate like the other voting members. There's also an alternate council member who
will only be called on, who will only be called to the standing committee if the standing
committee cannot make quorum. The alternate only has voting rights if they are part
of quorum. This structure is not designed to exclude other counselors, counselors
who are not appointed as voting members to a committee will receive the committee's meeting
agendas and are welcome to participate in each meeting in a non-voting capacity.
The three standing committees are, as is on the screen, the first one is the Community
and Corporate Services Committee, the Community Safety and Social Services Committee,
and the Community Infrastructure and Strategic Growth Committee.
committee. The first you see here is CCS, which will normally meet for a couple of hours
once a month. It will hear items about community services like civic partnerships and cultural
and recreational programming, to name a few. It will also hear budgetary and financial
items, but council's authority to make budget decisions remains with council.
Next up is the CSSS. Like the CCS, this committee will usually meet for a couple
of hours once a month. This committee hears items about things such as affordable housing,
social planning, enforcement, services, and fire services. The CSSS is also the emergency advisory
committee, which would be activated during its local state of emergency. The by-law that supports
this change will be presented later in today's meeting. Finally, there is the CISG. This committee
meets needs to meet twice a month because it is also the Municipal Planning Commission,
which must make certain decisions by legislative deadlines.
Besides some subdivision and development matters, the CISG will also hear items about things
like capital projects, economic development, waste, water and recycling.
Here you will see what the proposed meeting schedule is for the Standing Committees is
outlined in the bylaw.
The morning meetings for Standing Committees would start on Mondays at 9am and finish
at noon. The afternoon meetings would then start at 1pm and could run past 4pm if needed.
This plan will allow flexibility in the time needed for the CISG committee meetings, which
administration anticipates may take longer given its MPC authorities.
As I mentioned earlier, administration took this opportunity to modernize or procedure
by-laws, given that the Municipal Government Act only permits selected officials to give
governing documents are critical to Erdrey's success.
Plain language principles have been applied
and unrecorded practices of counsel
and administration have been documented.
You'll also see that the counsel meeting procedures
have been separated from the committee meeting procedures.
So each bylaw serves as clear guidance for both bodies.
We'd like to be very clear,
no form of counsel's engagement
with the public has been eliminated.
Some have been moved and all have been clarified.
This was done with the goal of reducing wait times and increasing access, while adding some level of risk assessment and respectful communication standards.
We'd like to highlight a few notable changes. Firstly, community requests such as proclamations, City Hall illuminations, and recognition letters will now go through the Mayor's Office for quick replies.
Secondly, requests for letters of support have updated timelines and will usually be
accompanied by a short assessment by administration to consider the city's varied interests.
Thirdly, there is a modernized policy for written correspondence for council.
Finally, under this new structure, it will be faster and easier for the public to
present their questions and concerns before councillors because public question period
has been moved to the Standing Committee meetings.
All of these changes improve accountability and increase transparency about how this city
conducts business and makes decisions.
We have come a long way since Council identified the need for change at the beginning of its
term.
Administration has taken the direction from the October 16th Council meeting and is
now asking Council to consider adopting the proposed Council Committee structure
by way of the updated Procedure By-law and Committee's By-law.
If you adopt these two bylaws, you establish the three standing committees and council would start operating under this new structure next month.
Administration will then ask you to adopt the supporting bylaws to enable these standing committees to do their work.
This includes amendments to the emergency management bylaw and the codes of conduct for elected officials and citizen members.
The 1971 bylaw that established the Airdrie public library board would be replaced with an updated version.
The outdated proclamations, illumination, and letters of support policy would also be replaced with a revised council policy.
A new Airdrie Board of Youth Affairs bylaw would be introduced.
And finally, the subdivision and development authorities that are held by council, NPC, and administration would all be moved out of the old bylaw and into the land use bylaw, with no changes to those powers or authorities.
This has been done to streamline the authorities and clarify roles.
as is best practices across the province. It will also eliminate any duplicates or conflicts.
If Council chooses not to adopt the Procedure By-law and Committee's By-law or make significant
changes to the Standing Committees within them, then the supporting By-laws do not need to be
considered by Council today. And instead, administration would require time to bring
forward a new plan with revised By-laws for your consideration. Here you can see the
timeline for appointing citizen members onto the standing committees. Council, if you approve
the new standing committee structure, you will be active for three months on your own on these
standing committees until citizen members are appointed and given their orientation and
training.
Many of you have served multiple terms. You all have experienced the city,
you have all experienced the city's growth and know first hand the opportunities and
challenges that lie ahead of us. This proposed governance structure is rooted in experiences
of cities in Alberta and nationally that have experienced exponential population growth.
This is where we are heading and this is how we can best respond to those opportunities and
challenges. There will likely be a need for some adjustments as we move forward and administration
is well prepared to assist with those changes as we go through. In closing, administration is
asking that council approve the new council committee governance structure by adopting
the procedure by-law and the committee's by-law. Thank you, and we are available for any questions.
Thanks, Charlotte. Before I get to Councillor Jones, just for everybody, if you're going
to be asking specific questions around what's before us, can you give us a page number
so that we can all reference where we're going there? Councillor Jones, you have the
floor. Thanks.
Thanks, so I'm going right off of the presentation that was just presented, so.
But the three months where it is councillors only,
I'm not sure I'm comfortable not having
citizens on those committees for that, I get that it takes time for us to structure everything,
but can we not structure everything and then start with a full complement?
through your worship to Councillor Jones I think when we had these first
discussions it was decided as a group that this would be our best action for
you guys to get established in the materials coming towards the council
committees if council decides to delay it so that we can actively recruit
citizen members that is an option that you can consider but it just delays all
applying process. So through the chair, I do recall the conversation, but I was
under the understanding that we would be doing that groundwork before the
Standing Committees formally started. If I'm understanding the presentation, we
would be running these Standing Committees for three months making
decisions without that citizen input and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.
Through the chair to Councillor Jones, the three months that was intended to have council
begin first is to allow the members sitting on the standing committees to formulate the
type of citizen members and skill sets that they would want joining them at that table.
Additionally, quorum does not require citizen members and citizen members will have no voting
ability decision making authority on the standing committees.
So for us, for one of the recommendations is to shift MPC under this new structure,
which means that we do require some body to be the subdivision and development authority,
of which MPC is currently, but that is only until the end of this month.
Therefore, the consideration is to start with the committees first,
and then have the citizen members join after.
So, through his worship, if we have, so say there's three counselors on a standing committee,
let's use MPC as an example, those three counselors with no input from citizen feedback,
and I get that there's no vote involved there, but without that expertise,
those three are going to make the decisions and then that's like for that
three months any decisions they make stands am I understanding that yes that's
correct okay I'm missing I really don't understand why we can't have
everything put together first before launching the actual standing committees
but okay and then through his worship just one more question the emergency
advisory committee so in the past pretty much all the councils on standby if
there's an emergency like a train derailment or fire whatever so now
there would only be just the counselors on that committee on the
emergency advisory committee?
Through the chair, Councillor Jones, under the new
structure, yes, the emergency advisory committee will also be the Community
Safety and Social Services Committee, and that committee does not include all
of council. If there is a state of local emergency currently, it only
requires the mayor and one other counselor to be able to declare that soul, which is
exactly the same structure that we are proposing, even with EAC moving into the new standing
committee.
So through the chair, I understand that, however, here's my concern.
So it requires two signatures, say there's three people on the standing committee from
from a council perspective. If they're not available, we can't execute that. I feel more
comfortable having all of council part of, I don't know if that becomes a side one in
order to enact this or whatever, but I think all of council should be part of that committee.
just just based on guaranteeing availability like God forbid something
breaks out and you know one of the members is out of town and another
member is ill or something how are you going to get it done right so I would
with seven of us I'm fairly confident we can get two of us together through
the shared accounts of Jones this is definitely something the administration
has contemplated. First off, there will be three councillors plus the Mayor that
are appointed to the committee. In addition, there will be an alternate that
could also be a stand-in for a committee member that cannot be available. And
additionally, if the Mayor is unavailable, then the Deputy Mayor and
mayor backups would also apply. So, in consideration of all the different
possibilities
It's almost all of council could be considered if we get to the place where we cannot find that
second signature. Additionally, with the standing committee structure, remote participation
is also a possibility as well,
as well as electronic signatures.
So a minimum of four members in case like the deputy mayor is also on the standing committee.
So we've got a minimum of four and as many as five available.
Like the mayor doesn't count as part of that complement on the standing committee.
Through the chair that Councillor Jones, in a sole situation the backup for mayor would
apply, meaning the deputy and if the deputy is not available then the acting.
Okay.
Sorry.
That's a little better.
Councillor Jones, we're not going to call a sole.
It's going to be Lori LaFace, our fire chief police officers, they're going to tell
us what needs to be done and then we're going to act it. In my mind, I'm absolutely, there
is no issue.
Okay.
All right, here's what you're saying.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay, thank you. Councillor Coulson, please.
Yeah, just quickly through the chair, I had those same concerns the last time we brought
this up, but then when it was explained that it's looking like there's five councillors
for sure that are going to be able to sign on that, I felt a lot better about it.
And then just, I'll save mine to the end, but through the chair to Councillor Jones' point about having those citizen members, I understand what you're saying.
But when we're throwing around words like expertise, we have a lot of citizen members on our boards that are just citizen members.
They might be nurses or doctors making decisions about planning and, like, out of their realm
of expertise.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's really no different than the council members that are sitting on this board.
We all have those things that, you know, we're very knowledgeable about, but I think
it's very important for council to look at the skill set of what we're looking
at putting on those the boards and committees first and we don't know yet what those boards
and committee meetings are going to look like because the structure is quite different like
it's not like for example Councillor Chapman and I we sat on the police advisory board it's not
just police advisory board anymore now there's a whole gambit of things that we're going to be
discussing on that board so I think it's very important for the council members on those
boards and even all of us if we're able to participate you know in the audience or
or whatever to understand what those boards
are actually looking at,
because it is going to be very different.
I do feel though, through the chair,
that we could probably speed up that three month process
if we have good candidates
and if council commits to meeting
and saying, okay, this is the skill set
that we're looking for.
I feel like it could be done quicker,
especially if we started soon after today,
once this by-law's passed, I'm sure.
I mean, we just went out for SDAB
and we had five interviewees right away for it.
So I think that I'm confident that it can be done before the three month period.
And then my only, I did hear Karen you say that there is going to be an alternate for those three council members on each board and committee.
I guess I just didn't really understand that because I was a little bit worried.
Okay, we have three.
We need quorum.
We need to have more than two to make like a good healthy vote.
So there will be an alternate for every single position that will be another council member other than the mayor who's
Yeah, through your worship to Councillor Coulson. Yes
There will be an alternate proposed for each of the three standing committees
Okay, I feel a little bit better about that because I was like there are times where council members are going to be on holidays or
Not able to go. So I just wanted to make sure that we're confident that there's good enough provisions for those boards and committees
Thank you council spirit, please. Thank you worship
Thank you for putting this all together yet again and bringing it forward.
I know I have been asking a lot of questions around it and I still have more questions
today so I'm just going to go through them and I apologize if some of them should have
been addressed last meeting.
Here we go.
So through the chair.
The first question I have is on page 7 of 27 on Attachment Number 2, Committees
Bylaw Final.
So on here, 0.40 under Councillor Appointments says Councillor Appointments to a Standing
Committee are for a two-year term and start on the date of the organizational meeting at
which the councillor was appointed to the Standing Committee.
Can you please just explain once more for me on that question, how that will be affected
by the election in October of 2025, because we're not doing a full two-year term here.
So are we just saying on that date all council members on those committees are dissolved?
From those positions through your worship to councillor Spurman. Yes. So once the election hits,
you know, everything changes and we start at square one. So the section you just read
allowed really is the ideal section for after the election. So you'll be appointed in October
for two years, which is midterm. And then in two years, you'd be appointed again,
which would take you to the end of the term.
Okay, thank you for that.
Next question,
page 8.
So just the next page under point number 45.
We're talking about the city may compensate
citizen members for their service on a standing committee
in accordance with the council's policies if applicable.
Have we defined what those dollar figures are
and is that transferred to the public
based on the committees?
Through your worship to councillor Spearman, no, we have not defined that.
We've done some research, but we're actually waiting and we'll approach council on what
your wish is.
We put that in there if applicable so that if you do decide to direct us to write a remuneration
policy for our citizen members, we would.
So it's the if applicable will apply if we actually do write a policy.
So we're still waiting for direction from council on that.
Okay.
Thank you for the clarification on that.
And through the chair, sorry, I've got a few, I'll leave that one, actually, through
the chair on page 10, part 7, there's a point here that says meetings are video streamed
to the internet and recordings, yada, yada, yada.
I'm just curious, will that apply to the committees as well?
All committees will be live streamed and recorded and posted to the city calendar?
Through your worship, yes, that's correct.
Thank you for that.
Sorry, some of these are quick, but just wanted clarity.
Okay, next question.
This is a bit more general, but for example, on page 13,
when we're talking about the mandate for each of the committees
and what's included in them.
So, for example, in this case,
the Community Infrastructure and Strategic Growth Standing Committee,
is it possible, and I don't know if this is something we put into the by-law,
But is it possible to ensure that council always receives the agenda ahead of time even if we're not on the committee?
Because I believe we had a conversation previously where we said if there was an item that was brought to a committee that we felt should come to council,
we could supersede those decisions.
But I want to make sure that we all have that really obvious visibility to it.
So either as an agenda ahead of time
that we all get a copy of or see through eScribe or whatever,
or and or receive a copy of the minutes for every meeting,
because up until now with the previous committees,
I didn't necessarily get a copy of the minutes
for a certain, I don't know, committee.
I'm just going to say that without kind of looking
for it, not consistently anyway.
So I'm wondering what the strategy is there
and how we will be informed on what was covered
or what will be covered.
So through your worship to Councillor Spearman, yes.
Behind the scenes, what you're receiving for council is exactly
what you're going to be receiving for every committee meeting.
So you'll have access to the agendas on Eastcribe.
You'll receive notifications on them.
We'll send you a copy of the minutes as well.
And you're also welcome to attend the actual meetings as well.
Yeah, okay.
