Good morning, everybody. I'd like to call a special Councillor
meeting of November 19, 2024. To order and begin by
recognizing that this meeting is taking place on the traditional
lands of the Silko Canagan people. Before we get into
the agenda, I'd like to just point out that Councillor
Conan says. On Zoom joining us on Zoom because. She's
contagious. But she's able to function otherwise. So I need
a motion to adopt the agenda as present. Do we
have any late items? Sorry. No late items. Adopt. The
agenda is presented. Move. Seconded. All in favor? And Councillor
Conan, and that's unanimous. Thank you. And moving straight on
to. Our regular portion of the meeting. So that's bylaws
and permits. 3.1, the official community Plan Amendment bylaw number
2024 36 and zoning amendment bylaw number 2024 37. Miss
Collinson, please. Thank you, your worship. Councillor gave first reading
to the spot fees bylaws on October 15. And following
a public hearing that was held on November 5, Councillor
gave second and third reading to the bylaws. Ministry of
Transportation approval has been received and the staff recommendation is
to adopt. Both bylaws. Thank you. Thank you. Council. Any
discussion? Any comments? Questions? And hearing none. Do we have
a staff recommend? Moving the staff recommendation and seconded. And
any comments? Questions? Hearing? None. I'll call the question. All
in favor? And Councillor conant indicates. Yes, and that's unanimous.
Thank you. And moving on. To item four. The 2025
to 2029 draft financial and corporate business plan overview. Ms.
Campbell, please. Thank you. Your worship and councillor today, myself,
along with city staff, are pleased to be presenting the.
City's 2025 to 2029 draft financial and corporate business plan
before we get started. I would like to turn it
over to Mr. Hadad to say a few words. Okay.
Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Thank you, Councillor. Looking forward to
discussions over the next couple of days. I just want
to highlight, first of all, Early this year, Councillor focused
their priorities around. Through the strategic planning process Councillor undertook
really emphasizing their commitment to public safety and housing through
livable and accessible priorities. Safety and resiliency reflects council's commitment
to creating a safe supportive community through balanced approach that
addresses crime, assist vulnerable populations, and builds long term resilience.
Livable. And accessible priority drives the city's efforts to improve
the quality of life for all residents. Through better housing
solutions, accessible public spaces, safe streets and inclusive community services.
Really looking forward to the work that the team of
presenting team will be presenting to Councillor over the next
couple of days. Led through our finance department. A lot
of work goes into the preparation of the. Budget over
the last number of months, and I really want to
thank the community also for their feedback. And you hear
a little bit later on this morning from our engagement
team on the results. Of that process. So look forward
to council's questions. We've got the team senior. Leadership team
here with our finance department to answer any questions, and
our management team as well, through the presentation. So looking
forward to a productive next. Couple of days. Thank you,
Ms. Campbell. Thank you, Mr. Haddad. Before we review the
budget through each division and department, I'd like to give
an overview of the plan, including what's new for 2025,
the presentation approach Councillor priorities, some overall budget highlights, and
the proposed tax rate. Although some of the information contained
within this overview was previously shared with Councillor on October
15 with the release of the draft financial. Plan. It
is being presented again to ensure that the relevant information
that form the drafting of this plan is provided during
the deliberation process. Continuing to build on the amalgamation of
the financial and corporate business plan in 2025. The document
continues to be refined to improve reporting on the advancement
of council's priorities and transparency and financial management. We are
committed to continually enhancing the information included in the plan,
including what services the city provides budget highlights and financial
impacts to our. Residents. For this year, capital budgets have
been separated out from operating. The capital presentations will commence
after all. Operating presentations are completed and is scheduled for
day two of deliberations. As a result, capital information will
not be included in this overview. However, a separate overview
will be provided to start off the capital presentations. Senior
staff members will be co presenting with. Myself for their
respective areas with time for Councillor to ask questions and
deliberate over each divisional or departmental budget. As this is
council's third budget process, presentations have been focused on key
budget drivers and incremental costs as opposed to daily business
activities. Councillor is welcome to comment at any stage of
the presentations and can make motions to amend what is
being presented throughout each div. Division. This may include either
amending the budget information as presented or directing staff to
compile any items Councillor may wish to defer and discuss
at the end of deliberations at the end of each
presentation, a motion to approve in principle will be made
subject to final budget. Review. Approving in principle is council's
acceptance of the budget. Information as presented. However, is not
a formal appro. Approval. Councillor can reconsider any budget area
throughout deliberations until the final financial plan. Resolution is made
after Councillor has deliberated over each area. Staff will provide
the final recap. To review any set aside items and
present the final motions. Moving into the budget process. Commencement
of the capital budget occurred in June with compilation of
operating budget starting in July. All budget information from individual
areas was finalized in early September, with reviews completed by
senior staff in late September. The financial plan was released
publicly on October the 15th, with several public engagement opportunities
provided through no. November 6, our communications and engagement manager,
Adam Alnick, will be providing a summary of the engagement
feedback in the next presentation. I'm going to provide a
brief overview of the initiatives for each Councillor. Priority however
many of these will be covered in more detail during
the divisional presentations for safe and resilient we have 14
initiatives for the 2025 budget. These include items such as
advancement of the community, safety buildings, development of a hazard
risk vulnerability analysis and wildfire and fire smart planning. Other
safe and resilient priorities include development of a community safety
and wellbeing plan advancement of the RCMP strategic plan and
proposed addition of two additional RCMP members to create a
new community safety unit. For livable and accessible. We have
21 initiatives. These include items such as the sports and
recreational needs assessment. Development of an area plan for Okanagan,
lakeshore and esplanade. And advancing housing affordability. Further initiatives include
the Eckert Avenue Quarter reconstruction project, demand side management, voltage
conversion, and smart truck technology to reduce contamination and increase
recycling best practices. And lastly, leading the KVR trail master
plan and green quarter strategy, advancing the city's community plan
continuing to focus on safe routes to school, transit network
expansion, and accessibility plan implementation. For vision, mission, and culture.
We have four initiatives, including items such as advocacy, planning,
and intergovernmental. Relations and advancing digital transformation and innovation projects.
Of those initiatives, there are 17 that have a financial
component associated with them which are included on pages 22
to 23 of the financial plan. These initiatives do not
all have an impact on taxation. And are proposed to
be funded through a variety of methods, including existing operational
budgets. Grant programs as well as taxation increases, which is
noted, will be introduced for counci. Council's consideration during deliberations
through each respective divisional presentation. Moving to some overall budget
highlights. Consolidated revenues have increased 7% over 2024. Adopted budget
to $155.8 million and expenses are 7% over 2024 at
143.4 million. These figures are net of the taxes collected
on behalf of other governments and the difference between revenue
and expense amounts goes into reserves, which funds our. Capital
programs and other operational requirements. Focusing in specifically on the
general fund. Revenues in 2025 amount to 78.6 million, up
5.8 million from 2024 and 8% increase expenses in 2025
amount to 82.3 million. These are at 4.9 million from
2024, a 6% increase and as a reminder now include
amortization expenses. A large portion of the general fund. Expenses
are allocated to protective services, which makes up an estimated
40% of the overall budget, excluding amortization. Some of the
financial challenges that continue to impact the 2025 budget include
the 2022 taxation deferral that was approved during the 2022
deliberations. In addition to sustained inflation, that we've seen across
many city functions, in particular areas being more than normal,
inflation would be labor, insurance and supplies. Many municipalities across
BC are challenged with rising costs and trying to balance
providing the needed community services. With the required funding in
order to pay for those services. Although many municipalities haven't
released their 2025 tax increases. Yet this slide displays a
few of the other communities that are facing these same
challenges. It's important to note that the city's increase is
significantly impacted by the 2022 taxation deferral with our actual
2025 tax increase being just over five and a half
percent. Managing these financial challenges has resulted in a shortfall
of just under $4 million in the 2025 General Operating
Fund. One third of this shortfall is comprised of the
1.4 million for the remaining taxation deferral, which I'll discuss
in more detail in upcoming. Slides, with the remainder consisting
of? 1.35 million for inflation and operational expenses, which is
net of. New revenues and an additional 1.2 million for
priorities and initiatives on top of the inflationary costs mentioned
earlier for things such as insurance and supplies. The city
also has to incorporate contractual increases for our labor agreements,
as well as other significant impacts such as the RCMP
contract, which alone is an increase of 700,000 without the
addition of any new members. For 2025. To assist with
offsetting these operational increases, staff introduced a more aggressive budgeting
approach where a preliminary review of the budget was done
by looking at every line item for both revenues and
expenses with a five year history. Looking for trend analysis.
Every budget area was reviewed with a comparison of each
line item with five years of. Actual and budget costs
to look for opportunities to optimize the numbers. That review
was sent to each senior leadership team member and was
then reviewed with myself and Mr. Haddad to go. Over
each initiative request an opportunity to revise budget figures. Traditionally,
the city has budgeted based on ensuring that no individual
line item would go over budget. However, under this new
methodology, we are. Looking to ensure that department's cumulative line
items stay within an overall budget. This change will likely
result in some line items being over and some under,
with the anticipation that overall each budget area will have
sufficient funding to provide the approved service levels on the
screen. Here is an example. Of one page of the
review spreadsheets that were reviewed during this process, which included
over 2000. Line items and resulted in over 200 of
those items being reduced, for a total of 2.4 million,
or 5.4%. These reductions included requests for both ftes and
initiatives as well as budget changes. Based on the five
year trends, significant reductions were made in the following areas
FTE requests initiative and project requests supplies, freight and. Postage
contractors and consultants, marketing, promotions and printing costs, training seminars
and dues, and then some specific areas such as flushing
mains, trunk lines, irrigation, snow removal, asphalt, solid waste, tipping
fees, and weed control the five year trends highlight items
that might fluctuate more on an annual basis. For example,
weed control, which changes based on weather pattern. Patterns and
looking at the five year average number, it's also important
to note that it would not reflect inflationary increases year
over year, and so the average was used as a
baseline. To review annual spend and not necessarily used to
match the proposed budget. Thank you. Through the chair. And
so I just want to be clear, when you went
through this, The shortfalls and going through the budget with
this fine tuned comb, what was the percentage that you're
able to find. To essentially make sure that we're coming
in line with our priorities. Like you said, we're saving
2.4 million. Yeah, through the chair, so that equated to
5.4%. So that wasn't just a reduction of existing budget
line items, that was also incremental asks. Right. So fte
requests initiatives and projects. So we looked at the proposed
budget cumulatively and went. Through every line by line, looking
for opportunities to reduce that number based on where we
were sitting. As part of the budget process and to
address funding shortfalls. City staff review opportunities to decrease the
impacts of taxation. Staff identified a number of ways to
reduce the general funding shortfall, including funding one time projects
through reserve transfers. So for 2025, this includes the community
well being plan. Sign standardization and the area plan for
Okanagan lake and esplanade. Another mitigating strategy employed this year
was increasing the allotment of RCMP vacancies due to leaves,
as well as budgeting for a minor staffing vacancy for
city staff to reduce labor costs, recognizing that not all
vacancies reduce costs as positions may be filled temporarily or
with use of overtime. There are generally a few positions
through the year that remain vacant for a period of
time and fulfilled which. We've now incorporated into the budget.
Lastly, there are two significant costs that will impact future
years. The first is the two new RCMP members that
if approved by Councillor will be requested through edision. However,
it takes approximately twelve months for these positions to be
filled, which would have those officers, starting in very late
2025. Or early 2026, approving this in 2025, but allocating
the budget into 2020. Six matches the cost with the
year that the service will be put into place, ensuring
we aren't taxing residents for something they will not receive
for the year. Transit is another similar item. There is
no certainty of when the expanded transit for phase one
will be available, but it is not likely to occur
until later next year. Again, looking to match the cost
of the service to the year that the city will
incur the cost and our residents will benefit from it.
Originally, the entire cost of phase one was planned to
be incorporated into the budget for 2025. However, it is
being. Proposed to be split between 2025 and 2026. In
addition to the cost of phase one. 2026. We'll also
see the incorporation of the evening service expansion, which is
not included. In this mitigated impact as it did not
form part of the 2025 budget. During deliberations in November
of 2021, Councillor approved the deferral of 7% of taxation
into future years with one time use of the remaining
Covid-19 restart grant as a reminder, the cost associated to
the 7% deferral are related to the previous council's. Investment
in community safety and included the addition of seven RCMP
officers between. 2021 and 2022, expanding by law enforcement, adding
a fire training officer and adding a firefighter every year
for four years. In addition, when setting the final tax
increase for 2022, Councillor approved. A further deferral of 3%
into future years, for a total deferral of 10%. The
plan was to phase in the impacts of these deferrals
over the course of the next three years, which started.
In the 2023 budget cycle with use of surplus reserves
over the time frame to offset the different. 2025 will
mark the final year of this phase in. Moving into
staffing. The city's workforce is quite complex and has many
unique challenges. Our 2024. Turnover rate is currently lower than
2023, going from 11% down to nine. However, without retirements,
that figure is 8%. We've seen fairly consistent retirement through
the last few years, ranging from 1% to 3% of
our workforce. Turnover rates don't capture the workload of recruitment.
As we also see a large number of postings annually
for relief positions, seasonal employees, and internal transfers. The city
continues to work on its employee engagement initiatives to assist
in attraction of new employees. And retention of existing talent.
Year to date, for 2024, the city has hired 176
candidates, including relief and seasonal, and facilitated some significant recruitments,
including the building and permitting manager bylaw manager, manager of
finance, manager of Communications of public engagement emergency program coordinator,
as well as multiple bylaw officers, building officials, and an
electrician. Starting fte for the year is 352, with seven
new FTe being proposed through the budget. Process. These positions
are spread amongst the divisions with a full summary of
fte and the new proposed positions being provided on page
44 of the plan. Requests requiring new funding will be
discussed during each divisional presentation, including how they impact the
budget and how they were fund. Funded, as not all
of these requests reflect an increase to the budget. Also
on paper, the city has significant reserve balances. Many of
these have restricted uses, leaving only a small portion available
to draw from. Also to consider when looking at the
city's reserve balances is that the 2025 draft capital plan
is in excess of 30 million. We also have significant
2024 capital program, including over 40 million of carry forward
projects for. An excess of 80 million of approved capital
projects currently underway are scheduled. Considering that the city owns
over $1.4 billion of assets. These reserves in entirety represent
less than 10% of our asset values with a large
portion of the currently allocated to funding the capital budget.
One statutory utility and other restricted reserves are removed, a
balance of 20.6 million of reserves. Is available for general
use as at the end of 2023. After year end
revised 2024. Reserve balances will be provided to Councillor with
the presentation of the audited financial statements at the beginning
of May. However, forecasted reserve balances will be presented to
Councillor during the reserve presentation later this morning, as well
as additional details on how reserve contributions are used and
work. Again, these balances are that December 31, 2023, and
are the ones available for offsetting the phase in of
the tax rate deferral these balances don't incorporate the current
asset emergency work previously approved by Councillor but not yet
completely drawn from the reserves or the surplus draws for
2024 being used to offset the deferral for the addition
of the four firefighters over four years, which ends after.
2025. Switching over to utility rates. The 2025 rates were
presented to Councillor with the fees and charges. Bylaw, with
the first three readings of the bylaw occurring August 20
and adoption on September 10. Rate increases include 7.1% in
total for electrical, 10.8% for sanitary sewer, 8.5 for water
and 30% for storm. These increases have been built. Into
the draft financial plan in each respective utility. Based on
the increases approved through that fees and charges bylaw in
September, the average residential property will see an increase of
$276 per year or $23 per month. And for business
property. The average increase for utilities in 2025 is estimated
at $1,536 per year or $128 per month. This brings
us to a proposed tax increase for 2025. However, before
presenting what's included in that final draft number, I wanted
to briefly review the rigorous process that staff undergoes when
compiling the budget. As mentioned earlier, the operating budget process
starts in July, and after initial submission of budgets by
each department and review by the finance team. We go
through a detailed process. Looking for other opportunities to decrease
the impact with alternatives to taxation. This year, the starting
point of the operating gap was 20.1%, which is the
remaining deferral inflation. Past decisions with financial impacts and incremental
costs. Our next step is to do a thorough review
of revenues from that review. Increases were identified from the
fees and charges or other economic impacts, including non. Market
change. All combined, these equated to a reduction of 3%
as discussed on a previous slide. We introduced a more
aggressive budgeting process this year. With the preliminary review done,
looking at every line item with the five year history
for trend analysis, which resulted in a reduction of 2.4
million or 5.4%. Subsequent to that process, the senior leadership
team met to review and discuss the final, revised operating
gap. This discussion included reviewing all remaining FTE and initiative
requests to determine what would be put forth into the
proposed plan. Part of this process is determining if items
can be deferred, as well as looking for other opportunities
for efficiencies and cost savings. Several funding strategies were reviewed,
which ultimately resulted in a reduction of 3.5%, which included
reserve funding for several one time projects. As well as
the mitigation strategies that were noted earlier. This brings us
to the proposed tax increase for 2025 of 8.63, which.
Is included in the draft plan. Delivering a bit further
into the new revenues. This chart includes the historic non
market change revenue indicated by the blue bars as compared
to building permit revenue shown by the red line non
market change accounts for new construction that is completed and
being added to the assessment base. With new taxation revenue
being introduced to the city, it is one of the
few revenues that the city adds to the budget annually
that doesn't impact existing taxpayers ratep. Ratepayers or service users
as building permit revenue increases or declines. Nonmarket change often
follows the same trend. But in the preceding year, for
2025, the city has included $600,000 for nonmarket change, which
helps spread the cost of overall taxes over more residents
on average, the city sees between four and $500,000 of
non market change annually. Although. Technically nonmarket change revenues should
be applied against the incremental cost of providing services to
a growing population. It has been historically applied against inflationary
costs in order to minimize those impacts. To existing residents
and business owners. The tax increase is made up of
the deferral, which makes up just over 3%. And nondiscretionary
costs at 2.95%. And finally, discretionary costs, which equate to
2.62%. It's important to note that the actual 2025 tax
increase is around five and a half percent. It's the
remaining deferral. Portion that is bringing the increase up to
8.63. Inflation includes collective agreement, labor contracts, RCMP contracts, as
well as regular inflation prior to offsetting with revenues or
other mitigating efforts. Inflationary impacts on the 2025 budget actually
equated to 7.6%. However, after the detailed review of the
budget process, staff were able to reduce those impacts to
just under 3%. The data shown on this slide is
collected by the province of BC and allows us to
review our residential competitiveness to other areas in the region.
These figures include municipal rates, parcel taxes, utility bills and
taxes paid to the other taxing authorities, so provides a
reasonably holistic overview of the cost to residents in these
areas, as you can see from this graph. Penticton is
very competitive in the valley, having one of the lowest
residential taxes and charges. In comparison to West Colonia, Kelowna,
Vernon and Summerland. In terms of what this means to
residents. We broke this down in a bit more detail.
This year to provide a more wholesome view of what
that percentage looks like to our residents based on their
property values. We have around 5000 residential properties that are
assessed at 500,000 or less, which makes up a third
of our residential properties. An average home around this value
would see an increase of $12. Per month, or $138
for the year. Next, we looked at the average residential
assessed value, which this year is 660,000. We have three
and a half thousand properties that are between 500,000. In
the average. A property valued around the average would see
an increase of $15. Per month, or $182 for the
year. And next, we looked at properties that are valued
at a million dollars or higher, of which we have
over 3000 of a property valued around 1 million would
see an increase of $23 per month or 277 for
the year. On the business side, for 2024, the average
commercial assessed value is 1.3 million. A property valued around
the average would see an increase of $59. Per month
or 708. Dollars for the year. This table represents overall
impact to the residents for both utilities and taxes, with
the average increase to property taxes to a residential home
being in the range of $38 per month or $456
annually. We also took a look at how the overall
business assessments break down and did that a little in
further detail this year as well. Of the taxable business
properties. Approximately 30% of them have an assessed value of
$500,000. Or less, which at that $500,000 mark would equate
to $27. Per month, or $319 per year. Around 200
of the properties are between the values of 500,800 thousand,
which at the high end of that range would be
a $35 per month increase. Or 425 for the year.
Approximately 150 properties are between the 800,001.3 million mark with
the remaining 300 properties being assessed above 1.3 million, which
accounts for about a third of the taxable folios. This
table represents overall impact to businesses for utilities and taxes,
with the average increase to a business being in the
range of $187 per month or 2244 annually. However, as
noted on the previous slide. About two thirds of the
business properties are assessed lower than this value and would
see an increase of 155 to 163 per month. In
summary, the 2025 to 2029 draft financial plan focuses on
the continued advancement of council's refocus strategic priorities with a
number of initiatives supporting a safe, resilient livable and accessible
community. I'm happy to take any questions Councillor might have
prior to introducing Miss Melnick to provide an update on
the engagement process. Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Councillor, any questions
at this point? And I'm hearing none. So we're just
going to move straight on to the engagement process. And
so thank you, Ms. Campbell. And for the budget engagement
report, item number five.