Okay, thank you as long as that's in place.
Next question.
Through the chair.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Through the chair to Councillor Spearman.
And also if you'll note it in section on page, sorry, section 47 on page 23, you'll see that
it says after distribution of the agenda to the members and non-member counselors.
So it's actually part of the by-law that you have to get the agenda.
Thank you.
Yes, thank you for catching that.
And highlighting that for me, thank you.
So through the chair, this section is going to come as absolutely no surprise to anybody.
page 20 of 27, slash end of page 19, so the meeting schedule.
So in here we're saying that the standing committees hold regular meetings once or twice a month on the second and or fourth Monday of every month of each year unless otherwise determined by council.
So, council, I'm going to say this like as clear as I can.
I cannot attend most of these committee meetings whatsoever if this is going to be the proposed schedule.
So I am interested to know if it's possible to do an amendment to move these meetings to a Tuesday,
but I'm saying that knowing that half of council works full time as well as myself.
So as an elected official, I don't feel comfortable not attending these committee meetings or not having the option to sit on any of the three committees that have been presented today.
So that is an area where I'd like to have a discussion with Council and see what would work for them.
Can I just get a point of clarification?
Absolutely.
I thought you could attend the afternoon on the Mondays.
I can always attend the afternoon, but two meetings take place, I believe, in the mornings based on the schedule.
Yep, we'll pull it up here. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you.
Thank you for asking.
Yeah, that's slide 18.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
Slide five.
Five.
Your worship.
Yes, please go ahead.
Could you just break it down, Councillor Spearman?
Like, obviously you cannot attend the mornings full stop, right?
Correct.
So you're concerned about the morning sessions?
Yes, of which there are two different committees that potentially sit in the mornings,
which means that if we are to do this as presented today, I can only sit on the one committee that happens to sit on the alternating Monday afternoons.
The SC2 committee.
SC2. And I'm not beholden to any particular topic, but I feel that it's not really fair to the residents that elected us that some of us cannot participate.
participate. And I'm not speaking for anybody else on this council. I don't know what your
schedules are like, but I am struggling with this timetable and I want to make sure that
I can represent on any committee or if I need to, if I feel the need to represent on a
committee that I can't actually sit in on because of my work obligations. So for example
if SC1 is having a meeting and I can't be there, then, you know, sure I can send
an email to the mayor or to one of my colleagues and say, hey, here's my issue, but am I really
giving it everything that I committed to giving it when I got elected? I don't feel that I
am. I don't feel that this is conducive for me part way through a term to make a decision
based on this schedule. But that's a question I'm putting out there as part of my questions
today.
Yeah, I'll start. I'll just reply. So you're asking for a Tuesday afternoon for at least
one of the committees to go to a Tuesday afternoon?
If I were to wave my magic wand, I would move all of our meetings to a Tuesday and then
I could go at any time of date, but that's a Heather Spearman timeline. I have not asked
anybody else here so okay okay like I have no problem coming in for a Tuesday
that like as long as I know ahead of time that these are the days that I have
to come in on that doesn't bother me like period at all however knowing what I
know about the committees and about our strategic sessions and that staff are
really struggling to get us in here I feel like we need to have set days set
times and commit to them because in the past Council has said let's commit to a Monday
afternoon full stop every single Monday and then when every single Monday comes up we're
like oh no actually I can't come in on a Monday afternoon that's not a Council day.
So I know that they've struggled with getting all of Council together so I would love
to know from the rest of Council colleagues what happened to our let's come in every
Monday afternoon whether or not we have a Council meeting booked that day.
Okay, I have no problem moving it to Tuesday after this.
It's okay, but it doesn't deal with this one first.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
Okay, so you're good for Tuesdays?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a good day.
Councilor Petro, please.
So, shockingly, I normally have no scheduling issues,
but Tuesdays would be a big challenge for me,
just with the new role with AB Muniz,
because I'm generally in Edmonton on Tuesday's portion of the month.
I'm sure I could make it work.
I'm sure we could shuffle things.
I'm sure I could participate virtually if needed, but it just depends on what that looks
like.
I was wondering if, I'm not sure, oh, there's a change schedule along here.
I'm not looking at the Monday one anymore, but I'm also curious, because we always have
community infrastructure and strategic growth in the afternoon, and I understand why, because
they could potentially always run long.
I, in my personal opinion, think that all of these are going to potentially run
long.
We're going to keep pushing things to future agendas, even looking at the mandates
It's in here.
I have no idea how this is going to work in three hours.
But is it possible to have the first one with strategic growth in the morning and safety
and social services in the afternoon?
So if there's something that has to get pushed from that strategic growth when it goes to
the afternoon of the third Monday there, the fourth Monday?
Just curious.
I guess if there's any way to, I guess, switch one of the two of those around, but I could make
it work. It's not ideal, but I can make it work.
It's okay. Tuesdays, you're good. Councillor Chaumont, please.
I'm with Councillor Coleson. I'm fine with Tuesdays. If we have the notice, if we all
agree it's going to be on a Tuesday, so be it. It is a Tuesday, but let's make sure
it's on the Tuesdays that we have a set schedule.
As for meetings going longer, we'll be setting agendas.
Hopefully, we'll be able to figure out
how is this going to progress before we get to the meeting.
Are we going to have to push it to another meeting?
You know, I'm fine with Mondays.
Obviously, I'm in a little different situation.
But I'm fine with Mondays or Tuesdays.
But if it would help, I'm fine with Tuesday.
OK.
Council Member, please.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm the councilor Sparman here. I've arranged Monday afternoons to be council time,
but if we moved it to Tuesdays, I'd have no problem doing Tuesdays instead of Mondays.
Thank you.
Okay, so question for that, though. If there's, because strats sessions are usually on a Monday,
But you guys still get for Monday afternoons if you're taking up a Tuesday away from work.
For the people that are working, I'm just curious.
May I make a point of clarification?
Yeah, please, go ahead.
My suggestion here is to move any flex, like anything that we've committed to as a Monday
afternoon meeting to Tuesday.
That's what I'm saying.
So we're not doing Monday afternoon strat sessions.
Everyone who said, which was all of us, Monday afternoons were always dedicating
to council, would now be Tuesday. That's what I'm asking. So, strat sessions, committees,
the whole shebang.
No more Mondays. That's not what you just indicated because you said you were good from 1 to 6.
You asked me if I was still good with that, if my issue was with the mornings and I
said yes it was, but sorry, to be clear, to be super clear, spanner alert, I'm asking
if we can move to Tuesdays and I will add to that the number of times we move to a Tuesday
anyway because there is a holiday Monday that takes place and the fact that I look at administration
and currently they send us an agenda on a Thursday and we are all cramming on the weekend.
I take time away from my family. I know you take time away from your families and
we all knew this getting into the gig, not an issue, not a complaint, but I'm just
saying how great would it be to have an extra day in there as a buffer, not only for ourselves.
You only know that because you saw the holiday there on 1st of April. I see what you're doing.
Caught me again. Councillor Coulson, please.
Yeah, so realistically, there's only one committee meeting that's going to take place twice a month.
The other ones are once a month, correct?
Yes.
So I'm okay with everything moving to Tuesday.
However, we as a council then need to commit to strat sessions and we need to have it blocked
in our calendars, not just like a, hey, are you guys available for strat sessions?
If we need two strat sessions a month that we have to commit to, and we don't have to
work that out today, but I feel like, like Arasio, I'm sure you need more time of council
and during the day, during working hours, all of those things.
Council, I don't want to meet at night anymore.
I don't want to meet at six, seven o'clock at night anymore.
good decisions don't get made at that time, people are tired, our staff are
tired presenting, you know they've put in a full day of work as well so I just
want to make sure if we're doing that, moving forward, understanding that this
is not every single Tuesday that you're going to have to take away from your
full-time jobs for those of you that have nine to five, this is one Tuesday
potentially two depending on the council member that sits on the board
so please let us put in our calendars that this is it this is a strat
session you need to show up for it, unless of course you have an emergency or you're on holidays
or whatever I get that, but book it in the calendar. You know that you come to council
every Monday, every other Monday. There's no reason why we can't book it. We get paid to be here,
so we need to be able to book that time. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Jones, please.
So we're talking about moving everything to Tuesdays and Mondays is now we could work our
the job.
So we're talking about two days then, every week, every two weeks.
Do you
worship if I may? Counsel Carlson you have the floor right please. So you would
have two Mondays a month dedicated to counsel unless there's a holiday like
how we normally have it and then one day a month you would dedicate a Tuesday
to a board and committee meeting just like how you would have dedicated your
evening's to CSAB or whatever boards you were on. So now we're going to dedicate a
Tuesday, whether you're meeting in the morning or the afternoon, once a month, unless it's
the MPC, I forget the full name of that, what is it, infrastructure and strategic growth,
would be meeting twice a month because they have to, that's the permitting process,
that's the judicial process. So just like MPC was meeting twice a month, the whoever
sits on that board would meet twice a month on Tuesdays. In the afternoons, I think,
is that one? Yeah, the afternoons, Tuesday afternoons.
And then so where does the other boards like SDAB land, the Youth Council Library Board,
where does all that land? We're going to have an administration answer
that question. If you could speak a little closer to the mic there, Deputy Mayor, please.
Through the chair to Councillor Jones, the appeal boards like SDAB, ARB and GAB, they
meet as required, so they would work around the schedules.
So through the chair, why can't we move everything to the Tuesdays then?
Well, I'm trying to see where it's fair to alternative employers where
you can say,
okay, this day is marked.
I mean, for the longest time, I made it very clear I'm available all Mondays,
and
that was something I worked out that I contracted out with my employer.
So this requires some going back to the...
I mean, I know it doesn't affect the rest of you,
but I
just had stuff switched like in October when we all agreed to Mondays.
So now I'm going to go back to them and ask them to redo my contract.
So we're talking so Mondays is still counseled twice a month unless the Monday is a holiday
then that goes to Tuesday and then all the standing committees would be on Tuesdays should
be at a couple of them right six of you you should be in a couple of yeah three
so you should be yeah so I
don't know I'll have to see how this washes out I I
don't even know how to think this out right now I don't even know how to
logistically work this out right now okay move on to somewhere else one else
That's hard to move on because we have six members that are okay with the change. You're obviously not or you can't confirm right now
Or we also have six members that were willing to leave it status quo. So yeah, no, no, no, you look at no
No, no, I appreciate that hundred percent. So, okay
Calcifer, please
Thank you worship. So just on that note
So Deputy Mayor Jones, like, I personally, I would be totally fine moving it to All Day
Tuesdays for everything, including Council.
That's easy for me, but we're also hearing different things.
So there is a piece of me in this moment that is saying, oh, are we really, like, settled
on this discussion to pass this today?
I don't know.
So I'm just going to put that there through the chair.
I do have one last question.
It's just on page 21.3 around the presentations and questions.
So it says not be a matter dealt with by council or a standing committee within the last year.
I feel like a whole year is really long time for an issue not to be allowed to come back.
And I feel like it's currently six months, but I just wanted to double check.
Is it already currently 12 months or is it six months?
Through your Worship to Councillor Sperman, it is currently a year now in our existing
bylaw. Okay. And through the chair to that point
then, have we seen any scenarios really come up where someone is asked to come back
with the same topic within a 12 month period?
Yes. But I can't remember which one. But yes.
Okay. And I think it's up, sorry. Notice of motion came forward
to amend that. We could do that at council, correct? Sorry, not amended, but if say somebody
came forward as described, we wanted to see it sooner. Council could put forward a notice
of motion to say, I'm letting know that we want to hear from Orocio. I know that it's
one year, however, this needs to be addressed before then. Can we not do that?
With that non-supercedent policy?
Yes. So the procedure by-law always has a clause in it where you guys can override
whatever rule we have in there and I think that's what happened and I don't
remember which one it council chairman maybe you do but it was a long time ago
but we did do that all good okay okay and did you guys actually contemplate a
scenario of moving everything to a Tuesday I didn't see that up there but
I was curious if that was entered the conversation with your staff through
your worship so from an administrative standpoint and I look to the
directors and Arasio. I think moving everything till Tuesday so we can start at 9 a.m. and
1 p.m. is favorable for administration. Keeping it for Monday and if you were to say to move
the meetings to the evenings isn't our recommendation.
I'm talking specifically everything. Council included.
Yeah, it's definitely doable for administration.
Okay, yeah. Please, Arasio, and then I'm going to go to Councilor Petro.
Thank you, Mayor Ram. My question would be if we move everything to Tuesdays, what
about the strategy session,
but I don't think there is enough.
There's not enough time.
Tuesdays in the month to block, you know, two to three hours in a Tuesday with a full
schedule to incorporate that.
Can we put the calendar back up, please?
The original calendar?
So, Your Worship, with us having council meetings on the first and third, say Tuesdays,
and then committee meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays, we still are required
an afternoon somewhere during the week first rat session from council at least
once a month minimum yeah and preference in the afternoon yeah like we have been
for the last number of them okay council Petro please thank you worship I just
have a question on the timeline of the three months to get us to having
citizen members on the board I'm just trying to figure out how I understand
that so we're going to form the the committee with just the three
council members and I'm not I'm okay with that because I understand that we
have to have that time to create the criteria for the citizen members we
have to go through that process I'm just trying to figure out why that process
is going to take to June to even get an advertisement out that seems like a
really long time just
trying to pull up the slide for the timelines Karen
can
you move it to slide number eight please through
the chair to counselor
Petro the reason for that timeline was first of all we weren't able to
start this process until we have the approval to go forward with the standing committees.
So once we have things lined up and ready to go, if this new governance structure is
approved today, we have met with our human resources team who will be assisting with
this, and we are hoping to also meet with the counselors to discuss what types of skills
and experiences they're wanting these citizen members to have on these committees.
Once we're able to develop a skills matrix, in May we will advertise the positions
that usually takes about a month and then it takes about another month to
gather them and interview them and then in early July is when the appointments
would happen and in that July period it's also summertime it's a bit harder for
people to get together we would be able to do organized orientation and start
doing some of that onboarding that's required so starting at the end of
August that's the timeline that we came up with based on our experiences of
getting good quality candidates and speaking with HR on recruiting good quality candidates.