Anna melnick. Communications manager. And Ms. Campbell, please. Good morning,
Mary. And Councillor, in case you don't know, my name
is Anna Melnick. And I am the manager of clinicians
engagement here at the city of Pendicton. It is my
pleasure to be presenting the engagement overview in summary for
the 2025 2029 draft. Financial, corporate, business plan or budget
budget 2025, as it may also be known. As a
bit of background, the development of the financial plan is
one of the most important public processes of local government
and as a result, consultation with the public is required
by the community charter. Before the financial plan is adopted
today, I will tell you about what we did to
fulfill this. Requirement. In today's world, residents are more connected
and educated than ever before on issues that affect their
lives. As a result, they expect opportunities to have a
say on the decisions that come to city hall when
they are engaged in a meaningful way and all perspectives
are considered, Councillor may make more informed, trusted decisions. We
use our own engagement public engagement framework along with. IAP
two guiding principles, best practices and tools to steer our
efforts so that when pendict and residents are consulted. They
see that their participation is valued and their contributions are
making a difference. This in turn increases the level of
trust the community has with the local government. It is
important to note that it is best practice to include
both public engagement and market research. When considering the needs
or perceptions of the community. This is why I will
also provide a quick recap of our 2023 citizen satisfaction
survey in upcoming slides. The city of Penticton recognizes the
International association for public participation, or IAP two, as the
international standard for effective community engagement. IAP two spectrum is
a continuum that helps us determine the extent to which
stakeholders in the community are involved in a decision. The
chart provided explains the five categories of particip. Participation and
provides examples of how they have been used to support
city of Penticton decisions. The greater the impact, the higher
the recommended level of involvement. For the purposes of budget
2025. We consulted the community. This level of participation is
used when interest is high, such as with decisions. About
the environment, economy and the future of our city. The
city does a biannual citizen satisfaction survey, so I just
wanted to take a moment. To refresh Council's memory on
what the pulse was back in the fall of 2023.
When these results were presented. According to these results, the
top five priorities at that point in time were safety
and crime. Social issues, homelessness and drug use, housing affordability.
General affordability and affordable housing and climate and sustainability. As
you will see with these results, the city has seen
improving results year over year on how residents generally feel
we are doing in terms of how the city spends
the taxes it collects and the value they believe they
get. At the time of the citizen survey, we asked
residents how we should address the rising cost of services,
and at that time, the top result was the encouragement
of growth to share costs across the larger tax brace.
This was followed by an increase in user fees to
pass on cost to users. And an increase in taxes
to maintain services at current levels. Historically, this has not
been typical. Public sentiment. And as you will see in
my upcoming engagement summary, it was not something that was
supported by the residents who participated in our engagement program
this year. Moving on to this year's budget, engagement communications
and engagement strategy. This year's engagement strategy focused on reducing
barriers to participation in ensuring that there was a wide
range of communications collateral available to residents. To learn more
about and participate in budget 2025 engagement by utilizing both
traditional print and static. Communications tactics along with digital communications,
we endeavored to reach as many possible people across all
city. Channels. Communications collected feedback in person from kiosks located
at city hall and the library as well as at
council's open house on October 29. We also collected feedback
online through our feedback form located on Shapeshire city pentict.
Penticton. The Communications and engagement program for Budget 2025 included
a number of different tactics, ranging from internal and external
communications and marketing, as well as public engagement activities. The
engagement program kicked off on October 15 was a presentation
to counsel by our chief financial officer, a media event,
and a news release. Communications and marketing tactics that followed.
Over the course of the three week engagement program included
a full page newspaper ad in the Herald in the
western a direct mail out to residents and various social
media tactics, along with radio ads and an in person
info session with the business community. During the execution of
our communications and engagement program. There were a number of
notable results across various city platforms. For example, the mayor's
social media invite to the Councillor open House received over
1200 views our shape your city budget talks page had
over 500 views and we had six media stories where
Budget 2025 was mentioned, including. Three of which were specific
to the tax increase. This year's engagement program received 200
for survey responses, which is more than double last year's.
Result. Of survey respondents, 79% of them identified as living
in Penticton, as well as the majority of residents identified
as 65 years or older, followed by the age category
of 40 to 64 years of age with 39%. Based
on these survey results, the top five message to reach
methods to reach citizens sorry, where content on Shapier City
Penticton. Attendance at the Councillor open house adds an articles
in the newspaper adds in articles, adds in posts on
social media channels, and then media coverages on news websites
like Castinet, we. Western News and the Herald. As this
is the last year of the tax deferral, we wanted
to ask residents if they knew about this and the
upcoming implications it had on our 2025 tax rate. Close
to 80% of respondents said they were aware of the
deferral and that this is the last year for that
deferral. We also wanted to ask residents about council's updated
priorities and if they felt that these are the right
priorities for the community at this time. Over 60% agreed
that these were the right priorities. We then dug a
little bit deeper into why some may have opted to
say no or unsure. Of the respondents that answered no.
37 opted to explain the response further. Themes from these
comments included priorities being too vague and unclear on which
population they are meant to benefit. Priorities needing to include
more sustainable initiatives and responses being unclear on the role
of bylaw versus RCMP and the need to further clarify.
Their scope and abilities. Of the respondents that answered unsure,
27 opted to explain their responses further. Themes included concerns
with costs required to implement these proposed strategic initiatives, being
in agreement with the priorities in general, but not in
agreement with the actions outlined within them. Or feeling that
the increased policing does not stop crime but rather support
housing and medical care, reduces crime, so we should focus
on this instead. Of the key proposed strategic initiatives identified
in the draft budget, respondents online were most in favor
of investing in our aging infrastructure at 81%, followed by
a continued focus on affordable housing and then the improvement
of public safety with the addition of a fire inspector
and the creation of a safe. Safety unit with two
more police officers to round out the top three choices.
Interestingly, the creation of a community safety and well being
plan came in fourth place in our online survey. But
in the top spot at our Councillor open house, which
I will talk about in further slides. Coming in at
number five was the expansion of the remote guard camera
program, followed by the advancement. Of the civic Places and
Places plan, which includes plans for a CSb building and
fire hall renewals. In terms of a preference to introduce
or increase user fees in exchange for lower tax increase.
68% of respondents are not in favor of doing so
at this time. In addition, 60% of respondents in this
year survey were also not in favor of reducing city
services in exchange for lower tax increase. This is an
interesting statistic because when asked last fall, respondents at that
point in time favored the idea of both increased user
fees and a reduction in city services in exchange for
a lower tax increase. This could be due to a
number of factors, but I think it's worth noting that
this is why it's best practice to do both public
engagement and market research. As both of these outcomes and
insights provide. Important information into the community's needs and perceptions.
As part of the communications strategy for Budget 2025, we
included the. Draft financial and business plan in council's open
house on October 29. This was done strategically. In order
to maximize exposure to residents and make sure that the
budget was a key topic of conversation for attendees. This
year's open house included a focus on safety, and we
were happy to have 100 more homes in attendance to
discuss their work with the community. Participations, participants had the
opportunity to review the budget details and learn more about
the proposed initiatives related to safety and housing that have
been included for consideration in the draft budget. Attendees got
to speak directly with staff members and counsel at this
event. Themes from comments heard related to the budget include
concerns that the tax increase is too high and the
affordability of the city is getting harder and harder. Concerns
that the city is overspending. Concerns about cost to infrastructure
resulting from densification. Questions related to capital projects and their
timelines for completion and concerns about tax implications for city
owned land being used for social housing. As guests left
the event, we asked them to place a sticker on
the proposed strategic initiative. They felt that was most important
to them. You will see. A photo of it on
the slide. The top result that night was the creation
of a community sa. Safety and well being plan followed
by. A continued investment in affordable housing and investment in
our aging infrastructure. This is an interesting result given the
fact that it is different than what came out in
our online survey where investment in aging infrastructure came out
as number one. I think that this goes to show
that those who attended our open house resonated with a
topic of safety. Also to note is that we also
have a public safety survey currently in market at this
time. It was available at our open house on October
29, and at present it has over 1000 responses. I
think this goes to show the alignment with council's priorities
and the fact that safety is important to our community.
Representatives from the Downtown Business Association. Chamber of Commerce visit
Penticton and Pentictin Industrial Development association were in attendant for
our business community budget infosection on November 1. Attendees appreciated
the targeted information and the opportunity to ask specific questions
to their industry. Themes from the discussion include the cost
of doing business, rising consensus that they are happy to
deal with the final year. Of the deferral, concerns about
rising costs of utility and concerns about the future of
tourism. Given the recent external factors like climate impacts and
short term rentals, as well as concerns about spending money
on where the community needs it and concerns that vacant
store prints are decreasing the city's vibrancy. General feedback for
the proposed budget saw many comments for and against the
proposed initiatives, which is not surprising residents are feeling the
effects of our external environment when it comes to inflation,
housing costs and the cost of daily living and want
Councillor to make the best possible decisions that impact their
quality. Of life and they want to feel considered in
the decisions or outcomes. This engagement feedback. Is an important
piece of the overall picture that Councillor may wish to
consider when deliberating. Next year's budget. And finally, I will
leave you with. Our final question, which is did respondents
feel satisfied with the information and consultation provided to them
in this year's budget engagement program, the answer was largely
yes, where 78% says strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Agree. Agree.
Agree. Agree. Agree. Agree. Agree. Agree or neutral? Thank you
for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions
you may have. Any questions on communications feedback? And Councillor.
Comments? No, and thank you, Ms. Malick. And Ms. Campbell,
anything to add? Thank you, your worship. The only thing
I wanted to add was. That. Just a reminder to
Councillor that targeted feedback, such as ones like this when
you're asking the public for feedback versus it being around
them really does tend to skew the results. That we
see. We see the results of people that want to
provide feedback versus just the general. Feeling of the population.
So, as Ms. Melnick noted, we have 1000 respondents to
public safety, but we only had 200. To the budget
that generally indicates a level of interest in things that
might be something for Councillor. To consider with these results.
Yes. Statistics. Always interesting. Moving on.
Items, section six 6.1. Debt and borrowing. And.
Thank you, your worship. Ms. Jones is going to be
presenting the debt and borrowing for Councillor this. Morning.
Good morning, your worship, and council. This presentation will review
the debt and the debt that the city currently holds
and proposed borrowing the city uses debt as a funding
source and is allowed to utilize debt borrowing for capital
purposes only. Increases in the capital demand outside of the
available funding can be financed through new debt. Short term
debt can be approved by Councillor, but longterm debt may
require electoral approval unless the city is in the ascent
free zone. The ascent free zone occurs when municipalities has
debt servicing levels under a certain amount. Depending on the
capital request, some of the projects may be funded out
of existing reserves. If the project meets the reserve criteria,
and the reserve has appropriate funds available. Borrowing matches uses
of the asset with the current taxpayer and allows for
more capital spending to occur. In years where it is
needed, which can reduce the risk of asset failure. Some
projects have been approved to be funded with internal or,
sorry, interfund borrowing from reserves that have available funds that
aren't projected to be used over the short term to
save on interest costs and are currently being paid back.
This graph shows the history of the city's debt levels
from 2021 to forecast at 2028. In 2023, $7.8 million
was drawn on approved borrowing bylaws for the advanced wastewater
treatment plant and the Ridgedale Reservoir in 2025. We anticipate
drawing five. $.1 million on the. Previously approved borrowing bylaw
for the Penticton ave pressure reducing valve. Our debt servicing
levels are determined by the province to our local government.
Data entry reporting, which is done by May 15. Following
our year end. Based on this data, the liability servicing
limit may not exceed 25%. And it was 22.8% in
2023 and based on forecasted borrowing, will grow. To about
3% and then will decline to 1.8% by 2029. This
does not include any potential future borrowing for the community
safety building. In order to sustain our capital program and
needs in the future. Staff review the capital program and
identify projects that may require financing for council's consideration. It
is anticipated that borrowing will also be required in 2027
for the ls two dam. And in 2028 for the
expansion and upgrades to the advanced wastewater treatment plant. Some
potential borrowing that may be required for currently unfunded projects
include the community safety building as that project has not
been fully scoped or costed yet. Future information. Will be
provided to Councillor with funding options once the project is
further advanced. This slide summarizes the debt we hold and
how debt servicing costs are funded from the general fund.