Okay. No, I appreciate it. And for some reason I saw advertise in June. So this, thank you
for pulling that slide back up. I'm hoping that we can do it a little bit faster than
that. I'm sure that you guys will do everything within your power to expedite that process
if possible. But no, I'm, I'm okay with us starting just councillors on there because
I understand why we have to do that.
Okay. Councillor Block, please.
Thank you, through the chair.
I have two questions.
On the procedural by-law and then a three or four on the committee by-law.
So first we started off a procedure by-law, page 22, section 141-2.
So we're talking about the removal of either a person of the audience or one of the council
members.
So what happens if the mayor requests that person to leave and they refuse and there is no bylaw officer here to back him up?
What would happen then?
I'd, sorry, I'd take a recess immediately and then we'd call for support.
Okay. Very good. Thank you.
on to 150 and I would the sentence is okay but I would like to see added to it
every community and represent of represents a local interests to that
sentence this
is page 20 23 sorry the procedural bylaw
yeah what section 150
Pardon me.
150.
So the section 150 of the procedure by-law states members of the public may make presentations
to and ask questions of counsel through counsel's standing committees pursuant to the committee's
by-law.
Right.
And you're wanting to extend that?
I'm wanting to add area community and represents local interests.
It's through the Chair to Councilor Bellick.
Section 159, the Respectful Communications, it's subsection number five.
It states that all communications and requests to council from members of the public must
relate to the Airdrie community and represent local interests.
Okay.
So why can't we have that in both areas?
Just asking the question.
Yeah, we can absolutely add that as well.
And the requirement and the goal of having it relating to the Airdrie community is
captured in other sections about what we consider when we bring these items forward to council.
Okay, very good. Thank you. And on to the committee by-law now. So we're looking at page 7,
36, 2.
Citizens member, a non-voting member. Can you tell me the rationale behind that, behind citizens not voting member?
Through
the Chair to Councillor Bellick. In our scan of the five other municipalities
that use standing committees in Alberta, citizen members are normally not part of the composition
of the Standing Committee. The addition of citizen members on the Standing Committee
is a made and error-free solution. During the council workshops it was discussed that
in order to keep with best practices with other municipalities and the type of committee,
a standing committee is, that we would have the citizen member be present, but non-voting.
So it is kind of a best of both worlds.
All right.
I'm not really comfortable with that, but thanks for the explanation.
Thank you, Your Worship.
Can I just comment on that?
Yeah, I was going to as well.
Go ahead, Councillor.
With all due respect, Councillor Bellick, we have discussed this before.
This council was elected every four years by the representatives.
Citizen representatives aren't elected by the community as a whole to make decisions
for the community, whereas we are, as elected officials, decided to, you know, elected
to make decisions.
I appreciate the citizen members on the boards for input and we take that, you know, greatly,
but I think that's what just was behind this was the citizen members are not elected representatives
of the community.
Thank you.
Councillor Boehle.
Thank you.
On to page 14, Appendix C. We're talking 1.1.
Let me get there.
1.1.
Affordable housing.
affordable housing that is is said yes we'll talk about it and then in
appendix e you're saying that it might be talked about so which one is it would
it be talked about or wouldn't it be talked about and appendix e is on page
16 again 1 1
through your worship to councillor bellick the just for clarity
Councillor Bellick, are you referring to the affordable housing line?
Correct, yes.
The affordable housing portfolio resides with social planning, which is part of the Standing
Committees mandate. However, at this present time, Council is making very core key framework
decisions regarding affordable housing that would only go to council. So it was
actually intentional that we put it in both places because the intention in the
future after the affordable housing framework is in place, that a lot of the
regular reporting and aspects of affordable housing would actually go
to the Standing Committee. So it's actually just addressing the current state of how we
are dealing with affordable housing at the city.
Okay. Thank you for that explanation. And the last question is just sort of a general
question. I realize that it's already been passed as a good idea, but why the rush?
Why the rush for this governance board to come midterm rather than end of term?
Through your worship to Councillor Bellach, we have been working with all of council for
the past year on formulating these standing committees.
The intent of us implementing them now is so that you would have a full year as existing
elected officials to experience the standing committee structure and at the end of that
full year you can decide whether or not you guys like it or you don't and you can
change it or leave it for the next council incoming.
Interesting.
All right.
Thank you very much.
The power lies with council.
Like this gets approved today, we can amend it.
It's all good.
And I really appreciate what Charlotte said there, because that's the key for me,
is that if this doesn't work, we can change it, right?
I always have that flexibility, Councillor Valle.
Councillor Coulson, please.
So, we didn't solve the calendar issue.
I had hit my light and then we kind of got off the rails a little bit.
No, we're on the rails.
Okay, okay, so I just want to yeah, we're we're just and I don't know if counselor had asked if we could see the calendar and
then oh
I didn't hear that part. Let's throw the calendar back up. Please Karen if you can
Tuesday one or the first one the first one look at the Monday. Yeah might
be page five. I think
Yeah,
there we go. Okay, so this was the first one
So in this though, did we have strategy sessions built in?
Three worship, two Councillor Coulson. No, in this one we don't have. We would have to look at a strategy session Tuesday or Wednesday or even Thursday.
Regardless, there was no strategy session. Okay, so is there a reason why we can't move everything to a Tuesday?
I mean, I'm just going to be sticky to move council meetings to a Tuesday.
That would have to start in July.
When does our council calendar starts in?
We approve our council calendars every org meeting.
So our calendar is approved until October.
But we can change it as a council.
It would just be like, it's not ideal.
But anyways, if we moved everything to a Tuesday and committed to full days, we
should be able to fit full days every single week of the month with cancelling when we
don't need them, but council blocks a full day, we should be able to do a strat session
in the morning of a council day, have our council meetings in the afternoons.
Does that solve the problems?
It does not solve yours, Councillor Jones.
It does.
So you could go back to your employer and say, I just need Tuesdays.
Deputy Mayor, please.
So from my perspective, I'm still giving my employer four days.
Okay.
So it could be Monday, it could be Tuesday, it could be Wednesday, but we've got to choose a day.
Otherwise, I'm sure I can work something out. It's just that I can't tell you all what that would be.
I sympathize with those of you who don't have the flexibility.
I'm very fortunate to have the flexibility as are some other members of council.
I can block a full Tuesday every single week.
I'm just asking if the rest of council can do that as well,
because I feel that that would solve our strategy session issues,
our committee meeting issues, that it would solve everything.
I know it's a long day for council,
But if it's a 9 to 5 day, that's just a regular workday.
We come in at 9 a.m., we have our strat session, break for lunch for an hour, continue with our council meetings.
This is not a proposal.
Can we please come to a consensus on this?
Deputy Mayor, you go first because you're the one that's out of the obstacles, so please.
Actually, there was no obstacle to begin with.
The obstacle was created when we started looking at changing it.
So let's be clear. I'm not the obstacle, okay. All right. So I can make that work because
I can guarantee my contract at four full days. Okay. So I can make that work if everything
is moved to Tuesday. It's just a matter of my Monday gets switched out for Tuesday.
You're good. Thank you, Your Worship. I am good. As long as it is a Tuesday, I can
So to the end of this term, Tuesdays all day are good for me.
Perfect.
Councillor Petro, please.
Thanks, Your Worship.
So, again, I can make this work.
I will say that between now and the end of the year,
because I've based everything else outside of council meetings
on the basis that every single Monday I have blocked off full day.
So anything that I need to go to anything in the provincial level, anything,
that is booked on the rest of the days and I've left every single Monday open.
So between now and the end of the year, I may struggle with this for sure,
just trying to balance those things out because we all agree that Mondays were
the day. So based on that, like I said, I can make it work. The 9am
stress session, I guess as a mom who has to get her kids to school at 9am,
I may say can we start them at 9.30 or something like that and I'm not
sure if anybody else is in that same boat I don't want to be late for things
especially if we only have a finite amount of time and I'm just so so I'm
just curious so our council meetings would still start at one we'd come in at
nine we'd break and so we're going on the basis that we're hoping that our
council meetings end at five or at a reasonable hour and don't run really
really really late that's what we're crossing our fingers and hoping for
okay well there should be less stuff coming to council because it's going
to committee. So to your 930, we may not have a strat session. We don't have one every month, so
I'm going to trust this process. It's not driving in my head, but I'm going to trust this process.
So yeah, but 930 is fine. I don't see an issue at all with that.
Council Chairman, go ahead please. You know what? I might sound selfish, but I like the idea of
moving everything to a Tuesday. That gives me just about a three-day weekend.
Every weekend. You know what, I've never thought of it before, but I do like the idea.
It gives us an extra day to review the agenda for our council meetings.
And if it is something that comes up that I can travel somewhere for the weekend,
it does free up another day for me, and I don't have to worry about being back sooner.
I'm okay with Tuesdays.
If we know it's Tuesday, Tuesday is Council Day.
There we go.
Everything happens on Tuesday outside of external boards
like Heritage Housing.
And we have a member library board meets on the last Tuesday
of the month in the evening.
So that could be a very long day for somebody,
those members, but we'd have to cross that bridge at the time.
But I'm okay with Tuesdays for sure.
Okay.
Councillor Broglie.
Thank you, Chair.
Okay. I'm like Councillor Jones. I'll have to go back to my boss and renegotiate the contract
and Councillor Sperman as well. I don't know how this will work out, but we'll talk to
you with the full-time boss and select it.
Sorry. You said earlier that you were good with Tuesdays to change.
Oh, you're talking about the council meeting?
The council meeting is having every Tuesday.
No, no, fair enough. No, it makes sense.
Thanks for watching.
But are you, do you think you're going to be okay with that?
I think so. My boss is pretty lenient.
Okay.
Councillor Coulson?
Yeah, I just wanted to say yay.
And I do kind of in a way feel like a Tuesday is almost better for a council meeting because a lot of people Mondays are bad for them.
Even like when you're talking about participation and that kind of thing.
Lots of councils meet on Tuesdays.
Yeah.
Well, not lots, but some that I know of.
I just want to double check now with staff that we're not
screwing your, sorry, my apologies.
We're going to ask that question right now.
We did not throw a wrench into the back.
Charlotte, go ahead, please, or whoever wants to respond.
To your worship, or through your worship,
to Councillor Coulson.
We're talking about moving all of council
and the Standing Committees to Tuesday.
It actually gives us flexibility
for that strategic session piece which we currently don't have and we really
struggle to get all of council together on the most Mondays. I think it's a
positive move for for administration and I look to Arasio if he wants to add any
insight.
Arasio please. Thank you, I agree. If we consolidate everything, start
sessions on morning once a month on Tuesday and then we alternate council
meetings and committee meetings the full agenda is dealt in in in one day the
business is getting more complex and there's more touch points with council
between council and administration so something to test for the rest of the
term and we can tweak for the following term so good good timing for sure if I
may yeah please council ball so I want to be guaranteed Tuesdays over the
past months we've had meetings scheduled for Thursdays at 3 o'clock and
Wednesdays at 1 o'clock. I just want to be guaranteed that it's only Tuesdays
that we're going to be doing things and not the rest of the week.
Charlotte please. I'm through your worship to Councillor
Bellick. If council commits all day Tuesdays of every month to us I think
it's very workable and we will certainly do our best not to schedule
meetings on any other days of the week if we're allowed that morning for strategy sessions on
a council day and if you're available full days for the committee meetings.
If you can guarantee
I'm okay. Do you know that we don't guarantee anything here? I'm only kidding. No, no, it's all
good. Let's get back to the essence of this. We've asked lots of questions. Is everyone
comfortable with what's within the context of these changes, any issues with
what's written that hasn't been addressed, answered, agreed upon, everybody's good,
right? We're good to go, because we can always amend this if we have to, but a lot
of work's gone into this, I want to make sure that we're all good to go.
Okay, I
think we can proceed. So question for you, so is there any legislation that
says that we have to give a certain amount of notice to the community that
we would be scheduling future council meetings on a Tuesday? Is it two weeks or can it happen
like at the next meeting? Your Worship, no. There is no notice requirement. Where we will
have a little bit of a situation is if we have any public hearings currently scheduled for that
first, is it a Monday in April?
Yeah, that's been advertised. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Actually, I've got Jamal behind me telling me, no, it's not an issue. So we're good. We
You would just need to amend both the committee's by-law and the procedure by-law today to reflect
those dates and then we are good to go.
And we would come back with an updated council calendar at the next council meeting.
Okay.
So any of the amendments there was one I think suggested by Councillor Bellach to the wording.
You guys have already captured that.
You're good with it.
Or do we need to include it in the motion?
So the section was section 150 where Councillor Bellach wanted to duplicate wording that
That was already in another section.
You wanted to add that to that section 150.
So we would certainly craft that as well as we've got the other two motions.
If you want to hear that in the motion, though, it's my question.
Yes, please.
Okay.
Your Worship, if we can have a two-minute recess, we can put these on the slide so
everyone knows what the motions are.
That would be wonderful.
We'll take a couple minutes here.
Thanks, everyone.
Charlotte, are we ready to go?
Your Worship, yes, we are.
Thank you.
So,
I'll ask Karen to put the first amendment up for the procedure by-law.
So, you'll see that as per Councillor Bellick's amendment, he's asking for additional words
to be added to section 150.
Just wanted to check with Councillor Bellick if this is adequate for what he was requesting.
Yes, it is.
Thank you.
So, Your Worship, I would suggest we move – have someone move first reading first
and then we'll do the amendment.
Thank you, Your Worship.
So, at this time, I would like to move first reading of 2.1 Council Governance Procedure
By-law and Committee's By-law, which is a by-law to establish a new Council Committee
Governance structure, and do you want me to say, as amended?
No, not yet.
No.
Not yet.
Councilor Baloch should do that for me.
Anybody to pose a
question?
Yeah.
In your worship, we have one more amendment to that Procedure By-law, which is the
next slide.
Thank you, Your Worship.
So I'd like to amend that section 311 of the Procedure By-law B10-2024 be amended by deleting
the word Monday and substituting the word Tuesday.
Thank you, Your Worship. I'd like to move second reading with the amendments.
Thank you, Your Worship. Permission for third, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. Move third and final reading of bylaw B10-2024.