We utilize casino development cost charges, the Asset sustainability reserve,
and general funds to service the debt. We currently hold
no debt in the electric fund. From the 2025 to
2029 financial plan. The proposed borrowing for the next five
years total $7.9 million. Capital projects that are being proposed
to be debt financed are detailed in the financial plan
on page 271. Note that the capital projects for the
ls two dam and. The advanced wastewater treatment plant in
2027 and 2028 are currently estimates and subject to change.
As we get closer to that time, We are happy
to take any questions Councillor may have. Any questions on
debt levels? Pretty clear. And thank you, Ms. Jones. Let's
move on to reserves in debt, please.
The following is a presentation on the city's overall financial
health, focusing on the financial tools of reserve and debt.
The city's financial health is guided by overarching policies and
bylaws to ensure good governance, accountability, transparency and maintaining service
levels. Approved by Councillor in December 2023, the reserve policy
outlines the primary objectives of the city's funds for 41
reserves totaling $131,000,000. At the end of 2023. These funds
are to ensure stable and predictable tax levies focus on
long term financial stability, safeguarding and maintaining existing assets, providing
operating emergencies, and finance new capital assets. These are identified
in the more detail. Details further in the presentation. This
policy also provides clarity on how each reserve receives contributions.
The minimum and optimum balances, as well as defining internal
borrowing and specifying interest allocations. The yearend surplus policy, which
was last approved by Councillor in February 2022, governs the
city's treatment of fund surpluses as calculated in the annual
financial statements. The policy ensures funds are set aside to
address the future city priorities while meeting statutory requirements. By
providing direction to staff on the distribution. Of the annual
surplus for each fund. The use of surplus funds was
designed to ensure the city maintains adequate accumulated surplus values
while also setting aside reserves for specific purposes. In the
general fund. The surplus is allocated towards accumulated surplus to
achieve the optimum balance with excess funds being allocated to
the RCMP reserves, financial stabilization, equipment replacement, asset emergencies, and
asset sustainability. Electric water and. Electric, water and sewer surpluses.
Our funds are allocated in respective reserves in 2023. The
ending general surplus balance was $10.3 million, which will be
discussed further in the presentation. Reserves are funded by surpluses.
Or specific revenue streams to fund operating, working capital and
capital asset renewal. And replacement and to ensure the city's
continues to meet and maintain expected service levels. Annual or
periodic contributions, as well as appropriations, must be specific to
each reserve and approved by Councillor through the city's annual
financial planning bylaw and any subsequent budget amendments as required
by the Community Charter and the Local Government Act. As
mentioned, the reserve policy indicates how the reserves are funded.
This slide and the next one shows what revenue streams
are directed into the various reserves. Utility fee revenue funded
utility operations and help maintain 1.4 billion in city infrastructure.
Developer fee revenue also maintains city infrastructure but is held
in reserve and is restricted into related projects. Grant revenues
are funded into specific reserves and are also restricted based
on grant criteria. Many of the other reserves are restricted
in what funds they can be used for. For example,
the stormwater can only be used for storm. And water
operating and capital costs. Affordable housing can only be used
for affordable housing projects. Climate action reserves can only be
used for carbon neutral initiatives. The city's surplus policy details
each reserve's applicable use and revenue source. Through the year
end surplus policy. If there is a general revenue surplus,
a calculation is performed that dictates how funds are to
be directed into the reserves shown in red RCMP financial
stabilization, equipment replacement, asset emergency, and asset sustainability. Each of
these reserves have specific uses. The remaining other reserves in
the middle column are funded by specific revenue sources shown
in the last column. For example, asset sustainability is additionally
funded by gaming reserves and a portion of the SOEC
facility fees. The marina reserve is funded by marina lease
revenues and the online accommodation reserve is funded by the
provincial. OAP revenues received. Each of the reserve reserves have
a specific use. Together, these policies provide guidance and direction
to city staff in how any surplus funds are managed
through the reserves, debt and investments. The use of the
funds is summarized in the image provided on this slide.
In the following slides, we will review the current and
forecasted financial health of the city and explore how revenues,
reserves and debt contribute to the overall health and long
term sustainability of the city. In addition to reviewing balances
and reserves, debt or revenues, it is also best practice
to look at trends and ratios based on statements of
recommended practice as defined by the public sector accounting board.
Financial statements are snapshot in time. And by compiling these
snapshots in time, we can review trends and ratios to
help provide insight into the city's overall financial health. These
ratios can also be used to provide a glimpse into
the future. Using the long term financial plan. The ratios
presented on the next two slides focus on sustainability and
flexibility, but more in depth. Historical overview will be presented
at the time of the 2024 financial statement presentation. One
of these three categories of trend analysis is sustainability. Using
the financial assets to liabilities ratio. This indicator measures the
extent to which government. Can require future revenues to pay
for past transactions. The ratio is trending greater than one,
which indicates that resources are on hand to finance future
operations. This is because the city has been paying down
debt and increasing. Reserves, placing the city in a sustainable
position. New debt for the PRV project, a total of
$5.1 million was approved in 2022, which will affect this
ratio in 2025 as the debt is drawn and adding
in the projections for the future debt for the Ellis
Dam and the advanced wastewater treatment plant. The ratio is
projected to be 1.72. Still within sustain. Sustainable limits. This
forecast calculation of 1.72 does not include debt for the
proposed community safety buildings. A second category of trend analysis
is flexibility. Using debt charges to operating revenue. This indicator
measures the impact of borrowing decisions on the city's ability
to meet financial and service commitments. With debt being repaid,
the city has increased flexibility. To support additional servicing costs
in the future when infrastructure funding decisions are presented. When
adding in the projected revenue and debt increases over the
life of the five year plan, the projected ratio will
decline to eight 1.8% by 2029. This graph presented overall
reserve dccs and debt local government's best practice is to
use a combination of reserves, dcCs, and debt to leverage
grants and fund future infrastructure investment using the left access.
The reserves are shown by the blue bar. And dccs
are shown by the red bar. Using the right access
debt is shown by the green line. Debt has increased
from. 75 decreased from 75 million in 2011 to 25
million in 2023. Additional debt is forecasted for the Penticton
Ave. PRV. In 2025 and in 2027, the community safety
building has been included in here for 40 million and
the LlS two dam at 5.6 million and then. Vast
waste water treatment plant upgrades of 2.3 million in 2028.
The load debt balance puts the city in a positive
financial position to use its increased borrowing capacity. To finance
assets in the future. The reserve balances grew from 50
million in 2011 to a high of 130,000,000 in 2023,
which has contributed to the large capital program the city
is currently undertaking, including $7 million grant from the province.
In 2024, the city has undertaken a large capital portfolio,
which is forecasted to decrease the reserves by $40 million,
and then. Are projected to recover into 2023 levels by
2029, which will help fund additional long term capital infrastructure
needs. Current forecast to the 2028 and 2029 have reduced
spending in the utilities which is resulting in the projected
increase in forecast. DCC funds collected are currently at $17.5
million, with plans to utilize most of these funds over
the next five years. As at December 31, 2023, the
total reserves, including statutory, non statutory and DCCs, was $131,000,000
based on the audited financial statements, the reserve balances for
2024 will be presented in the audited financial statements, which
will be submitted to Councillor for approval. In. Spring 2025.
The next few slides will provide further breakdown of each
of the reserve categories. The statutory reserves total $65 million
as of December 31, 2023. Statutory reserves are established by
bylaw, which include restrictive uses and or funding some of
the city's largest statutory reserves. Are the asset sustainability, which
is at $9.6 million. The equipment replacement at 8.7 million,
and each of the utilities capital. The utilities, capital reserves
should continue to grow to enable future infrastructure renewal. Building
capital reserves for future infrastructure replacement. Is key to mitigate
large costs to residents, such as being seen by the
RDs for sage mesa or in Oliver. The reserve balances
for water and sewer funds currently are holding the debt
that was received in 2023 for capital projects that are
being constructed over the coming years. The non statutory reserves
total $48 million and have defined uses and or funding
based on policy some of the city's largest reserves. Are
the surplus reserves. Surpluses are used to provide working capital.
For $83 million operating budget and accumulated funds for a
long term asset replacement based on average annual lifecycle investment
targets. Upcoming expenditures are forecasted to reduce surplus reserves until
such time the rates can catch up with operating cost.
This is especially true for the electric surplus. A forecast
of the general surplus will be provided on an upcoming
slide. Development cost charges total 17.5 million, which are collected
from development fees and held as deferred revenue to be
used in future projects. According to bylaw, many of the
reserves will be substantially depleted with upcoming planned capital projects.
Although on the paper the city has significant reserve balances,
many of these have restricted uses, leaving only a small
portion that are available to draw from for general use.
Once statutory, utility and other restricted reserves are removed, a
balance of $20.6 million of reserves is available for general
use at the end of 2023. Using the balances as
at December 31, 2023. These are reserves that have been
used to offset the tax to rate deferral. These balances
do not incorporate the 2024 or 2025 surplus draws being
used to offset the deferral or addition of firefighters. The
gaming reserve is currently significantly subscribed for annual debt repayments.
The general surplus forecast reflects the surplus draws being used
to offset tax deferral as well as the addition of
firefighters passed by resolution in 2022. In green. The general
surplus projected 2023 optimum balance using. The reserve. Policy. Optimum
balance of 15% of net expenditures from the previous year.
The shortfall is $4 million between the optimum balance and
the forecasted future balance. A declining surplus may impact the
city's financial stability in future years and will provide less
opportunity to balance community needs in times of emergency. Based
on the 2025 to 2029 financial plan, the reserves are
forecasted to decline over the next few years from 130,000,000,
then grow by. Statutory
reserves fluctuating between 45 and 93 million. Mandatory reserves are
forecasted to decrease to 3.7 million by 2029 and non
statutory reserves are forecasted to decrease from 48 million to
44 million. Mainly due to the increased spending for capital
infrastructure needs, which is subject to change as projects and
initiatives are brought forward. As noted earlier, the anticipated growth
by 2029 is largely due to incorporation of asset management
into the utility rates, reflecting increased contribution to those capital
reserves. We are happy to answer any questions Councillor may
have. Council. Any question on reserves? And Councillor comments getting
a negative from Councillor Conan. So I've got a question,
actually, regarding reserves. When taken as a percentage of asset
values. And. Ever mindful of asset management. Is there any
calculation made for the rising cost of maintaining assets? The
cost of repairs and maintenance. And with increasing costs that
we've seen, we've seen runaway costs. On some of these
works that have been carried out. What's an optimum sort
of percentage amount, if you like. For reserve amounts. As
opposed to asset values. And should that change with the
increasing costs of maintenance? Thank you for the question through
your worship. So I'd say there's a couple. Of points
on that. So absolutely, like, the rising cost of the
maintenance of assets is a factor. That impacts the taxation
rates. But on the other side, on the capital side,
right now, I think we said we have about 10%
of our asset values in reserves. I'd say when we've
been doing fore. Forecasting of those things, you probably want
to use about 70 or 80% of reserve balances. To
do your asset replacement and then try to fund the
remaining with grants and other sources. So I would say.