As amended.
I'd like to move first reading of bylaw B11-2024.
Thank you, Your Worship. Move to amend that section 17-1 of the committee's bylaw B11-2024.
be amended by deleting the word Monday and substituting the word for Tuesday or
to teach to Tuesday sorry I
have a loud voice sorry about that people at home
don't know I'm moving these things anyone opposed please to the amendment carried
charlaters or any further amendments your worship no thank you next up we
of Deputy Mayor Jones, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
Move second reading as amended.
Okay, second reading.
Anyone opposed, please?
Carried.
Next up, we have Councillor Beallock.
Permission for third, Your Worship.
Thank you, Councillor Beallock.
Anyone opposed, please?
Okay, and finally, sorry, Councillor Petro, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
Move third and final reading of file number B-11-2024
as amended.
Okay. Anyone opposed, please?
Kerry?
Thank you.
Okay, so the introduction is coming from Deputy Mayor Jones for 2.2, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
We're sticking with Charlotte as a manager of legislative services to present to us the bylaw B13 2024 for consideration.
Good afternoon again, Council.
Here with me again today is Senior Legislative Officers Karen Zhang and Sonya Hope.
We are before you now with the next step in the implementation of the Standing Committee
Governance Structure.
And I would look to Karen Spence to upload the PowerPoint, please.
Slide number 11, Karen.
Slide number 11.
Next slide, please.
So with your earlier approval of the Procedure By-law and Committees By-law and the
establishment of the new standing committees, some policy changes are required to align
this new governance structure with the city's duties and responsibilities under the Municipal
Government Act. As with the Procedure By-law and the Committee's By-law, we have applied
modern legislative drafting standards where possible and tried to make these governance
documents easier to read and understand. This is part of our ongoing efforts to
support transparent and accountable decision-making.
Here you will see the bylaws and policies which require changes to enable the standing committees to work as planned.
As discussed in our presentation earlier today, this includes adding standing committees to the codes of conduct for elected officials and citizen members.
The emergency management bylaw also needs to be amended to allow the Community Safety and Social Services Committee to act as the emergency advisory committee and meet legislative requirements for meeting structures.
Right now, our library board is operating under its original by-law which was created in 1971.
We have updated the by-law to document current roles and responsibilities, but there are no changes that will impact operations.
Likewise, the proclamations, illuminations and letters of support council policy needed to be adjusted to reflect our current practices.
Given the significant changes, the current policy is recommended for repeal and would be replaced with a community request policy.
At this time, there is no bylaw for a youth affairs board.
We are proposing a bylaw to establish this board and set parameters around it like other
council committees.
Right now, the subdivision and development authority bylaw sets out who has subdivision
development powers in the city.
The best practice is to establish all these authorities in the land use bylaw instead
of multiple governance documents.
This will make it easier for the public to understand and eliminate any possible conflicts
between bylaws. As you know, amendments to land use bylaw require a public hearing and are managed
by our city's planning and development team who will be presenting at the next agenda item.
Administration recommends that council gives free readings to each of the bylaws
as seen here. Administration also recommends that council approves the community request
council policy and repeals the current proclamation letter of support,
policy, illumination of city facilities, council policy. This concludes my presentation and
We are open for any questions.
Excellent. Thank you.
No lights are on. I guess we're good to go.
Deputy Mayor Jones,
it appears so.
All right, Your Worship.
Move first reading of Bylaw 13, 2024.
Excellent. Thank you.
Any further questions, comments?
Last time. Okay. Anyone oppose please.
Carried. Thank you.
Councilor Beallock second reading your worship please like Councilor Black
anybody opposed please carried council spirit please permission for third thank
you council chairman anyone opposed please carried council chairman please like
to move your worship third reading of bylaw B 13 2024 excellent thank you
anyone opposed please. Carried. Next up we have B-12. Councillor Coulson please.
Move first reading of By-law B-12, 2024. Thank you, Councillor Coulson. Anyone opposed please.
Carried. Councillor Chapman. Your worship. I'd like to move second reading.
Thank you, Councillor Chapman. Anyone opposed please. Carried. Councillor Petro, please.
Thank you, Worship. Permission for third, please.
Thank you, Councillor Petro. Anyone opposed, please?
Carried. Deputy Mayor Jones.
Move third and final reading of B-12-2024, Your Worship.
Thank you. Anyone opposed, please?
Carried. Now we're on to B-14-2024. Councillor Chapman, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. I'd like to move first reading of By-law B-14-2024.
Excellent. Anyone opposed, please?
carried council call some please sorry
your worship I believe I'm at third
reading oh sorry wrong by law second reading the by lobby 14 excellent thank
you anyone opposed please carried council bellach please permission for
third your worship thank you council bellach anyone opposed please carried
council spearman please thank you worship at this time I would like to
move third and final reading of bylaw b14 2024. Excellent. Anyone opposed please?
Carried unanimously. Keep going here. Bylaw b15 2024. This is Councillor Beallock here before
please. Thank you. First reading of bylaw b15 2024 please. Excellent. Anyone opposed please?
Carried. Thank you. Councillor Petro please. Thank you. Bishop move second reading.
Thank you, Councilor Petro. Second reading. Anyone opposed, please?
Carried. Deputy Mayor Jones, you have the floor.
Thank you, Your Worship. Permission for third.
Thank you. Anyone opposed, please?
And final from Councillor Coulson, please.
Third reading, Your Worship of By-law B15-2024.
Thank you, Councillor Coulson. Anyone opposed, please?
Carried. Then we have Councillor Speierman, please?
Thank you, Your Worship, and endorses the Community Request Policy to support a new
Council Committee governance structure.
Excellent.
Anyone opposed, please?
Carried.
And finally, Councillor Petro, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
The Council repeals the Proclamation Letter of Support Illumination Policy P5 2008.
Excellent.
Thank you, Councillor Petro.
Anyone opposed, please?
Excellent.
That's carried unanimously.
Thank you, everybody.
study. We're moving on to public hearing, so our process for public hearing is followed,
so public input is available either in person or by verbal presentation through team is for
those who have previously registered the city clerk or by written submission by email,
email submissions can be made to public.hearingsatairdry.ca up until the time of the public hearing
that is closed. Sorry. Email submissions can be made to public.hearingsatairdry.ca
up until the time the public hearing is closed.
As the chair, I'll declare the public hearing open
and we'll hear from administration through their report.
Once that's done, then I'll ask council
will open up the floor to hear from members of the public.
Sorry, I'm gonna make sure I have the right sheet here.
We're
gonna have to redo this.
Anyway, when the report is done,
council will have an opportunity
to ask any questions of administration
with regards to that.
Reminder, the public hearing will be opened,
I'll then I'll ask Clarity State three times if you would like to speak in favor, remind
anyone speaking they have to provide their name and that you have five minutes to present.
And also if you're representing a group you'd have 10 minutes on behalf of said group.
I'll then ask the clerk if she has received any email submissions and ask her to read
the submissions into the record if we received any.
Administration will provide the closing summary remarks and recommendations, and then no,
that's incorrect as well.
I'll close the public hearing as well.
Sorry, Charlotte, we need to go through this text.
So once I've asked three times and we've known this, everyone's had the opportunity for and against, it will go back to administration for final recommendations following Charlotte reviewing any email submissions.
And if none are there, we've heard them, then I'll close the public hearing, turn it back over to administration and they will provide closing remarks and recommendations.
Okay, from there, 4.1, the introduction is coming from Councillor Bellach, please.
Thank you, through the chair. I see Willows up to the presentation table to talk to us
about B-Law. B-Law, how about that again? Bylaw B04 2024, please.
Thank you, Councillor, and good afternoon, Your Worship.
Following on the back of the presentations by my colleagues in legislative services,
I have the pleasure of doing something much shorter and simpler, tying in
amendments to the land-use bylaw and the subdivision and development authority
bylaw.
There we go. So these are amendments that are required in order
to facilitate the transition over to the new council and committee governance
framework. These amendments provide the scope and responsibilities for
development and subdivision authorities and integrate that into the
land use bylaw. In terms of the specifics of what these amendments are going to be doing,
the land use bylaw is being amended to update the definition for approving authority and add new
definitions for subdivision authority and subdivision officer, consolidating all of those
authorities into the land use bylaw. There will also be a section added to the administrative
regulations to establish and outline the subdivision authority, including the rules
of Council Planning Commission and Administration for handling those types of responsibilities.
The bylaw also establishes the Municipal Planning Commission in addition to setting out its roles
and authorities as that was previously under the Subdivision Development Authorities bylaw.
There are a number of cross-references that are corrected where it could refer,
regulation could refer, refer to either the Development Authority or the Subdivision
authority and those are corrected to align with the new approving authority
terminology and finally the amendment in front of you this afternoon repeals
the original subdivision and authority bylaw B34 2004.
My colleagues
already covered this earlier in their presentations but these are
Making necessary amendments to align with the new council committee governance structure.
Making these changes to the land use bylaw and specifying the establishment and roles of
all authority allows that to be collapsed into the LUB and the subdivision development
authority bylaw to be repealed. Simplifying things, streamlining processes and making
sure that all of the roles, responsibilities and actions that are going to administering
the land use bylaw are contained within the document itself. That is my really quick and
simple overview. I welcome any questions and otherwise turn it back over to your worship
for the public hearing portion.
Sorry Willow. I'm with you here. I just lost my way.
There
it is. And Charlotte just for the record I did not declare the public hearing open
until right now for bylaw number B042024. Ask any questions from council for Willow on the
specific topic. No, good to go. Okay, ask. For the first time, if there's anyone present,
you'd like to speak in favor of bylaw number B042024 to please come forward. For a second time,
if there's anyone present, you'd like to speak in favor of bylaw B042024 to please come forward.
Okay?
For a third and final time, if there is anyone present, would like to speak in favour of by
law B04-2024 to please come forward.
Okay?
Hearing and seeing none, is there anyone here would like to speak against by-law numberMr04024
to please come forward.
For a second time,
is there anyone here who'd like to speak against the by-law number B04-2024
to please come forward? And for a third and
final time, is anyone here to speak against by-law B04-2024
to please come forward.
Okay. I'm going to wrap that up. Charlotte, do we receive any correspondence?
Hi, Worship. No emailed correspondence.
Okay. I am going to close the public hearing as it relates to bylaw number B04 2024,
and turn it back to Willow for final remarks and recommendations. Please whenever you're ready.
Thank you, Worship. No other closing remarks after the overview that I had already given,
and my
clicker isn't deciding to work.
If someone could please advance the slide, please.
Thank you.
Administration's recommendation is that
council give three readings to bylaw number B042024
as presented.
There are also two alternatives before council
with respect to the amendments here this afternoon.
Council could table the proposed bylaw
and request further information or any changes
that administration would need to make
and then re-advertise the public hearing.
or council could defeat the proposed by-law if it does not agree with what has been outlined at this point so far today.
Administration again recommends that council give three readings to the by-law as presented, and that concludes my presentation.
Excellent. Thank you, Willow.
Okay. No questions. So let's get started. Councillor Beallock, you have the floor.
Thank you, Your Worship. First reading of bylaw, number B042024, please.
Excellent. Anyone opposed, please.
Carried. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Jones.
Thank you, Your Worship. Move second reading.
Excellent. Is anyone opposed, please?
Carried. Thank you. Council Chairman.
Thank you, Your Worship. This time I'd like to move permission for third.
Excellent, Council Chairman. Anyone opposed, please?
Please carry it and finally deputy or sorry, Councilor Petro, please.
Thank you.
We should move third and final reading of bylaw number B042024.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Council Petro.
Anyone opposed, please?
Carried.
Thank you.
Well,
okay.
Consent agenda items.
Sorry.
I apologize.
Minutes.
Councillor Coulson, 6.1.
I'd like to move the regular meeting minutes of March 4th, 2024.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Thank you. Councillor Petro, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. Three small things on here. So on both pages one and page seven, Councillor Beallock is marked absent instead of absent with regrets.
I know we excused him from that meeting. Page two, second paragraph from the bottom. It's listed as range root 13 instead of range road 13.
And on page three, I am eloquently listed as Councillor Mayor Petro. So that should probably just be fixed.
Thanks. Well the election is coming up. You never know.
6.1. Okay. We captured those amendments.
Councillor Coulson has amended. Yes, Your Worship. Thank you. Anyone oppose, please?
That could be a new position. Councillor Mayer, I like that. The double, get two and a half
your income maybe, or how does that work? Okay, so we're on the consent agenda. Does
Does anyone want to see any of the items, because there is four on there?
Staff are here to answer any questions, if you may have any.
Councillor Petro, please.
I'd just like to see 7.1 taken off.
I just have one question.
Okay.
Anything else?
Okay.
Would you make that motion?
Please, Councillor Petro.
So moved.
Thank you.
Anyone opposed?
Carried.
Thank you.
So we're going to ask to see if – oh, asked to see.
Tammy is here.
Hi, Tammy.
Go ahead, please.
Councilor Petro with any questions? Thank you, worship. Thank you for the report and the update.
I'm just curious if we've come up with any plan or had any discussions based on the kind of issues
that we had with the enumerators last year at the door and some issues that were
that happened. Have we come up with a plan to maybe make it a little bit safer or anything for
them this year?
Thank you for the question, Councilor Petro through the chair.
We always try to do, we're working with communications and we're trying to do a really good, really
good messaging to the public about why it's important to collect this information, just
being really clear with the questions that we're going to be asking.
And then on the enumerator side, we always do a very thorough training with our enumerators.
we bring in our health and safety folks to give them some of that extra training on, you know,
encountering issues at the door.
Really, we do whatever we can. A lot of what people encounter,
we can't control how the public reacts, but we really are trying to do a lot of good communication
this year with the public about why it's important, you know, I hope that gets
through but I'm not sure beyond that what we can do but we are really trying to
to beef that up and and to stress the importance and ensure people we're not
trying to intrude on your privacy just reassuring people that you know it's
all anonymous, we're not collecting anything that is going to intrude on anybody's privacy
or rights or anything like that. It's just really trying to message out that the information
is important for a lot of reasons. And, again, as I did state in this report, the Census
Regulation has made a return this year, so the province is once again using our population
numbers which could make us eligible for further grant funding and so that is
a very important that was missing the last couple of years when they took it
away in 2019 so I just I hope that the messaging that we do really gets out to
the public and they do see why this is so important. Okay thank you so much
through the chair I was really happy to see that kind of dollar figure in
there because that was missing last year I agree that I think online
will be high this year, but just one follow-up question.
Do our enumerators go out in pairs,
or do they go to the door individually?
Through the chair.
For the most part, they do go out individually,
but when we are doing our training,
we always do stress that, you know,
if they feel comfortable working in pairs,
they are able to do that.
And then, of course, you know,
that training on safety and all of that kind of stuff,
if they do feel comfortable. We just ask them to make a note of it and we try to collect
that information in a different way.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me. Thank you, Your Worship.
Thank you. Anybody else? Questions for Tammy? Okay. No, Councillor Berman of the floor.
I just want to, I see Chris is here, just want to say thanks for the information
on the fare access. It's sad to be very honest with you, but I'm thrilled to
see that the services that we offer, we're making them available to those people
are really challenged right now. But yeah, it's kind of, it was, it's tough to read,
but it's great that we're able to support people. So thanks for that. Chris just wanted
to share that. Calc's experiment, please.
Thank you, worship. So at this time, I'd like to move that we accept all of the consent
agenda items for information.
Excellent. Thank you. Anyone oppose, please? Excellent. Carried. We're moving on to
presentations. Introduction is coming from Deputy Mayor Jones. This is 8.1, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. I'd like to invite up Dave Moffitt, Chair of Volunteer Airdry.
He's going to give us some information on the Drive Happiness Seniors Association.
Good afternoon. And thank you for the opportunity to meet with you again. I'm Dave Moffitt.
I'm the chair of voluntary and it's my pleasure to first introduce Daria Skibbington-Rofle
who is well known in the community as she'll be joining our board of directors here in
a couple of weeks and she's graciously offered to be my successor as chair of voluntary effective
at our next annual general meeting at the end of June.
plan. So we are working our transition plan or succession plan. And I was so excited to
hear from her when she heard that I was stepping down as leader. She immediately offered her
involvement with our board of directors. As many of you know, Daria was one of the
initial proponents of forming volunteer imagery in 2010 and worked as the initial volunteer
coordinator or de facto executive director for a couple of years.
So I just want to take the opportunity to update Council on our succession plan.
To set the stage, I just want to emphasize that we're here today not as another non-profit
asking the City Council for a grant to help fund a new program.
We are moving towards a social enterprise business model as an organization.
And what we're proposing today is to offer a new partnership or business relationship with the City of Airdrie
to provide a transportation solution, possibly as a bridge alternative until a more permanent solution can be found,
to provide services to many people here in the City of Eridry,
who are unable to utilize the current transit system for their needs.
We have a transportation solution that has been implemented.
It's proven over the past three years that there is a gap in our community
with respect to transportation services for the disabled and senior population
to get to critical medical appointments, mostly in the city of Calgary.
We are an affiliate program of the Drive Happiness organization,
and we will provide some additional information to update Council.
But that sets the stage.
So today's agenda, quite quickly, I want to review community stakeholder needs.
A little more information on our solution, give you some data around our impact since
forming the partnership in 2021, talk about the challenges to manage growth in the community
for these services, and then propose our business relationship as at least an interim solution.
We
found over the past three or four years that there is a significant gap with respect to getting to medical appointments that are only available in the city of Calgary.
Our most recent experience here in February shows you how important the transportation service is because 134 out of 170 appointments.
Thank you very much.
The dates in February are for hemodialysis at one of the Calgary hospitals.
Hemodialysis is illustrated here as a medical treatment used to filter and cleanse the blood
for people with kidney failure while they're waiting two, three or more years for a kidney transplant.
plant.
These individuals go every second day, so three times a week, and they spend four hours
sitting in a chair, laying in a bed, while they're hooked up to specialized medical equipment
with specialized nurses and medical support at hand.
Other services that we've assisted residents with are radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
therapy.
The second need is a door-to-inside door transportation service. Many of our clients
have mobility issues. They're quite elderly, quite disabled. They're often using walkers
or wheelchairs in order to get out of their house, into our vehicles, out of our vehicles
and into the hospital. They often book us on very short notice, and this is really a
fallout of the medical system in my mind, in that they don't recognize the limitations
for people arranging transportation. If there's an opening, they'll give you a call, here's
your appointment, be there, that's your responsibility. So they're not really empathetic to the
situation of a lot of our clients, but we are able to respond in very short notice.
Ideally, we'd like to have three days notice, but we have been quite successful in booking
and handling very short notice rides.
The service has to be available seven by 24, 365 days per year.
Again, medical treatment of this nature does not appreciate people's normal daily
routines or holidays. We've driven people literally on Christmas Day to get
medical treatment and Calgary.
The third aspect for a community stakeholder needs
is affordability and this is the most important one in my mind. As I mentioned
earlier, most of our clients are elderly. They're on old age pension, OAS, so
about $2,000 a month of income.
The alternative for them is to take a
taxi or an Uber at roughly $40 to $100 each way to get to a Calgary hospital.
These people cannot afford that, especially the dialysis people that are going three times a week.
We offer the service for $20 each way or $40 round trip.
So for a dialysis patient that's treated three times a week, 52 weeks a year,
Their alternative means is to get a taxi or an Uber for $26,000 or roughly all of their income to get this medical treatment.
Now we know for people that aren't seniors, age will cover central medical transportation costs.
But for those that are over 65, they're on their own.
So we just celebrated the fourth anniversary of the start of the pandemic.
And that's, I don't know if you'd really want to call it a celebration, but we marked that fourth anniversary.
We got into the driving program immediately as soon as the pandemic was declared because we were getting calls from social workers and nurses in the
Law Heed, the Tom Baker, telling us that they had
air-dry residents that were being discharged
that needed regular transportation
to get to their medical treatments.
For the cancer patients going to the Tom Baker,
the Cancer Society immediately suspended
their Wheels of Hope program
because of the risk of transmission
between drivers and clients.
They just shut it down literally overnight
and these patients had to find another way to get there.
So we started our program in 2020, March of 2020,
and it quickly grew to the point where I realized
I wasn't going to be able to manage the growth off the side of my desk.
I was introduced to the Drive Happiness Seniors Association in early 2021
through my colleagues at Volunteer Lethbridge,
who had recently formed a partnership with the organization for the Lethbridge Seniors
Association.
This organization has been providing seniors assisted transportation for over 20 years.
They've seen it all, they've done it all, the infrastructure is built, and they have
staff, the budget, and all the support necessary to run this program successfully.
They've been doing it predominantly in the capital region, but they have a mandate to
expand it beyond the city of Edmonton, throughout Alberta, and most recently with federal
funding into Saskatchewan.
So they are a proven recognized service provider, currently providing transportation
in around two to three dozen communities throughout Alberta.
We are the second largest program in Alberta right now.
Our activity has grown so quickly that we've surpassed Lethbridge and Fort McMurray.
The partnership is a dream come true in that they provide access to their staff
and their ride scheduling software free of charge to volunteer.
Every $10 ticket that's sold to a senior for a trip, $8 goes to the driver for fuel reimbursement,
$2 goes to voluntary for what we do on the ground here in Eridry to support our drivers,
recruit new drivers, and promote the program.
They literally are providing this wonderful solution free of charge to us.
They handle all the volunteer screening, rider registrations, scheduling of rides, collection of the ticket revenue and payment to our drivers on a monthly basis for fuel reimbursement.
And the way they can do that is because they are so well funded.
They have an annual budget of about $750,000, a half million dollars of which is provided
through grant funding from one of these six organizations that you see on the screen.
So we signed our partnership agreement in March 2021.
We started doing rides under the Drive Happiness banner in April of 2021.
and at the date of this presentation we had completed 2848 appointments in roughly three years.
The distance traveled by our drivers equates to 175,000 kilometers,
which is equivalent to 4.4 times around the Earth.
I personally have been once around the earth since July.
I bought a new Jeep in July and I've put 43,000 kilometers on it
because I drive about two or three times a day to Calgary.
We currently have 220 clients as registered riders
and we have 28 registered volunteer drivers
but only 21 are regular and active drivers right now.
On the books, we have nearly 500 appointments booked by our 220 clients, so the demand is there in the long term.
And like I say, five or six of our writers are dialysis patients.
So our dilemma, our challenge for the future is keeping up with the rapid growth and demand.
Word is getting out.
We're getting tons of referrals from AHS, the PCN, community links,
Airdrie Transit itself.
And I'm fearful about driver burnout because right now we're doing
170 to 200 trips per month with about 21 drivers,
which means each driver is taking on 8 to 10 trips each per month.
So we need to recruit more volunteer drivers and the issues that I see is that we're using their personal vehicles,
they're receiving fuel reimbursement, but they're not being compensated for the depreciation and the wear and tear on their vehicles.
We've made application for funding at the provincial and federal level.
Unfortunately, we've been turned down by both levels of government.
So
we're here to ask for your support through a new business relationship.
We're starting with the idea of looking at what the CRA allows for mileage rates,
which is currently 70 cents per kilometer for the first 5,000 kilometers,
64 cents thereafter.
I've calculated that the current fuel reimbursement
that we're getting from Drive Happiness equates to about 24 cents per kilometer,
so we're not asking the City of Airdrie for that reimbursement.
What we are asking for is an ability to compensate our drivers for the wear and tear on their
vehicles, which if you net the fuel off equates to about 40 to 46 cents per kilometer.
Our program is grown by 60 percent year over year, 2023 versus 2022, and our current
monthly distance covered is around 11,000 kilometers, which equates roughly to $4
or $5,000 per month in vehicle mileage value.
So there are a few investment options or arrangements
that we could come to as far as a business relationship.
We could budget
for our current level of activity,
our current capacity, and cap our services,
which would require a $40,000 per year investment.
And then the other alternatives are laid out here
where, at a higher rate, we'd ask for a bit more.
If we build in 60% year-over-year growth, 2024 versus 2023, we are looking at an investment
of between $63,000 and $73,000.
So the outcome here is to attract more volunteer drivers.
My goal is to have an additional 35 drivers on our roster.
And we think that the well-being of the seniors and the disabled in Eridry will
be dramatically improved if we can continue providing this service.
So what we're requesting Council approve is a new business relationship, a contract
with Voluntary Airdrie to invest in its drive happiness seniors assisted transportation
program for the rest of this year in the amount of $73,000.
In the alternative Voluntary Airdrie would accept any lesser amount that Airdrie City
City Council is comfortable with within the program investment options outlined in this
presentation.
Thank you.
I just want to add that this would actually save the city quite a bit of money if we're
partnered with the transit system because we have gone – or Volunteer Erdrey has
gone to Erdrey Transit, we've talked to community links, we've talked to many
different organizations and the need is here.
And I know that with the taxi program it was costing over $250,000 a year.
We would be able to help the city save a lot of money by only asking for $73,000,
which would help the city of Airdrie.
And the transit system cover all those people who are currently unable to utilize the systems that are currently in place.
So, access surgery, for instance, if someone takes access surgery to Calgary, the service
starts at 8 o'clock.
Many times, hemodialysis appointments start at 6, which is not offered by anyone other
than the taxi services.
So, just a few things to think about.
We really hope you'll consider our offer.
Thank you both.
Excellent presentation, great level of detail, and obviously, much needed service in our
community.
Got some questions coming.
We're going to go to Councillor Petro first, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
For starters, Daria, thank you so much for stepping up and congratulations on moving into that
new chair role.
I know you've got some big shoes to fill, but I know that you're quite capable of doing
that.
I have a couple questions and then a couple comments, and really one was, when you put
the funding applications that you had applied for and you said that they were not approved,
did they give you any indication as to why they weren't approved?
What did it have to do with the application or the program?
The current program for supporting rural transportation in Alberta that's being managed by Healthy
Aging Alberta, we were screened out on eligibility because one of the tick boxes, so to speak,
is whether that municipality has an existing transit system.
So we got disqualified on the face that Erdrey has a
They don't drill any further down to ask whether the transit system is meeting the needs of the
people that need to be served.
So unfortunately the two rounds of provincial transportation funding, we don't even get
to apply.
With respect to the New Horizons for Seniors program, this is the really strange experience
I've had.
we received an initial approval about a month and a half ago from the federal
government saying we were approved for $25,000 and then about a week ago I was
advised that we were screened out for eligibility in that they were not
receptive to reimbursing drivers for mileage. Okay, no thank you that's
really helpful well helpful for context not helpful that you didn't
those grants and so I mean for me I know that this is this has been an
identified gap since I got on council I know it was one of the first things that
I started talking about when we got on here was accessible regional
transportation so you are 100% filling this gap that is desperately needed in
our community and for us to do that from an operational perspective at the
city would cost so much more so in saying that I would be very interested
in engaging in some kind of conversation, have administrations start conversations with that.
But I am curious because I noticed that the Edmonton Community Foundation was a funder of this.
I'm curious, have we reached out to the Calgary Foundation, have we reached out to the
Erdere Community Foundation? Like I'm wondering if there's some kind of, you know,
maybe a matching grant, maybe the city throws this much in and they throw this much in,
and we come together as a community. So have any of those conversations happened?
not to date no we've really focused our requests for the Calgary Foundation on
our youth programs as well as the Ardrian District Community Foundation we
just put in a request the other day again to support our youth volunteer
core program okay no I think I'd love to see some conversations move forward and
even maybe with the provincial government because it definitely is saving
EMS trips for those senior citizens who don't have somebody else to call
So any of those kind of things I'd like to throw out on the table there, but thank you for the presentation and for the work that you do
Thank you
Always a very informative presentation and thank you both for coming today. I think for me I I
Absolutely see a lot of the complexities in this. I also am becoming
woefully aware of many of the complexities within our own organization, so
So, for me, of course, I'm happy to, you know, see that we accept this for information, but
I am curious what areas we as an organization can potentially support you folks, or I just,
I need more information from our organization, and I'm looking to our CAO, because I'd
like to understand better where we can potentially find some funding, or is this going to set
President that we need to discuss or you know one of the things that you folks
pointed out to you in your presentation was let's take some funding out of
transit and I almost had a heart attack in that moment because I love our
transit program I know we're doing a lot of great things with it as we move
forward but I just don't know where this would come from or how if it would be
a social policy piece if it would be a transit piece so is it possible for us
to get more information from our administration around what this could
would look like and what our limitations are?