The city's 10% of reserves was a big contribution to
the utility rate review work. That was done, saying that
we really need to put more money aside so that
when we do have significant capital projects. We're able to
fund that through reserves instead of having to increase rates.
At a non smooth pace. We really want to be
able to provide stability for our residents and not have
peaks and valleys when we see large projects. So I
think our ultimate goal. In the very long term is
to see those reserves, particularly for capital, increased at a
significant rate. In order to provide better stability for our
taxpayers and ability to fund big projects as they come.
Up, mostly from Miss Dixon's area. We're seeing high cost
escalations, so. That 1.4 billion is probably two years old
now. It's probably higher than that. I don't know if
you want to estimate what you think that might be,
Ms. Dixon, but I'm thinking it's probably more like. 1.5
or 1.6 billion now. Yeah, I'm sure the chair I
would guess higher based on the current pricing that we
have, but I think that is. One of the important,
that is one of the important reasons why we need
to continue to update and monitor those figures because costs
have changed so significantly over the last few years. So
I do expect over the next few years as we
both update our asset valuation and then do our next
utility rate review those continuation of the updating those numbers
to make sure they are reflecting. Accurate forecasted cost is
going to be particularly important. Yeah. This is a big
conversation within stratas as well for their maintenance and repairs.
And strata developments, and so. It's natural that it should
apply to municipalities as well. So just a question. Thanks
for the clarity. And being mindful of it. Ms. Campbell.
And if I may, your worship, just wanted to add.
To that. It will heavily impact dccs. The next time
we see the DCC bylaw. Come, the cost of those
projects will probably also be significantly impacted by the inflation
that we're seeing and may impact what we see for
those DCC rates as well. That's another discussion, I'm sure.
Thank you. And Councillor. Any questions? Rising? From that. I'm
getting a negative from Councillor Conan. So. Thank you, Ms.
Jones. And like to propose a quick break right now,
if we could. 15 minutes break and then we'll come
back. For the budget deliberations. Thank you.
I'd like to reconvene to the budget deliberations and moving
on. With section seven. Community services. And Kelsey Johnson,
please, Ms. Campbell. 7.15 community services thank you. Thank you.
Good morning, council. So the community services division takes a
strategic approach to support all facets of community health and
safety. Our work is focused on activities and actions that
enable citizens to have a high quality of life. Our
division includes facilities, land management and the recreation, arts and
culture department, which also encompasses the museum archives as well
as the Cleveland theater. The community services division is led
by myself and includes 55 FTE providing services for facilities,
rec arts and culture, land management, museum and archives and
arm's length oversight for Oakview Group. The managing operator of
the SOEC PTCC and Memorial and OHS arenas. We also
leave very closely with the Pinticton Public library. Our facility
scheme is responsible for maintaining approximately 650,000 city owned buildings,
which range from public use facilities to residential homes to
office complexes. The team ensures all of these city owned
buildings operate at optimum efficiency for service and program delivery.
The Rec arts and culture department welcomes visitors to our
many recreation facilities. Parks and sports fields where we deliver
a wide range of recreation programs and services for people
of all ages and abilities. Routing out this division is
land management, which is responsible for over 500 city owned
properties, as well as facilitating land related agreements and providing
legal title and company surges for all city departments. Our
division works to advance council's priorities of a safe and
resilient community. Through facilities planning of responsible asset management and
renewal to ensure long term sustainable service delivery across the
organization, our reconculture services take a proactive approach to creating
a safe community by activating public spaces with events and
programs, as well as strengthening partnerships with local organizations to
integrate and enhance rec opportunities to support a connected. Community.
These tactics also support council's priority of a livable and
accessible community as our whole division focuses on creating an
inclusive, healthy and vibrant community. With respect to some of
our major achievements within the division this year, staff continued
advancing the Community Safety building project, which was the first
priority coming out of the civic places and spaces asset
and amenity management plan. In particular, a major milestone occurred
when Councillor endorsed the site selections for the Fireall headquarters,
satellite fire hall and the community safety building, which. Is
intended to house bylaw and community policing. Other major accomplishments
included securing additional funding from the ministry for the new
childcare facility at the community center, which will be operated
by the YMCA. Construction is currently underway and will result
in 80 net new spaces for the community. Our recreation
and culture team successfully hosted the inaugural Frost Fest Winter
Carnival in January 2024. The event leveraged the existing BC
Hockey All Star weekend activities and added children's activities food
vendors, djs, and the pretty spectacular downtown throw down rail
jam event. We also continue to focus on strategic use
subsidio and land to advance council's priorities. A complete review
of available city lands was conducted to support the advancing
housing affordability project. And Councillor endorsed three city owned properties
for social housing development. And lastly, I just wanted to
highlight a very unique exhibit, curated and presented by our
team at the museum. This year, a Taste of home
cookbooks as family heirlooms was a temporary exhibit that involved
a considerable amount of participation from our community, as residents
were invited to share their cookbooks. And recipes that had
been passed down through generations to be included and put
on display. So our division tracks a number of statistics
and KPIs, and we've highlighted a few. That may be
of interest to Councillor as well as the public. Looking
at our emission rates in various rec service areas is
a good indicator for us to track these numbers provide
us with a general sense of service level use and
give us direction when setting operational hours and deploying resources.
To ensure. We are effectively and efficiently delivering services. And
one KPI of notes on this screen in particular is
the life memberships. These are subsidy passes provided to individuals
and families within our community that fall below the low
income threshold. Continuing from the previous slide, again, monitoring KPIs
associated with the delivery of recreation services. We've heard the
community pretty loud and clear on the need for more
swimming lessons, and we have been hard at work to
get the number of lessons up over the past number
of years with 476 lessons delivered this year from January
to August. We are on track to almost double the
number of lessons compared to 2023. In our facilities department,
we monitor KPIs that provide us with a pulse on
how effective and efficient we are with our time. We
set service standards to complete work orders within 30 days
and aim to achieve this at least 90% of the
time. We also monitor the percentage of plan versus reactive
work. This target is a good indication that our preventative
and planned maintenance is reducing unplanned interruptions. And it also
gives us better understanding of how our resources need to
be deployed and scheduled to increase efficiencies. So for 2025,
the community services division is proposing six strategic initiatives. First
up is the advancement of the first priority identified in
the civic Places and Spaces plan, which is a focus
on our community safety buildings, civic places and spaces was
adopted in 2022, and staff. Have been advancing the first
priority recommendation since that time in 2025. Priority number one
will have two main areas of focus fire hall renewals
and the community safety building, which is intended to house
bylaw and community policing in a strategic downtown location. This
is a multi year project advancing council's safe and resilient
priority and funded through the capital budget. Also in alignment
with the safe and resilient priority, the RCMP detachment will
receive security. Enhancements in 2025 for additional security features specifically
to the exterior fleet parking area. These enhancements are also
funded through the capital budget and will describe these enhancements
along with the CSB. Or community safety buildings in more
detail during the capital presentations tomorrow. The remaining four strategic
initiatives proposed will advance will advance council's livable and accessible
priority. So back to the civic place in the spaces
plan staff are also advancing. The second priority are identified,
which addresses the city's aging arena. Infrastructure staff continued to
work on a plan for the replacement of memorial McLaren
arenas with a single twin. Pad facility. This project will
realize work completed to date and will consider direction provided
through the arena. Visa arena feasibility study, which is expected
to be completed by the end of this year. Staff
will also continue the sport and ReC needs assessment project
into 2025 with a final report and recommendations presented to
Councillor in the spring. The needs assessment will inform decisions
on facility allocation and investment to best meet the needs
of the community. The project was approved through the 2024
budget process and there is no additional funding request associated
to complete this work. Established in 2024, Frostfest is a
multi year winter carnival organized by city staff with community
partners. The vision for 2025 is to expand into a
multiday event from January 17 to 19th. And this initiative
comes with an operating budget request, and I'll speak to
that later. In this presentation. And last but not least,
we will continue the city yards facility upgrades, which is
another multi year project funded through the capital budget in
2024. The facilities team led the construction of. A new
electric utility building within city yards. This building offers dedicated
space for the secure storage of electric utility vehicles and
supports the long term goal of establishing a new fleet
shop, which would then free up essential office space in
the existing city arts administrative building. The team's focus for
2025 will be on the design and construction of a
new fleet shop building. So when it comes to operational
efficiencies, we looked for opportunities where we could both increase
revenues as well as decrease expenses. We revive service level
provisions within contracted services to reduce expenses. Reviewed all facility
and repair maintenance costs and have integrated energy efficiency opportunities
in. Projects to reduce annual operating costs. We've also deployed
alternate procurement methods instead of tendering for supply and installation
on some of our facilities. Projects we've utilized source well,
which is a municipal group purchasing program for the purchase
of the equipment, and then we tender for the installation.
Portion. Only taking advantage of group purchasing has saved. Us
approximately $30,000 on a generator replacement project, and we'll continue
to look at using this method where possible on a
go forward basis. And lastly, we reviewed and made adjustments
to the delivery of our REC services to increase revenue
opportunities. With little impact to correlated expenses. This was largely
done through a collaborative approach between the facilities and recreation
departments that saw modifications to our staff resource deployment to
expand hours and services. So the 2025 proposed budget for
Community services division is a net total of just over
$6 million, a net decrease of 400,000 from the 2024
budget. The summary contains revenues from over 130 lease and
license to use agreements covering city properties, beach vendors and
mobile food trucks as well as. Aquatics, facility rentals, recreation
programs and museum grants and donations. Expenses include the cost
of operating all the city's general fund facilities, managing city's
land administration, museum exhibits and archives, recreation programs such as
aquatics, and salaries and wages for the entire division. Net
SueC expenses do fall under this division, however, Mr. Clark
will be providing details on their budget request in the
next presentation. Other items included in the SUEC budget related
to. City operations are the facility fee and lease revenues.
Significant impacts on the budget include higher revenues for recreation
and land management, revenues and reductions of expenses from completion
of one time projects. Key budget drivers in this division
include contractual labor increases, significant changes realized through the five
year trend analysis, specifically in areas such as facility maintenance
for electrical envelopes, HVAC, plumbing, security, utilities and vandalism. Increases
seen in revenues for land are relating to contractual adjustments
for lease revenues, including CPI as well as recreation for
increased. Programming and updated fees and charges. In addition, reductions
related to line items due to completed projects such as
the arena feasibility study were also realized. The proposed initiative
for the Community Services division is an additional 50,000 for
the frost fest. Winter Carnival established in 2024, Frostfest is
intended to be an annual winter carnival organized by city
staff with community partners. The vision for 2025 is to
expand this into a multi day event, I will turn
it over to Ms. Johnson to speak more about that.
Thank you. So, in 2024, staff were able to leverage
the resources and activations provided through the BCHL All Star
Weekend, which was provided a $50,000 municipal special event grant.
With the Allstar weekend not returning to Fintexton for 2025,
staff are requesting a 50,000 addition to the recreation operating
budget. To ensure the service and production levels remain the
same, additional vent content is being developed through other community
partnerships and staff are working to secure sponsorships to support
the long term sustainability of the event. With that. The
recommendation is for Councillor to approve in principle, the community
services 2025 to 2029. Financial and corporate business plan initiatives
and proposed budgets subject to final review. We are happy
to take any questions Councillor may have at this time.
Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Yeah. Thank you. Through the chair.
Late to just move the staff recommendation. Seconded. Discussion questions.
I'd like to ask a couple of questions. So if
we look back at the slide on key performance indicators,
And there was a mention the line there about. The.
Swimming pool. I think I'm looking at what I got
on my screen here. The number. Of pool admissions. Might
have been the one before that. Yeah. Now. We had
a great tour of. This Councillor had a great tour
of municipal facilities. And prior to this budget deliberations, and
we saw on the tour of the community center, we
obviously saw. Where a lot of the this year's money
has been spent. With the repairs there, but the number
of pool admissions obviously was affected by that work, and
I wonder if you could maybe, just for the sake
of the public, give us an update of what? We
saw. And the schedule for the works. And are they
going to be completed on the community center? Thank you
to the chair. So just to clarify, yes. We still
do have a portion of that work that needs to
be conducted. And we'll be utilizing our annual shutdown to
complete that, hoping to do it within the time frame.
We may need to extend it to a week or
two, but not expecting any long term shutdowns outside of
our annual shutdown moving forward. And in addition to that,
we've been able to increase the public access. Seven days
a week by expanding our hours. And increasing programming. And
does that affect. The fitness room as well. I see
that the projections for the fitness room showing us decreases.
Well. So I'm just wondering. What the rationale is behind
that 2025 projection. Yes, through the chair. So that's just
a conservative estimate. We did exceed our 2023. We don't
expect to be closing down the fitness room for an
extended period of time. Just a conservative estimate on these
admission rates. When we do the planning, it's kind of
looking at year to date, the data we have available.
Certainly exceeded our expectations in 2023. As we shift out
of Covid, we're still very much monitoring the trends. But
can expect. Staying fairly steady. It's always good to be
careful on projections. I appreciate that. Council. Any questions? Councillor?
Comments? Do you have any questions? I'm getting a negative
from Councillor. Conan. Any counsel any further, so I'm going
to call the question. All in favor? And I get
a yes from Councillor Conan. So that's a unanimous decision.
Thank you very. Much. Moving along. So we're going to
7.2. And south hookanagan event center complex. Manager of the
soc. Dean clark and cliff last director of finance for
soec. Or ovg 360, I should say.
Over here and just click over here.
Good morning. Good morning. My name is Dean Clark. This
is Cliff last. Cliff is art. I'm having some trouble
here. Hold on a second. Cliff last is our director
of finance. I would like to thank Cliff for producing
our budget. I've been the general manager of the SOEC
and the PTC, along with Memorial. Arena and the OhD
training center for more than 15 years. I have 35
years experience in venue management. Live vents last 25 years
have been in the okinawan. I'm also the regional vice
president for Oakview Group for Western Canada and currently responsible
for seven other venues. To review. Our private management company,
Oakview Group, is led by owners Tim Liwicki, former president
of Maple Leaf sports entertainment. And Irving Azaw, former president
of Live Nation, manager of the Eagles and many more
of the world's greatest acts. The specific venue division is
led by our president, Greg Odell. Greg comes from an
extensive convention. Center background, leading some of the biggest and
most important convention spaces in the world, with deep political
ties and professional convention meeting association relationships worldwide. I would
like to state that our budget. Is not just the
soec. Ovg operates not only the soec, but the ptcc.
The ohd training center and memorial arena. What I want
to let you know is our complex is run. Our
complex is run by the best professionals in the Okanagan
and some of my staff. Are, in fact, the best
in the business. We have 34 fulltime staff, eight of
which are department directors, and we have over 500 local
part time staff. What do we do and what do
we provide at the okinawan event Center? We provide support
for community vibrancy and culture in the form of live
music, content and sporting events last year. To highlight a
few, we hosted the legendary ice cube and foreigner. Both
were sold out shows. An ice cube was hosted on
a Wednesday during February. This specific shows illustrate how we
hit all of our support initiatives for our community. Also.
In 2024, not only did we have young Stars tournament,
but we hosted the canucks main camp. We had over
20,000 visitors during those ten days in September. We could
not have had a busier month. We host close to
40 home games, including. These playoff games. These average attendance
is over 2100 a game. The Vis have 1150 season
ticket holders with an additional 350 club seat holders. In
2024, we did not host the between the Lakes Powell,
but we are excited to announce that in July 2025,
we will see its return. Two things that go unnoticed.
But I always like to mention at this point, Is
that 12,000 people annually use the SOEC walking track. With
18 special need groups. Also. Sort of goes unnoticed. Maybe
Councillor Conan understands this pretty well because she's been a
part of this, but each year, local sports association special
need groups and charities work and earn more than $35,000
by filling critical workforce positions and volunteering at our live
events, giving back to these associations not only reduce the
burden of. Their asked to counsel, but it actually makes
us more profitable. So it's a win win. What do
we provide in support at the Penticton Trade and Convention
Center? Well, we support meetings, conventions, concerts, special events. And
our mission is focused on driving economic impact. Last year
at PTCC, we had 110,000 people through our doors. And
the PTC hosted 150 events. We had new convention business.
We had new convention business, like wild sheep Society. BC
First Nations Forestry Councillor BC fairs and agriculture, and a
number of more. We are still experiencing short booking windows.
This is obviously still due to the backlog from Covid
in 2024, we booked two conventions in less than eight
months where normally we would see a sales cycle of
three years. In. 2025. We have many returning clients like
fire chiefs. And happy to report we've signed two new
conventions to Penticton, Canada Water Resources and Canada West Ski
Areas association. My staff work very effectively with meat in
Penticton. Our CVB. Looking forward to continued education and growth
by this initiative. This is critical that you support meat
and pentictin to highlight its success. For the first time
since I've been responsible for the complex budget, the trade
center. Will drive more gross. Income this year in 2025
than the soec. Laura Hunt, our new director of sales,
told me that in the month of May, Of next
year, we will only have two dark days. In June
of next year, we will only have one dark day.
It's incredible progress. What do we do in support when
it comes to the Okinawan Hockey Training center and Memorial?
Arena. Well, besides the obvious. Our incredible facilities help us
host the biggest minor hockey tournament. In western Canada. In
partnership with canadian sports school Hockey League, the championship tournament
is held in March. Selfo Canaugh and event staff. Is
and are the local organizing committee. This 17 day period
in March is the biggest hockey tournament in western Canada.
During a time of much need. In 2024, the championship
reached a new economic record of over $5 million, almost
2 million more than the 2023 record. This event features
96 teams, roughly 2100 players and staff from four different
western provinces and the states of Idaho. And Washington. Over
91% of the event participants were from out of town
and overnight guests. Also. Of note specifically for memorial arena,
we are seeing year over year increase in maintenance expense.
Where the efficiencies from managing the Okanagan Training center at
a profit and memorial at a small expense used to
net. Each other to zero. That's not the case anymore.
We expect repairs and maintenance to grow. Significantly in memorial
arena. When we look at the overall facilities we manage
complex, wide we have more than seven weekends a year
where the SEC, the PTCC, And our arenas are full
of different events. These games, concerts on the same weekends
as festival and spring hockey. This is when our assets,
the buildings and our staff shine, and when more than
15,000 people use our facilities during these weekends. I continue
to imagine what this will look like. When we see
more of the northern gateway completed. We also have continued
to create operational efficiencies. We have new
safety lines installed at the SEC. We've increased security and
safety with our new secure guard contractor. We decreased cost
for managing guest services by taking it more in house.
There's certainly some parking efficiencies with a cashless pay for
our outer town concert goers, just to name a few.
Certainly some operational efficiencies at the PTCC. Name a few
of them. More LED lighting. More energy savings when it
comes to new dishwater, new dishwasher, and, of course, The
trend to using a bottle roof filling stations. I would
also like to remind Councillor that each and every year
our budget is reviewed by city. Staff this year was
Angela Campbell, GMO finance and admin, along with Anthony Adet.
Now she tried to explain a few of the numbers
for 2024 and 2025. Our gross expense. Exceeds over $10
million each year. A large percentage of that is sent
right back into our local economy. We generate almost 6.5
million in revenue. Inside of that, we generate nearly two.
.7 million. In gross food and beverage revenue, we generate
1.7 million. In other revenue. And over 1 million in
ice rentals. Once we talk net numbers. And indirect expenses.
Basically, the four buildings you manage have roughly a $5
million in net expense and 3 million in net revenue.
So to make the math easy, it leaves us with
an operational shortfall. In 2024 of about 2.28 million. The
shortfall in 2025. Is 2.38 million. Why the increase? Mostly
that. Is event mix, our normal cycle of events. Includes
Cirque ducella circus. La does not come back to Pentictin
in 2025. So just that event alone, we net close
to $150,000 in revenue. So that alone can count for
the increase. Other key budget changes. Positive changes. The PTC
has increased food and beverage trends. So we see the
bookings seem to be stronger in 2025, so we're happy.
With that. The CSSL championship, like I mentioned before, is
seeing an increase in teams. Some of the drivers. Screwed
that up. I did that again.
Oh, goodness. I can't do the most of my left
hand. Yeah, there we go. Some other drivers of our
budget. Minimum wage increase. The technology costs regarding cyber risks.
I can't believe I'm even saying that, but. Yeah. Lastly,
when we work with a shortfall deficit budget, there's a
divergence between the gross expense and the gross revenue. That
increase year over year is anywhere between 75 and $100,000.
Some of the upcoming events are. We're seeing Blippy. We
just had freestyle motocross. World tour. January we're going to
have the return of the Harlem Globetrotters. More heavy metal
music in March with kill switch. Engage. Happy. To announce
that Bachman Turner Overdrive is selling probably the best in
the country here in Penticton. Super excited about that. Lots
of kids stuff. Still with Sesame street live in June.
We have some improv who's live anyway. And then, of
course, Proud to have back the powwow between the lakes
in July. As I stated in the past, the v's,
ohg, the ptcc, the soec. These are your best levers
for? Economic impact within the city limits. If you want
to increase our local economy. Continually to strongly invest in
your incredible building assets, live events and the staff that
run them. Questions. Thank you, Mr. Clark and Mr. Last.
So, Councillor, any questions? It's good to see that Penticton
is full of aging rockers. You want to go see
beach logo. Councilor Graham. Yeah. Thank you, chair. I just
want to give kudos to the management staff. Volunteers of
the Event Center Memorial Trade Convention. Clearly, the numbers are
indicating we're going in. The right direction. It's incredible to
hear the numbers coming out of the trade and convention
center. With respect. To how many we've seen. In this
upcoming year. So kudos to Deed and the team and
everyone. And I would also like to move their staff
recommendation, so we're going to move it. Do we have
a second. Seconded. I got a question as well regarding.