Thank you, Mayor Brown.
Councillor Speirman, yes, absolutely.
And my suggestion for Council after a round of questions
would be to direct us to start conversations
with volunteer everybody to explore some alternatives.
We have some ideas as well, and could be transit,
could be other options, could be other groups that we can.
I'm sure look for a solution for this.
that would be the ultimate goal, so if Council is willing to direct us to proceed with the
opening of this communication, that would be my recommended course of action.
Okay, thank you.
Council call some things.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was a little bit confused at first as to the difference between drive happiness and
volunteer airdry and how those monies crossover, and then when I heard you mention you
get $2 from drive happiness per trip, could you just expand on that for me?
I didn't really quite understand that.
Through the chair
The base price is ten dollars for a ride ticket ten dollars gets the senior
90 minutes of time with the driver or 40 kilometers of distance whichever comes first
And it's an ideal way to get around town here in Erdrey because it cost you ten dollars
Out of that ten dollar ticket, which is paid into drive happiness in Edmonton
They send back $8 to the driver who took that senior to that appointment, and they send
voluntary $2 to support the program locally.
Okay, so the senior pays the $10?
The senior pays the $10, you know.
Okay.
Yeah.
That I understand then.
Yeah.
So then the money you're requesting is to supplement for wear and tear on vehicles.
Right.
Yeah.
I see.
Okay.
And so are you hearing that then from your volunteers that they're dropping off because they just don't want to do it anymore?
Not necessarily dropping off entirely, but definitely they've been very clear. It's like Dave
It's my car, you know, I can do one trip a week
right or one trip once in a while and
so with the
like how why is it I saw that you want 35 drivers so you feel that the money from
the city or money money from city for wear and turn vehicles would have them
do more trips or you feel like you'd have more drivers sign up yeah a bit of
both actually yeah we'd like to be able to go to our existing drivers that you
know quite honestly have driven multiple times and just decided no I can't do
this anymore because it is, you know, taking a toll on my vehicle. But I think it's going
to help us recruit more drivers. So I want to make sure that the 21 drivers that are
regular right now are taken care of, but I want to provide an incentive to new drivers
to join us. There is a precedent to the Cancer Society's Wheel of Hope program which
which has been reactivated pays its drivers 45 cents per kilometer,
which I understand may include fuel.
So it's a little bit on the low side in my mind relative to the CRA-approved mileage rate,
but it's at least a benchmark for what other driving programs are doing to recruit drivers.
And even still, I think they're struggling to find drivers
because they approached us here a couple months ago to help them recruit drivers, and so we've
posted that opportunity on our Better Impact and in our social media to help the Cancer
Society recruit drivers.
There's also the insurance factor as well, more kilometers you put on your car the higher
your insurance goes as well, so also in consideration.
That's true, yeah.
So remind me, maybe, I don't know if it's Horacio, that would remember off the top of your head, or maybe volunteer airdrie members, but we granted volunteer airdrie dollars in the upcoming budget, right?
Through the chair, that was money for volunteer recognition.
Yeah, and that was, how much was that again?
20, up to 20,000.
20, I think, yeah.
20, okay.
And what are you doing with that, like those dollars now?
We're going to invest it in National Volunteer Week here in about a month with an event at
Burt Church Theatre, so we're putting the final touches on that event.
And then we have plans for International Volunteer Day in December.
So we're currently working with staff to finalize the funding agreement and have them
pre-approve the expenses that are eligible for using that money.
I have no issues like talking with transit like I think Chris McKizak should be a part
of this conversation.
And I think it's also difficult because you guys can say yes to anybody, you know what
I mean?
You don't have to look at yes they may have a senior citizen's income but they may
also have dividends or GICs or other payments.
You don't have to look at that whereas the city we have a very fair policy measured
out for qualifications, or does drive happiness screen people in that way as well?
There is an application process that a person would have to go through.
So they would have to provide their notice of assessments to make sure that they qualify
for all of those things.
Oh, yes.
Okay, so not just anybody can call you up and say, I don't drive, I need a ride.
Yeah, so Mr. Moneybags, unfortunately, is out of luck there.
I think it's worth the conversation with staff to dissect what the two programs
do, so I would support that.
not necessarily that we're saying, hey, here's $70,000.
Right, no.
But we need a report to come back to council for sure.
What I appreciated about the presentation from David,
and he always does an awesome job, is the business relationship
and looking through that lens versus the precedent setting piece.
Please, Deputy Mayor, please.
Thank you, Worship.
So a few questions.
So you had the one slide there where it said 750,000 in funding, so what does that get used for?
So that's the Edmonton organization's budget, so Drive Happiness Seniors Association in Edmonton.
Okay, so you don't get any of that?
No, they are applying for funding to see if they can help me hire a staff member to manage the program locally.
So they are working on a funding application to get us some money in that way.
So you are working that angle in partnership with them to try to localize some funds?
Yeah, we do it every opportunity.
They supply all the driving supplies, the door magnets, the promotional materials.
Software.
Yeah, all of that stuff is supplied by them.
They're actually going to be in Erdrey here in a couple of weeks to promote the program
at the Erdrey Library and have an open house at Good Earth to help us with the recruiting
campaign.
Unfortunately, I'll probably recruit a lot more users to go.
So now throughout your presentation, majority of the examples you gave were medical needs.
So, is that the majority of the trips?
Yeah, 99% of the trips are medical trips, the other are for social reasons, shopping
or caregiving.
Visiting families.
So, all those healthcare needs, have our MLA's been made aware of that?
Yeah, through the chair, MLA Angela Pitt is very aware of the situation, we've actually
We had a couple of conversations with her in partnership with the Erdrey Health Foundation
about the situation.
And is she able to get any wheels greased up to actually help you out?
Not yet.
Nothing?
Okay.
And then lastly, do you have any corporate sponsorship?
Or is anybody even working on that?
like I would assume maybe one of the large you know maybe fuel conglomerates
might want to throw you some fuel cards or something every year to help
facilitate the needs do you have anything like that in place yeah through
the chair not it not at this time but it's a great idea that's something I
want to implement when I become sure that's something I would like to
implement when I do take over in June is to have someone who can work on
corporate sponsorships or at least get more corporations in the city involved so
that we can save money as well. Okay now the last the last question I have and I'm
looking from keep it in mind we're responsible for protecting the taxpayer.
So insurance wise so now they're now passenger vehicles so I imagine that's
different kind of insurance. Does Drive Happiness provide that insurance? Or is it
up to them to inform their insurance providers and that
onus is put on the drivers? Through the chair with respect to insurance no
change in your current policy is required other than to let your
insurance agent know about the increase in distance.
Once you start accepting
compensation like an Uber driver would that puts you into a different class of
insurance policy. So our drivers have to carry two million dollar policy which
is the first line of defense. Drive happiness then has a five million dollar
policy, which is the second line of defense, and we have a $5 million policy, which is the
third line of defense.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just, and you might want to have somebody look into it, but just to re-save $8 to compensate
them for their gas is still compensation.
Not, yeah, through the chair, no, that doesn't, that doesn't jeopardize, no, no, I would
Because it's such a small amount.
I would strongly suggest you get that in writing.
Sure.
Yeah.
Good idea.
All righty.
Thank you.
Great presentation.
Can I give staff direction to maybe sit down and chat with them?
Deputy Mayor Jones, you can do whatever you want.
If you want to do that, we can do that.
Today is your day to say yes.
I think everybody's exhausted.
The questions, go ahead please.
Alright, so I'd like to move that we direct staff to have some exploratory conversations
with volunteer imagery and the Drive Happiness program to see if there's something we can
facilitate or help them out with, whether it be via direct or indirect.
To help further their success.
Is that appropriate?
I'm just curious if Charlotte actually captured
all of that, but okay. I've actually pre-captured it before you even said it. So we have here
that Council Direct's administration to work with volunteer Airdrie Society with respect
to the coordination of current Airdrie Transit programs and the Drive Happiness Seniors Association
program and to return to council with options and you added whether they be direct or indirect
correct to help with their further success.
It's almost verbatim, right?
Too funny. So moved your worship.
Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor Jones.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you.
I'm always blown away when you tell me your week
and what you do during that week,
because I know you have other responsibilities.
Congratulations, Daria.
As I said to you the other day,
and I think Councillor Petro said it really well as well,
stepping into some big shoes,
but I know you'll do a great job and keep up the great work and please pass on Council's
great admiration for your organization, continued success.
We really appreciate you.
We'll do you.
Such a value to asset in our community.
Thank you.
We have a motion on the floor.
Anybody else, please?
I'd like to add.
No.
Okay.
Anyone opposed, please?
Carried.
And just to be clear, Rossio, we're not going to get back to them in seven months
from today.
We're going to reach out in the next week or two because there wasn't a timeframe
frame on here. So, okay, thank you very much. All right, so everybody, we're really late
on our break. We're going to get 15 minutes of recess here. Thank you.
Sorry
about that. Okay, we are moving on from run number nine, which
would be our financial
position. We have introductions coming from Councillor Trappman, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. This time I'd like to invite Stephanie to come forward, which
she already has, and speak to us about our fourth quarter financial update preliminary
information about the surplus.
and members of council.
The fourth quarter preliminary financial
update has been finalized and is ready to be
presented.
The year-end audit is well underway with
results expected to come forward on April
15th.
Please note the results presented today are
preliminary and could change once the
auditors complete the final audit.
The 2023 fourth quarter preliminary
surplus is $3 million.
Or 1.6% of the 2023
council amended budget at year-end.
Majority of this surplus is due to unprecedented growth the city continues to see and the impact of this growth across multiple departments.
I will provide an overview of the main variances starting with the operating budget.
The 2023 results show that we brought in $5 million of revenue beyond what was budgeted.
Airdrie continues to be one of the fastest growing cities in Alberta.
With this growth, the city saw increased supplementary tax revenues, increased revenue from utility
billings and new water meter sales.
In addition, we continue to see unprecedented demand in community services including pass
and admission revenues at Genesis Place and higher ridership within transit.
2023 also saw extraordinary permit revenues due to increased number of new builds and
of larger projects occurring in the city.
Lastly, contributing to the increased revenues
is almost $800,000 in grants.
From the MSI operating top-up
and new operating grant opportunities
the city has been approved for in 2023.
Expenses came in $2 million over budget at year end.
The underutilized variance seen within salaries,
wages, and benefits is mainly related to vacancies
and timing of hiring offset by WCB premium increases.
The contracted and general services line saw an overall trend of projects that have been delayed across multiple departments and or long lead times procuring items.
These projects have been carried forward to 2024, which contribute to the added to reserves over budget lines seen in the table.
The variants within contracted and general services are slightly offset by increased legal fees and new IT security measures.
In addition to the carry forward projects, environmental services is contributing to the variance and added to reserves from increased revenues referenced on the last slide and some savings on underground maintenance which have been added to the corresponding utility reserves.
Moving into the capital budget.
budget.
The original capital budget was approved at $67.8 million. Prior year, carry forwards
amounted to $127 million. And with an additional $264,000 in budget amendments, as noted in
the table, the total adjusted capital budget for 2023 was $195.1 million. Actual funds
spent were $57.9 million at December 31st. Of the remaining $137.2 million approved capital
budget, $124.6 million will be carried forward to 2024.
Major capital projects make up the majority of this carry-forward amount and include
projects such as the 40th Ave interchange, the multi-use facility and library,
and the
capital projects progress update on all the capital projects as of December 31st, 2023,
in attachment to, and a full listing of all the carry forward projects in attachment for.
The city did not pull additional funds in 2023, and thus the total debt dropped $65.5
million, $6.8 million down from the prior year. This brings Airdrie's debt utilization
to 21% of the total debt limit, leaving room to manage future infrastructure needs, a detailed
listing of all ongoing debt-funded capital projects, as well as debentures that will be
paid off in the next five years for listed in Attachment 6.
The balance in reserves at the end of 2023 is $206.8 million.
Of this total, $71.4 million is externally restricted in nature, leaving $135.4 million
dollars in funds available for use at Council's discretion. Staff continue to work on the fiscal
strategy to build capital reserves to levels appropriate to lifecycle the city's asset base.
Council is being asked to confirm the desired surplus split. CBC made a resolution during the
November budget deliberations to draw 838,000 dollars from the 2023 surplus to fund 2024
for one-time expenditures, and therefore administration is recommending that this amount be transferred
into the general operating reserve to be drawn in 2024.
Based on the analysis of our reserve health and knowing what the 10-year capital plan
has in store, staff is recommending the remaining surplus of $2,151,635 be transferred into
the general capital reserve.
reserve. To note, this would leave the General Operating Reserve just short of the minimum
level outlined in the Council endorsed fiscal sustainability framework, which states the
General Operating Reserve will maintain a minimum level of three months or 25% of the approved
annual general tax-supported budget. At year end, the reserve balance covers 23.7% rather
than the 25% recommended. Once a resolution has been made, by Council, the final
entries will be entered into the appropriate reserves.
The recommendation brought forward
is that Council accepts the 2023 fourth quarter preliminary financial update for information
and allocates $838,000 of the 2023 operating surplus to the General Operating Reserve
in the remaining $2,151,635 to the General Capital Reserve, and I am available for
questions.
Thank you, Stephanie.
Do you have questions?
Thank you, Your Worship.
I appreciate the thought behind the big amount going to the capital reserves with our capital
budgets that we have looking forward in 10 years, but I'm concerned that we're behind
on our 25% in our operating reserve.
What would that if we wanted to get that operating reserve up to 25%, what would we have to
put in there?
Through the chair, it would be $1,522,905.
So the remaining amount that we could transfer to the capital reserve would be $628,730.
So $638,730.
I'm sorry, those numbers don't add up.
Right now you're asking us to put 838 to operating in 2.12 capital, but if we were to put 1.5 into operating, there should be more than 638,000 left, wouldn't there?
Sorry, Karen, can you bring up the PowerPoint again?
The eight was going that went up one-time expenses this year, right?
So this is all remaining money is what's going to go into capital total of the two two point nine for surplus
Yeah, no, but the 838 is being used for general operating for the 2024 budget for one-time expenses. Remember. Yeah
This is alternative one on the screen here
Sorry, Council Chairman, can I go to Megan on the line while you're thinking? Yeah, please. Megan, please.
Through the chair and thanks for seeing me there. I know I'm online. It's a little bit harder. I just want to clarify
Councilor Chapman's questions. So we've got 838,000, which is what we were recommending to General Operating Reserve,
which would be drawn into a roofboard to cover one-time expenditures.
We would need 1.5 million on top of that to maintain the 25% operating, because if the 838 goes in, it also comes out in 24, so that 1.5 million is required to keep that 25% of the operating, if that helps clarify.
fine okay and so with the recommendation now of 838 to general operating
reserve to be drawn and then the full 2.1 to go to the general capital reserve
that's going to leave a short of our 25% correct that makes it 23.7 is that what
I understood through the chair that's correct okay
that's the only questions I
have right now
deputy mayor Jones please thank you worship I actually like
where staff is going here 23.7. I mean the difference for operational and we're
talking about an operational reserve taxes are constantly coming in I'm not
concerned there at all this gets us closer it's still not where we need to
be with capital reserves but it definitely moves us closer and it is
refreshing, in my mind's eye, to see staff and administration working to that end.
Thank you.
Councillor Petro.
Thank you, Bishop.
I am not shocked that Deputy Mayor Jones likes the recommendation this year.
I figured it would be right up your alley.
I'm almost completely okay with this recommendation.
My only thing is, yes, we are trying to build up to that 25%.
And if we only do the 838, next year we will be farther behind, really, because our operating
budget will be a different amount next year.
In my personal opinion, I'd love to see just a flat million go to operating and the rest
go into capital, which I think is 1.989635, just so that we have a tiny bit more and
we can keep building that up.
I know it doesn't build it up a lot, but it gets as close to that 25% without
jeopardizing the amount going into capital this year. If I may, we have $23
million plus dollars in tax stabilization money which is in essence is
going to be backstopping operating that's over and above what we currently have.
We just borrowed $12 million, $29 million, and I forget what the other
amount was, but we're boring. To me it's absolutely no question that we need more money in our
capital grant to be sustainable over time. I wouldn't support anything other than what's
being recommended on the table. Please, Councillor Coulson.
I was just going to say I actually agree with Councillor Jones, but actually I agree
with staff. You guys did a great job and I support the recommendation as is.
Perfect.
Council Member and Council Member, you guys are good?
Good.
Okay. Anyone else?
Okay.
Council Chairman, you have the floor, please.
Judge Ngwe, reading the room your worship.
I'll make that motion.
As presented, we accept the 2023 4th quarter financial update.
for information on allocates 2023 operating surplus of $2,989,635 as follows, $838,000 to
the general operating reserves to be drawn in 2024 to cover one-time expenditures, and
$2,151,635 to the general capital reserve.
Excellent.
Thank you, Council Chairman.
Any further questions, comments?
Okay.
Excellent motion is here. Thank you very much, Stephanie, we're moving on to item number 11. First up 11.1 introduction coming from Councillor Patrick, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. So at this time, I'd like to invite Brad Anderson to come and speak to us on the City of Airdrie Sponsorship Policy, please.
Just get my presentation brought up if that's all right.
Good
afternoon, Your Worship, and members of Council. My name is Brad Anderson, Manager
of Recreation for the City of Eridry and attending today to present and discuss a sponsorship
policy for the City of Eridry. So today I'm presenting an overview of a report and a policy
in your package that we're looking for Council endorsement this afternoon. This policy
will assist the City in securing additional revenue while at the same time protecting
the city's reputation and interests. Sponsorship is a term and practice that has been around
a great number of decades as it relates to municipal public use facilities. It's a tool in
which the municipality allows a brand to receive exposure through naming or facility prominence
in return for dollars back to the municipality for its use. In Erdrey, outside of any formalized
policy or framework, sponsorship has played a significant role in raising capital funding,
most notably within Genesis Place throughout the three phases of construction.
Through a not-for-profit led society from 2004 to 2014, sponsorship campaigns and
opportunities funneled millions of dollars to the city through the naming of
the overall recreation facility and sponsorship of a variety of playing
areas and spaces. No sponsorship framework or policy existed during that time
and the city leaned heavily on community leaders and volunteers to
represent the city's interests and negotiate directly, both in dollar amounts and in contract
language with sponsoring individuals and organizations. Most, if not all, of the sponsorship agreements
for Genesis Place have expired, except for the overall naming rights. Sponsorship does
continue to this day in the arenas where the city uses the services of rec media, a
third-party advertising firm who sell and service advertisers who make use of our
wall and arena boards and the city receives a portion of that revenue. Although in the past the
city has approached sponsorship in an informal manner, as a best practice many municipalities
are now developing or have endorsed sponsorship policies that clearly outline Council's
considerations and principles in regards to sponsorship agreements while also defining
principles that safeguard the city's reputation and interests. If Airdrie has an endorsed
sponsorship policy. It will allow the city to respond to requests for sponsorship, maximize the
value of municipal assets and facilities, and complement adjacent policies already in place.
So today, administration has prepared a sponsorship policy for council endorsement.
Through endorsement, administration would be able to begin the sponsorship
sales process, specifically targeting some of the high value and timely opportunities for the
City of Airdrie, namely the library and multi-use facility and the artificial turf at Genesis
Place. Opportunities would be posted on the city's website so that the process is transparent
and competitive. The City of Airdrie was also competitively secure the service of a sponsorship
sales firm. Many municipalities across the province utilize the expertise of a firm
to drive their prospecting and sales process to avoid adding resources in-house.
I would like to review some of the key aspects of the sponsorship policy with Council.
And first is purpose. Key to the policy is the overall purpose and within the policy sponsorship
is recognized as a means to provide revenue to the city while safeguarding the city's image
values and interests. The policy also assists various city departments who are engaged in the
business of sponsorship. It could be parks, community services, or other public-facing
facilities and teams. To date, this could be handled very differently between various
departments with no real framework or procedure to follow.
In terms of scope, this policy would apply to any and all assets, facilities, or scenarios
where sponsorship could be engaged, including events and festivals such as Airdrie Fest
or other civically planned functions. The policy again is intended to complement other policies
that exist that oversee naming, which includes the street naming policy, memorial policy,
and the naming of city assets policy, whereby the city is named naming based on contributions
from an individual or group instead of a paid sponsorship agreement. So for example,
just because we would look to sponsor components within the Ron Ebbison arena
does not mean that the overall name or the name of the Ron Eveson would be up for sale.
Sponsorship would focus on the aspects not currently named within a facility.
So it could be the dressing rooms, the lobby, or maybe even the penalty box.
If we could get the RCMP to pony up a little bit of cash, I see them being a great fit
as a penalty box sponsor for maybe a recruitment campaign.
The policy would not apply to grant requirements or gifts.
central
to the policy is principles that define who we would not enter into
sponsorship agreements with, including products that are known to have harmful
effects, religious or political organizations, companies who promote or
present content that could be perceived as harmful, intolerant or
derogatory, companies whose programs or products compete with city services and
finally organizations that could conceivably create fiscal hardship for
the City of Airdrie and our residents. Included as well is a principle that all sponsorships
must conform to the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, Canadian Human Rights Act, the Alberta
Human Rights Act, as well as conform to applicable federal, provincial laws, and the city's
owned by-laws agreements and practices. These regulations and acts would be consulted
if a scenario arises where there's a debate on whether the company or campaign conflicts
with the city's vision or values or could be deemed as offensive.
In terms of accountability,
and I'm just going to quickly go over the accountability of both council and administration.
For council, council would approve the list of city-owned assets and facilities that are available
to be sponsored. I'll review Appendix A on the following slide. Council's role would be to set
and review this policy from time to time, and council would also have the final authority
on the approval of naming right proposals. So that is the overall naming of a major
recreation or community facility, such as the library naming, the artificial turf in
the Southwest Recreation Facility. Administration would conduct the valuation of city assets
that Council has deemed available to be sponsored. Administration would determine the right
approach to solicit those sponsorships by most likely contracting out of service
to a sponsorship sales agency who retains a commission of sales, administration would
have the authority to negotiate and sell sponsorships, that is amenities or other smaller sponsorships,
so as the dressing rooms, the meeting rooms, common spaces within a library, etc.
And lastly, administration would oversee the execution and maintenance of the sponsorship
agreements.
So currently an appendix A of the policy contains the facilities in which would be
included under the current policy. Through this today, Council would indicate that they wish for
administration to solicit sponsorship sales or prospect naming rights for Genesis Place,
including the Ed Edgar Athletic Park, Ron Ebbison and Plainsman Arenas, Library Multi-use Facility
in the Southwest Recreation Facility. Again, if a name already exists, either through a
sponsorship term or other naming policy, it would not be sold just because it appears on
this list. Only those areas and facilities outside of a term would be available to be
sold.
So today, Administration is recommending that Council endorse the attached sponsorship policy
that allows, it does articulate Council's, what Council aims to get out of the sponsorship
to the community. It contains a list of those facilities in which Council is willing
to sell. It enables administration to value and prospect and sell the sponsorship opportunities
and allows the city to increase our long-term revenue while also balancing and protecting
the integrity and the vision and values of the city.
As an alternative council could determine that there's changes required to this policy and
administration would return with another draft prior to being endorsed. Considerations here
is there could be a delay on the prospecting and naming of both the library and multi-use
facility as well as the artificial turf at going in at Genesis Place as we need to stitch
a logo or name or corporate name into that turf by the end of June.
So there's work ahead of us to move quickly to secure sponsorship for the artificial turf.
So again, the recommendation today is for Council to endorse the sponsorship policy
that's in your package and I'm available for questions. Thank you, Brad. Deputy Mayor Jones,
please. Thank you, Worship. Brad, I noticed in that appendix that there were no soccer fields
or ball diamonds included in that list. Is there a reason for that? Yeah, through the chair
to date, we're going to start with the community facilities and again prioritize
those high value and the high return investments that are of timely importance to this council
and I think gives us an opportunity to go through that process and learn through the sponsorship
sales agency and then again kind of look at it in terms of the priority of facilities and also
the expected return on the investments.
So that's why we're really focused on those facilities today.
So through the chair, will those assets be made available to the company you contract
to sell those sponsorships, or that will be a separate list unto itself?
Through the chairs, sorry, so your question is within those facilities, am I going to
come back with another full list of all the aspects within them that are going to
be sold?
No, no, no. So with regards to things like soccer fields and ball diamonds, will that
be a separate offering for sponsorship at a later date, or is that available to the current
sponsorship company, whichever you award it to?
So through the chair and through this appendix A today, we're saying that currently baseball
diamond soccer fields would not necessarily be on the menu to go out and to sell today.
We're focused on what councils indicating through this policy is the indoor community
facilities that they want to go out and corporately name.
So the soccer fields and ball diamonds would not be available until council updated this
appendix A, which they could so choose to do today if they felt they wanted to include
all of those onto the list or leave it for and again go off of kind of starting with
the priority of community indoor facilities.
So through the chair, I mean it wouldn't take anything extra just to add them to this
list?
Through the chair, no.
But we have not spent time administration doing an audit of the outdoor parks and
spaces in terms of pricing and looking at those amenities yet.
but we certainly can can layer those in for a sponsorship sales agency to do if
council wanted to explore that right off the bat as well. So is there a way to
carry this forward? We can we can approve this today but then give direction to have the others
added as availability or assessments been made?
Yeah through the chair I'll just maybe ask
Charlotte, if Council wanted to amend Appendix A here in the moment, is that something that
they're able to do and add in outdoor athletic fields?
Through Your Worship to Deputy Mayor Jones, yes, you can certainly amend it on the fly
today if that's Council's wish.
Okay, so I'll care for my colleagues, but I think we're leaving potential assets
on the table if we don't include them.
I think in the Jones family baseball diamond, is that what you're thinking?
Fair enough.
But in fairness to Brad's explanation, he's not excluding it.
He's just working toward it, right?
So Councillor Petro, please.
Thank you, Richard.
So just one question kind of came to mind as I was reading through this.
This policy looks great, but I'm wondering, and I'm sure it's covered under like a tenancy agreement.
But when we have a tenant in the building and say they can do naming,
and I'm specifically talking library inside multi-use facility here.
So we have section 11 and section 19, which talks to
type of things that don't really align with our core values.
And then we also have, you know, that there is the option to have exclusivity.
So say if a bank were to sponsor the AirDream multi-use facility,
and then a bank also wanted to sponsor the library,
like what does that look like from a tenancy perspective?
And how is that covered through these policies?
Yeah, through the chair that's a great question. So we know that the library and I think you're
talking about between our two organizations because the library is naming and the city. Yeah,
so as it stands there is no way for us to influence what the library is doing to sponsor
within their zones nor would we have the ability to to control like or for them to
control who we're going out and naming as well. So those exclusivities what's in the
policy in front of you is exclusivity only on city owned and operated assets and facilities
has no jurisdiction in terms of what other organization's leases are doing within their
own space. So no different than at Genesis Place, we have AirDree Edge Gymnastics. And
they get tons of sponsors and tons of donors that sponsor towards their programs and their
services and their spaces. This policy would not extend to AirDree Edge Gymnastics
say, well, we've already got a homeowner.
So, Genesis, you can't go in Genesis Place,
can't have a homeowner, right?
We aren't able to do that, nor would,
and I think that flows right into the library.
So, it'd be the exact same thing.
The library could go and sell to a homeowner,
but so could the city of Erdrey,
and there's going to be a very clear line
that there's no way we could influence each other
even through our own policy here.
Okay.
I get it.
I have in the back of my mind,
you know, the AirDream multi-use facility with the Marlboro Light Library and the Budweiser
Cafe, just because those things are things that we specifically have in there, that I
get it. It seems that there's something out of alignment there and I don't know how
to fix it, so thank you.
Sorry, unless I read that wrong, alcohol and tobacco products in marijuana, was
it not excluded?