The events, especially the PTCC, with the conventions and et
cetera. I know anecdotally that the people that I talk
to. That come to have conventions here. They are very
impressed with. The service and the food. And general. They
love the city as well, but. Is there any data?
Like an exit poll, if you like, or convention. People
that have conventions here and getting the feedback from them.
Is there anything that we can take? A look at
in that regard. Well, certainly we do exiting surveys, so
certainly we can provide you with that data and we
look at that. That's a regular thing that happens in
almost every convention business. But our biggest opportunity. Is the
fact that there is market share to be had with
convention business. That have always seeked out the larger. Urban
communities like Vancouver, Calgary or Emitten. And right now. With
the ballooning cost. Of their major city hotels. Those conventions
are looking elsewhere for probably the first time. Well, first
time in ten years. So we are responding to many,
many rfps. And again, That digging in the corner. Is
happening from the mice initiative with tourism. So very pleased
with what Tom is doing, what Karen is doing over
in tourism, but the. Is this moment in time where.
Opportunity. We've dovetailed. The
CVB, Karen and Tom and that opportunity after Covid with
this resetting of hotel. Prices. So that's why. Look at
Penticton. We're seeing them. We do a great job with
our food. We do a great job with our services.
And so if we can capture them and get them
in the building, That's when we continually see, year after
year, repeat business. And so as long as we can
get them here, we can keep them. That's probably the
same thing for almost everything that is penticked in. So
you can get them here, we can keep them. Yeah,
that kind of was leading into my next question. Was
what percentage of repeat business, which is a difficult thing
to say. Whether it's a good result or not with
conventions, because they do like to move around. Obviously. But
we seem. I know for a fact that we've got
some repeat convention business. In town here purely based on.
The experiences that they've had with a single convention here.
Yeah, we have tremendous, first of all. The city is
tremendous. Obviously, once you get here. I think when it
comes to this service, when it comes to the food
quality, everyone here has probably had the food at the
PTCC. It's probably some of the best in town. And
then. When I first. The one thing. Was in charge
and moved to Penticton was the fact that we have
a bold, complex where you have the Suec attached to
the PTCC. You got the OHG. So when conventions have
outgrown other spaces. They can expand from this PTCC into
the SOEC or OhG. So we've been able to keep
convention spaces or conventions because of the ability to expand.
And so that's incredible for us. And just sort of
all the amenities in and around the facility. So I've
always said that we have a bald complex, and that's
one of the main reasons why we continue to keep
conventions for sure. Council. Any further questions? Councilor Conan. Any
questions? I'm getting a negative from Councillor Conan. So I'm
going to call the question. All in favor? And. I
get an affirmative from Councillor Conan. So that's unanimous. Thank
you very much. Thank you. Gentlemen. 7.22 Penticton Public Library.
And Councillor Gilbert, I believe you're going to accuse. Yeah.
Thank you. The chair. So I'll be doing a conflict
of interest as my wife works at the Pentecton library.
Thank you. I'd like to welcome Heather Pizzelle, the chief
librarian, and Ms. Campbell back. To the desk. For the
report from Penticton Public Library. Good morning, everyone. My name
is Heather Russell. I'm the chief librarian at the Penticton.
Public library, and I'm here to present our 2025 budget
on behalf of the library board. All right. So as
a public library, we provide free library services to the
residents of the City of Penticton. Beyond the loan of
physical and digital collections. This includes literacy based programming for
all ages research and readers advisory services, public access, computers
in study space, and so much more. As the chief
librarian, I oversee the day to day operations of the
library, guided by the strategic framework and value set by
our library board as our governing body, which consists of
a city Councillor. And eight to ten residents of appendix.
So beyond the loan of materials, the library hosts creative
literacy based programming for all ages. Both on our own
and in partnership with many community organizations such as the
Penticton museum. And archives one sky, the pentext and Art
gallery and SOS. Pride to name a few. The library
provides welcoming space for visitors and members of our community
to work and study or just sit and read. We
also supervise exams for distance learners and provide homebound delivery
services for residents of Penticton who are physically unable to
come into the library. And over the past few years,
a major focus has been on building a makerspace, which
we originally called Creative Solutions, which encourages residents to create
their own designs and see them through to fruition. With
the introduction of 3d or sublimination printing as well as
other maker technology. All right, so the library's work to
help advance council's safe and resilient. Strategic priority by participating
in community groups like 100 more homes, Penticton and the
Youth Action table and through partnerships with organizations like the
foundry to help address community challenges. Additionally, we continue to
focus on training. Our staff in fostering skills to work
with patrons who are struggling with homelessness, mental health or
substance use. To help push forward city council's livable and
accessible strategic priority. The library engaged accessibility testers from the
national network for equitable library services. To evaluate and improve
the library's website and catalog. Remedial work was completed in
the summer of 2024. But, of course, this is something
that is going to be ongoing. Additionally, with the support
of the city's facility department and funded through the provincial
library enhancement, Grant. We responded to patron demands to improve
the library space with the creation of a maker space.
Which grew out of creative solutions project and together with
that has been used in over 125 sessions. This year.
The renewal of the library strategic framework and business plan
to guide library services over the next three years, along
with our enhanced staff development policies, which is designed to
support staff who are seeking formal education and librarianship both
support city council's vision, the mission, culture, goals for the
city of Penticton. Here are some of our statistics to
the end of September. This is sort of an overall
snapshot of library services. Key performance indicators are dealt with
on the next few slides. So we welcomed over 100,000
visitors to the library and a further 131,000 through the
library's website and catalog. When adjusted for our closure in
June to the facility's. Electrical upgrades together. This is about
a 7% increase over 2023, the same period. Library staff
have delivered over 300 programs to nearly 6500 participants, plus
an approximate 20,000 20,000. Sorry. 2000. Connections were made with
patrons at community events like Kids Fest or Peach Fest.
More than 300,000 items have circulated. About 24% of that
is digital. The whole flocker, which is housed at the
community center, has been used by more than 400 patrons,
so some improvements could be seen there. We've also had
more than 1300 new patrons register at the library and
answered more than 19,000 reference questions. So this is a
highlight of some of the library's key performance indicators that
may be of interest to Councillor in the public. These
numbers are current to the end of July, and so.
Program attendance does look a little bit low here. However,
that was because it did not fully encapsulate our summertime
programming, which runs through August as well. As of last
week, we've exceeded the 2024 plan. And everything except for
the use advisory committee attendance because teens are hard. Summer
Reading Club participation was higher in 2024 than anticipated this
year, as we were able to hire two coordinators, which
allowed us to enhance the schedule. We are hoping to
see the same. Result in 2025. We've exceeded our class
visit expectations with about 27 visits from schools or two
schools to date. As mentioned previously, circulation in general is
strong, although the June closure certainly did have an impact.
Library of things, however, does need further promotion and evaluation,
although we do expect to see a jump in board
game and video game loan during the holiday season. Techhelp
continues to evolve to meet the needs of our patron.
That last count, we've had over 100 sessions in 2024.
Our major initiative for 2025. The library is planning on
using some grant funding again through the provincial library enhancement
grant to increase the comfort and enjoyment of the library
and improve accessibility by replacing aging stacks, new furniture, things
like that. Funds will be transferred. At year end from
this grant, and we'll also be seeking other granting opportunities
in 2025. As library staff are at capacity for new
projects, our plans for 2025 are to evaluate and improve
our current services and programs without adding any new functions
to the library space. This will provide flexibility to. Engage
in internal planning and evaluations for future projects. The detailed
budget for the library can be found on pages 194
to 195 of the financial plan the 2025 proposed net
budget has remained similar to 2024. However, in 2025, as
Miss Buzzwell mentioned, the library will be utilizing a specific
project grant which has increased individual revenues and expenses compared
to the 2024 budget Libr. Library revenues consist of grants
from different sources, agreements from other entities, and service fees
and expenses include book purchases, wages and program costs. In
terms of budget drivers, the library will be bargaining with
their local QP 608 in 2025, along with the increased
operating costs that most areas are facing books have increased
in price by approximately 15% since 2019. Ebook cost. Costing
for a public library is, on average, four times higher
than for a member of the public. With a limited
license period. While those costs have been somewhat mitigated with
a multiple render model. The cost for these services have
increased and will continue to do so. Primary initiative for
2025 will focus on improvements to the library's accessibility and
comfort and the funds for that will be drawn from
that provincial enhancement grant with that. The Councillor recommendation is
to approve in principle the library 2025 to 2029 proposed
budget subject to final review. Thank you. And, Councillor, any
questions? Any comments, Councillor Graham? I think you like to
move the staff recommendation. Please do have a second. Seconded.
Thank you. And. Any further comments? And I'm getting a
negative from Councillor Conan, so I'm going to call the
question. All in favor? And Councillor Conan skysy handraise. So,
yes, that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you.
And we're moving on to 7.3. We're moving into public
safety. And our first presentation on public safety is from
the Penticton Fire Department. Like to welcome Mike Larson, the
fire chief, and Ms. Campbell, please. Good morning. Thank you
for having me. The Pinticton Fire Department has been serving
the community of Penticton in the regional district since 1911.
The department is a composite department which has both career
and auxiliary members working out of two stations. Firehall one
located on Nanaimo and fire hall two located on Dawson.
The department consists of 49 staff and is proposing to
increase staff to 50 for growth in the fire prevention
division, allowing the division to meet requirements set by the
province. Our division provides a wide range of services that
meet the expectations of the community and its many visitors,
including fire suppression, prehospital medical care. A variety of rescues,
including motor vehicle incidents, industrial accidents and technical rescue. We
also complete fire inspections investigations, business licenses, occupancy inspections, freedom
information request, Office of the Fire Commission reports and many
other fire prevention activities. Some of the divisional achievements for
Penticton Fire Department in 2024 include safe staffing levels to
ensure coverage of two engines with a four person crew
for emergency response within the city. Of Penticton and the
successful opening of the new apparatus storage building has pictured
here. I joined emergency operation training exercise was held in
2024 in collaboration with ESS volunteers. Completion of the first
responder study, which resulted in changes and efficiencies in response
protocols and a four year collective agreement with the IFF
local 1399 was reached. I would like to take an
opportunity to highlight a few of the KPIs for the
department. That may be of interest to counsel. These numbers
shown are for the first half of 2024. But a
couple of note are that the total fire inspections are
down 11% at midyear. And they're expected to decrease even
lower in 2024 due to personnel changes. Within the division.
And overall response to calls in 2024 is seeing a
6% increase over 2023 that's the trends we saw in
2023 was 12% over 2022. So is a trend of
increase. Proposed initiatives for 2025 the addition of an exempt
fire prevention officer to assist the department in meeting provincial
requirements and community needs. This is an important first step
in a multi year growth strategy. In the department with
an operating budget of $198,685. The development of a hazard
risk and vulnerability assessment that will meet the new EDMA,
or Emergency disaster Management act requirements. Utilizing provincial grants, Pentictin
will develop a plan focusing on hazard specific risk assessment
and planning. The plan for 2025 is to complete a
third party operational risk assessment on low frequency, high severity
instance. Specifically airport response, water rescues and high rise operations.