And that's what I'm getting at here, Your Worship, is that it doesn't cover
Those like it wouldn't cover the library so the library could any of those things could not saying that they would and they have similar core values to us
But we have no say over what their naming rights are for their facility
So they could have any of those things that we have listed as a no-go for us
They could have it as a yes for them. So yeah, I miss I didn't hear that part
Yeah, I just can't imagine them. They're good taste. They would think about that but safeguards
Yeah
Marlboro's got a lot of money though, let's say that out loud, okay, only because of my
neighbor here,
Councillor Spearman.
Sorry, it's rare that I'm speechless, I'll tell you that.
Through the chair, thank you for this, I think it makes a lot of sense.
I was just curious, and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, but for the Northeast
regional park left out just because we're not far enough down that road yet
essentially in terms of facilities or is that something that would be included in
this otherwise? Yeah through the chairs almost the same thing I think at this
point we wouldn't be ready to go up most likely to even look at prospecting
or selling the Northeast regional park until we really have a good
understanding of what the program is and the exact phasing and the breadth
of that project in the certain timeline and I think that's even why
The Southwest Rec Center is on this list, but again, we're not going to be prioritizing
the selling of that until we get through a couple of other things for us, because again,
we won't be able to approach a sponsor, probably most likely until we have a little bit more
knowledge on where we are in the design and bringing that to fruition.
So again, if Council wants to put the Northeast Regional Park on there today, it's not
a problem.
It's just, I think, in terms of the priority, it's probably just not there yet.
Okay, fair statement, and through the chair, kind of piggybacking still on that conversation.
So you mentioned that anywhere that is somewhat of a shared facility, so one thing I kind
of quickly threw at Mayor Brown here, as I said, so that's why we don't have Bert
Church Theatre incorporated in this conversation.
So is that something that down the road, you know, because there's multiple rooms in
that space, that sort of thing, is that a conversation we can ever have, or is
that's something we have to discuss with our business partner on that space.
Yeah, through the chair that's a great question that I can bring back to the
team. I think that certainly that Burt Church is a little different. TNC could
be easily included on this list today as the sole owner and an operator of that
space but I think I would need to give it a little bit more thought and then
bring it back as an update if council wanted to put the Burt Church on
on this list right away as well.
Okay, I'm just curious around it,
but I appreciate the time sensitivity around it.
So I'll support it as it stands today,
but I would appreciate seeing more conversation
around some of those unique spaces
and the nuances around them in the future.
Okay, I think we've exhausted all of our questions.
Bradley, thank you very much.
Councilor Petro, you have the floor, please.
Thank you, Bishop.
So I'd move that Council endorses
the Sponsorship and Naming Rights Policy, P-FIN-28-C.
Excellent.
Anyone oppose, please?
Carriage, thank you Bradley.
Appreciate your patience and waiting around there.
I know you're gonna stick around though,
because you're in the closed session, I believe.
So, Charlotte, we're moving on to something
in the future that will no longer be
on our agenda. As of the next meeting I think. Your worship it will still be on
the agenda. It will be the consent agenda. Oh no no thank you for that really. I knew
you're gonna throw something at me today. Can you go forward with 11 point sorry
12.1 please. Sure. Council is being asked to proclaim March 26th, 2024 as purple day
in Erdrey and light up City Hall in purple lights for epilepsy awareness.
Thank you, Your Worship. Move that we proclaim Purple Day in support of epilepsy awareness
and illuminate City Hall in purple. Excellent. Thank you. Anyone to pose, please? Carried.
Great. 12.2, Charlotte, please. Thank you, Your Worship. Council is being asked to proclaim
March 31st 2024 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Erdrey, and raise the transgender flag at
Nose Creek Park. Excellent. Council Member, please. Thank you, Worship. It is my honor to request that
Council proclaim March 21st 2024 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Erdrey,
and raise the transgender flag at Nose Creek Park. Excellent. Anyone opposed, please?
carried. Thanks so much. Next is 12.3 Charlotte, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. Council is being asked to proclaim the month of June 2024 as
Pride Month in Erdere. Raise the Pride flag in Nose Creek Park between June 1st and 30th
and illuminate City Hall in Pride colors on June 22nd, 2024.
Excellent. That's Councillor Patu, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. It is my pleasure to move to proclaim the month of June 2024
as Pride Month in Erdere and to raise the Pride flag in Nose Creek Park between
June 1st and 30th and illuminate City Hall and Pride Colors on June 22nd, 2024, please.
Excellent.
I can't believe a year has gone by already.
I'll quick that, come around.
Okay.
Anyone oppose, please?
Excellent.
Carried.
Thank you.
Charlotte, did we receive anything for public question period?
Hey, Worship Note, we have no one who's registered for public question period.
Okay.
I'm going to start with my left.
Council Chairman, you have the floor, please.
Board Member reports.
Nothing to report today, Your Worship.
Okay, thank you, sir.
Councillor Patu.
I'm going to take his time.
So, just a couple things.
So, the Senior's Lodge Review Panel,
just for Council's awareness,
the topics we're covering at this point in time
is lodge modernization, capital investments,
lodge funding models, resident experience,
engagement plan and operational policies.
So, as always, if anybody has any input
or would like to add anything,
Please let me know so that I can take it forward on behalf of the city here.
Our next meeting is April 5th.
Our last MPC meeting, we saw three items and our final one got canceled, which is very
sad because it was supposed to be like this thing and it's not happening now because
due to a lack of agenda items.
But the last one that we did have three items, one was defeated for recommendation
to council.
I imagine it's still coming to council.
One was approved and one was for information and discussion only.
The municipal leaders Spring Caucus up in Edmonton, really great meetings, I thought,
with ministers, Nicolades, Deputy Premier, Minister of the Grange,
Minister Seagridson, and Minister Guthrie.
I thought they went really well and thank you so much to my colleagues,
Mayor Brown, Councillor Spearman, and two administration that were with us
for making those go so well.
We had sessions on drought, fostering respect.
We heard from the municipal affairs critic, the premier, and we had two dialogue sessions
with the ministers all in all and say it was a very, very productive week and I'm really
glad that we had quite a few representatives up there for that.
The Safe and Healthiest Community Committee, really there was one thing on here I wanted
to highlight for you guys.
It was a great meeting but we had a presentation from Rural Development Network
and they helped us when we did our half-funding application, great presentation from them,
and we saw a presentation from a place called Bridge Meadows down in the United States,
and I encourage everyone to look this up. It is a wonderful, intentional, intergenerational
community, and it's quite spectacular, and it'd be great to see more of them happening
throughout our province.
Other than that, I had a really great time judging the
science fair at St. Veronica's School, attended the Erdrey Thunder Banquet, which
was great. They had three players graduating out of the program this year
and then just really happy to be part of the Emerald Awards. The shortlist for
those come out on March 22nd to really, really, really cool environmental
projects, so keep an eye out for that. That's it. Thanks.
Thanks.
Councillor Buck, please.
Nothing from me today.
Thank you.
Councillor Sperren, please.
Well, well, well.
Thank you, Worship.
At this time, I have just a couple of quick things to discuss.
Airdrie Housing met earlier this month.
As always, it's a challenging time in our community, so it is really exciting that
we got that half funding in place, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we do
with all of that and looking forward to how the Airdrie Housing Board with its
new members will carry forward. Also the Airdrie Arts and Culture Committee is
trucking along. They are hosting their first official event this Sunday. It is a
Broadway masterclass for young people in Airdrie and we already have over 16, as
of two days ago, we had 16 people that had signed up to be a participant and we
have actually a touring Broadway artist who is coming to workshop with kids,
Take them through there.
We have a lot of other songs and do all sorts of great stuff. So that's our first official event supported by the committee creating opportunities and it is of course at no cost to the students.
Which is really exciting. And I will of course let Deputy Mayor Jones talk about what else the arts committee is supporting with in terms of the Meri's Night of the Arts.
won't repeat too much of what Councillor Petro said in regards to the spring Alberta
Municipalities Caucus, Leadership Caucus, but one of the areas that was really great for
us is that we had an opportunity to get up in the middle of the room and talk about
several of the resolutions that we're proposing as air tree and we've already got a few municipalities
that are matching that and I don't know if you guys realize this but when we bring
those resolutions forward there is a change that before it could be anybody could second
your resolution and support you in those resolutions come the fall conference, but they've changed
it.
You have to match up with someone from a different size municipality.
So maybe it's a town, maybe it's a city over 500,000.
So we can't just go to a Cochran or an Okatoks and say, hey, can you guys have our back
on this?
So we actually had to find other matches to second our resolutions that are smaller.
So just know that that's in the works.
It's a good thing, I think, but that was something that kind of transpired in and
among all the other things we were doing up at that conference.
And then other than that, just had a really great time on Saturday morning working with
the Air Cadets on their speech competition.
We have some really incredible people between the science presentations at St. Veronica's
and that experience just gives me a lot of hope for the future.
I know we all see that in our own roles throughout the week with these kids, but
man, Erdrey's got some really bright, bright stars here and I'm looking forward to
seeing where they all go. That's it for me.
You're way too generous with your scoring.
Oh, probably.
We did it all online. It was quite technologically challenging at times.
You're the Deputy Mayor Jones, please, sir, whenever you're ready.
Thank you, Your Worship.
Checked out that Lego thing.
Legos show at Boys and Girls Club on Saturday.
really cool what you can do with Lego. I took some photos. I posted some of them on my Facebook
page. But I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how they transported some of that stuff
without it all falling apart. But it's really, really amazing what they can do with Lego
nowadays. Other than that, everybody mark your calendars April 14th, Mayors Night of
the Arts. Tickets are on sale now, so you can go to the energymayorsnightofthearts.com
to buy your tickets or directly to Burt Church Theatre's website as well to buy
tickets and there'll be links probably all over the social media as well so you
want to check that out and we really it's it's amazing just how much we've got
going on in our own backyard the talent we have in our community that I had no
idea but it's going to be exciting so make sure you get your tickets for that
Thanks.
Thank you.
Councillor Colls.
STB has not had anything recently, so, and we have no other boards.
So, I have nothing at this time.
Oh, wow.
I think everybody covered off most of what was doing last week and the week before,
so I'm good.
I think the – I'm looking – I think council needs a higher level debrief on the meetings
that we had in Edmonton and because some of it was confidential so I think what
will happen is Leon is going to provide an update. I don't want to guess when but
probably relatively soon so everybody gets in here but there was nothing
pending I would say. There's lots of things in the works but I'm just
happy that lots of people were there and they could see that Andrew was
well represented across the spectrum and it's obviously really important and we
get to bump into a lot of ministers in the legislature that we weren't actually meeting
with another chief of staff and administrators, et cetera, so it was really a good opportunity
to connect.
And we have a great connection in Crossfield.
I know the mayor pretty well, I think all of you do too.
So I'm certain that we can bend her arm and maybe Justin's and convince her council
to support some of our resolutions.
Other than that, Ross, what do we got for council follow-up?
Thank you very much.
A quick update.
We added one item.
We're trying to schedule the workshop for the name and the base name of the multi-use and
a library facility.
So we're working on that coming soon.
And the other three items are progressing according to schedule.
We should book it on a Monday.
We're all free now.
Sorry.
That's too funny.
I am funny.
There's no two ways about that.
All right, so I'd like to get an emotion
to go on a closed session, please.
Thank you, cancer experiment.
Anyone opposed to closed session, please?
Katherine, can you confirm we're offline?
Thank you.
That was very slow, too. I don't know what's going on.
Come
back, everyone. We'll call the meeting back to the public session.
We have a few motions arising from our closed session.
17.1. Councillor Petru, you have the floor, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. I have moved that Council directs
the administration to proceed as discussed during Item 16.1 in the closed meeting, please.
Excellent. Thank you so much. Anyone oppose, please?
Okay, we're on 17.2. Council Chairman, please.
Thank you, Your Worship. I'd like to move that Council directs the administration to proceed as discussed.
during item 16.2 in our closed session.
Excellent, thank you.
Anyone opposed, please?
Carried.
Councillor Coulson, please.
Thank you, Your Worship.
I would move that Council directs administration to proceed as discussed during item 6.3
in the closed meeting.
Excellent.
Anyone?
16, 16.
Anyone opposed, please?
That's carried.
Thank you so much.
And finally, 17.4.
Deputy Mayor Jones, please.
received for information I think. Yeah, to receive for information your
Worship.
Okay, anyone opposed please? That's carried. Just a second. What item was
that number? 17.4? Okay, so on the back it did have a motion that says Council
Directs Administration proceed as discussed during item 16.4 in closed
meeting. So sorry,
I need clarification. Charlotte, if I may. The report itself, your worship, was
just to be to receive for information. There was no direction provided. Okay, so this is incorrect on
the sheet. Okay, great. Thanks so much. Just wanted to make sure we're doing it right. 17.5,
Councillor Coulson, please. Thank you. And I just want to preface that I may have told the
interviewees that we were going to touch base with them before we appointed. Did I tell them
that Ron? No. We'd make a decision probably most likely on Monday. Okay. I also did let
all of our interviewees know that they would be told either way what the decisions were
and we asked them if they wanted to remain on a contact list because there are other
volunteer opportunities coming up with our boards and committees. So please, they all
said yes. So if we could make sure that they're on just a contact list like, hey
we are putting out for, what do we do?
Advertising for these positions.
We could just give them an email as a heads up
for the unsuccessful candidates.
That would be great.
And then they can apply independently
if they should so choose to want to do that.
Okay, so I would move that Council appoints Blake Warren
and Haji Darvish as citizen members
to the Subdivision Development Appeal Board,
General Appeal Board effective March 18th, 2024, for the remainder of the 2024 term.
Excellent. Anyone opposed, please?
That's Kerry, you know, Charlotte, to further to
Councillor Coulson. So right now, when we appoint if 10 people respond, doesn't everybody,
this is how stupid I am, doesn't everyone, I'm assuming we write a letter saying Charlotte,
thank you so much for your application. Unfortunately, you weren't selected this
time. However, there will be lots of opportunities coming forward. Please, we encourage you to
continue to watch the City website for more volunteer opportunities. Okay, so we do do
that. We do. Excellent. Thank you so much. Okay, we've exhausted our agenda. We're adjourned,
everybody. Thank you.