It's important to have a review of our procedures by
a third party subject matter expert. To ensure the safety
of our personnel and the efficiency to our response to
these incidents. The last time such a review was done
was in. Swift water operations. And from this review, we
changed operational guidelines, safety practices and strategies that significantly improved
the response and well being of our firefighters. The operational
budget request for this is $50,000. We'll continue with wildfire
and fire smart planning and mitigation strategies that are compliant
with Edma updates, the city's emergency program manager and fire
smart coordinator will investigate and pursue grants and lead the
mitigation efforts. We'll also replace our outdated fire department record
management software with a new user friendly software. System. The
new software will replace a multitude of existing programs, including
scheduling, training events, and activities. Assets and inventory, fire inspections
and property database. The replacement of the software will improve
operations, save time. And improve overall efficiencies. Some of the
operational efficiencies achieved this year include. Penticton Emergency support services
is now reporting to the rdos with no changes of
level. Service to the residents of Pentictin. This will improve
resiliency in our team and response to emergencies. And we
also completed the first responders study where Penticton all Penticton
response calls were examined, opportunities for efficiencies were identified and
implemented. The detailed budget for the fire department can be
found on pages 160 to 161 of the plan. Overall,
the 2025 budgeted net cost for fire is $9 million,
a $1.4 million increase over the 2024 budget. Revenues for
2025 are forecasted at $1.1 million under Madapus service contracts,
recoveries, permits and. Grants, with the reduction from 2024 being
related to less anticipated grant revenues, which is offset by
a reduction in related expenses. Expenses are forecasted to increase
$1.4 million, which is directly related to the contract negotiations
and budget requests, which will be discussed in upcoming slides.
Approximately 90% of the fire department expenses are related to
labor costs. This year. Key budget drivers in the fire
budget can be directly tied to the recent contract negotiations
which impacted contractual labor costs, an FTE request, as well
as several initiatives which we'll go over shortly. The first
proposed initiative for the fire department is a request of
$50,000 to complete. Risk assessments on low frequency, high severity
rescues and operations, specifically airport water and high rise. The
assessment will compel findings and recommendations to guide high risk
rescues and operations. The second proposed initiative for the fire
department is a request for a new position for fire
prevention. Officer at a cost of $160,000 to meet community
needs and provincial requirements for fire. Inspections. The department has
not expanded this internal department in over 30 years and
is beyond capacity and its ability to meet provincial requirements
of completing over 2400 required inspect. Inspections. I'll turn it
back to Chief Larson to elaborate on this initiative further.
Thank you. When I arrived last year, I identified the
lack of resources that are needed in the prevention division.
There's been substantial growth in the city and development over
the years, and there is still the same two resources
in the prevention division. As you look at the slide,
you will see the 2023. Prevention stats notably was the
number of inspectable properties at. 2179. And these don't account
for the nearly 475 reinspections that were required. Inspectoral properties
in 2024 are closer to 2400. In 2023, only 1495
inspections were completed by our two inspectors and the fire
suppression staff. Showing that we're not meeting our provincial mandates.
On average, a full time fire inspector can complete 600
fire inspections annually, and suppression crews can complete approximately 350
company inspections. On this slide. You will also see a
list of time consuming prevention activities outside of these inspections.
That. Are currently being done by our inspector, but just
can't be maintained. An unexpected retirement over inspection officer in
2024 was a significant loss of knowledge, skills and abilities.
In the division. Getting an exempt fire prevention officer is
an important piece to ensure that we have a leader
who can restructure the division, train inspectors and schedule inspections
to ensure we are meeting provincial requirements. As well as
working with development services on future growth of the city.
They'll also be responsible to do the list you saw
above of the non inspection pieces of the prevention department.
Failing to fill this important position forces myself as the
fire chief to absorb the workload and prevents me from
effectively fulfilling other core responsibilities. This workload cannot be sustained
by myself in the fire chief office. The third proposed
initiative for the fire department is to replace the existing
software that chief Larson mentioned. Earlier, which is reached at
the end of life. The new system will improve operations,
increase efficiencies. And decrease liability with a cost of $30,000.
And with that, the recommendation is that Councillor approve in
principle the fire department's budget subject. To final review. Thank
you. Thank you, Mr. Larson. And Ms. Campbell. Councillor, any
questions? Councilor Conan. Thank you. I apologize for my voice.
But. I'd like to bring forward a motion that. We
not hire the $160,000 inspector? Because. We're already just trying
to pay off four new firefighters. Maybe the cheap or
RCO can explain how. We. 're still trying to. We
still are paying for four new firefighters at this time.
And so that's a motion. And do we have a
second for that motion? I'm not hearing a seconder for
that motion. I'm going to call again. So the motion
is. To not hire the fire inspector at the cost
of $160,000 a year, is that correct. I'm getting a
nod from Councillor Conanz. So, once again, do we have
a seconder? For that motion. And I'm not hearing a
second for that motion, so that motion fails. Council. Do
we have any further discussions? Any questions? And.
I have a couple of. Questions? Actually, one I noticed.
In the report. On the number of calls, and if
we go back, we can see that. The medical. Calls.
So for the first seven months of 2024, they look
sort of like they're on the increase from 2023. But
the actual overdose response calls shows a significant decrease. Can
you sort of rationalize that a little bit more, Mr.
Larson, please? Yeah. It's right on trend, as it has
been the last few years. At the beginning of the
year, we were down a slight bit, but over the
summer months, we picked right back up. To where we
were. So we are on trend for actually breaking about
1% over on overdose. Calls this year, okay? Do we
have a motion on the. Is anybody going to move?
The staff recommendation is moved. Do we have a second?
Seconded. Any further questions? Comments? Discussion? Councillor Conan, any discussion?
Any questions? No further questions. And hearing none. Then I'm
going to call the question. All in favor? And Councillor
Connez. Opposed. Councilor Conanz is opposed and.
So. That motion passes. And thank you very much. Thank
you, Chief Larson. Moving on to penticton
rcmp. And we have Superintendent Beth McCandy and Ms. Campbell,
please. Sure. Good morning.
I appreciate the opportunity to be able to present. On
the overview of the Pentex in RCMP budget and the
request for additional resources this year. The core values of
integrity, compassion, respect, and accountability are the heart of our
operations at the particular NRCMP. Our mission is clear to
safeguard the public, uphold the rule of law, and maintain
order in our community through vigilant investigations, proactive crime prevention
measures, and empathetic assistance. We are dedic. Dedicated to ensuring
the security and welfare of all individuals. By fostering collaborative
partnership within the community, we strive to build trust and
cultivate positive relationships. Whether conducting patrols, inquiries, engaging and supporting
youth and or diverse communities, or providing aid during crisis.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to uphold our values,
ensuring that each action reflects our dedication to serving with
integrity and distinction. The Penticton RCMP detachment is led by
myself, the officer in charge, and consists of 57 members
and 27 municipal staff. In addition to three public service
employees, there are three business lines within the RCMP operations,
frontline investigative services and operational support. There are also two
municipal business lines, operations and administration. Every member of our
senior leadership team has over 20 years of policing experience
and our experience working within the RCMP framework, this team
continues to drive and lead change. Use innovative approaches to
public safety with a strong focus on employee wellness and
operational excellence. The RCMP provides comprehensive policing services to the
city committed to community safety and security, providing law enforcement,
investigative services, crime prevention. Also focusing on community engagement, building
trust and creating a sense of safety. Working in partnership
with the city to ensure local needs are met, fostering
a safer and more connected community. Just reviewing some of
our divisional achievements for 2024. One of the highlights for
me this year was the inception of our integrated crisis
response team, which started in January. This team has consistently
demonstrated the impact of this collaboration with interior health. And
what it brings to our community. This team has responded
to over 500 calls for service and provided over 280
referrals connecting and supporting those experiencing mental health. And crisis
or drug addictions. They've worked with those experiencing homelessness, supported
youth in crisis. And can you continue to make efforts
to extend their services and outreach? Having three amazing nurses
and two eager constables working within the detachment. The relationship.
Has naturally fostered mentorship, a greater understanding of mental health,
and the impacts within the policing world. As we work
to provide the best police in response to our community.
We know that the work being led by this program
has provided vital support to those in need. While freeing
up our frontline teams to respond to police related matters
within the city. I look forward to discussions next year
whether we will need to expand this program based on
the evidence, data and needs of our community. Furthermore, this
summer we saw the implementation of our inadmissible patrons pilot
project, a collaboration with the Penticton RCMP, City of Penticton,
local hotels, restaurants and licensed establishments to enhance security and
prevent criminal activities. The strategy seeks. To deter gang members
and their associates from engaging in legal activities in Pentictin.
Our objectives were to ensure public safety, patron safety and
staff safety, and we're proud to report that. We have
five hotels currently participating, along with 13 liquor or dining
establishments and other two commercial. Locations. This has been a
great response and I look forward to reporting more out
on that during the summer. Overall, property crime reduction is
down a total of 16%, and we continue to make
efforts to maintain proactive work in the identified hotspots to
deer property crime and other criminal activities. The benefit is
focusing our finite resources in areas of the city where
we know that will have the most impacts. We have
seen the benefits of this work in reduced calls for
service and areas where both the RCMP and bylaws have
been present. We've also seen that the continued partnership and
collaboration has been key to success in public. Safety within
our communities. In the last twelve months, as the officer
in charge, I've had the opportunity to meet, strategize, plan
and rekindle relationships with many key community partners social service
sectors health, education and business group. Groups. It is through
the initiation of these connections that we can continue to
build a safer and more connected community. I will continue
to make efforts to reach out, connect, and listen as
we work to plan for the next three years, I'm
truly energized by what has already been accomplished. In twelve
months. Additionally, one of the things that I heard from
all of the groups was, why doesn't the RCMP do
a better job at telling their story. So what we
did was we set out to acquire additional training within.
The municipality. As it relates to media relations. To enhance
our formalized messaging to the community, we created our social
media platform with over 120 crime prevention, public safety, and
or community engagement messages and worked extensively with our communications
team here at the city to really amp up our
profile. There has been a revitalization of intelligenceled, proactive enforcement
strategies in relation to the repeat offender management and hotspot
patrols, which has led to over 330 hours of proactive
police patrols and identified high crime areas since March of
2024. New has also been information sharing initiated between bylaw
services and the RCMP in relation to hotspot patrols, maximizing
resources to address the areas within the city most impacted
by property. Crime. The initiation of joint patrols within bylaw
services will have greater success and is forecasted to be
something that will be able to report out with the
creation of a new community safety unit. More hours of
coverage. By our indigenous policing services, both. On PIB and
within the municipality, extending their hours to allow them to
be more present in community, increasing that sense of safety.
Updated technology within our detachment in relation to monitoring equipment,
which was completed in 2024, and this has been an
incredible win for the detachment. En. Ensuring that we are
compliant with provincial policing standards and improving our ability to
provide quality, best evidence to BC prosecution services. Those are
just some of the many highlights from the RCMP for
this year, and some of the things that I would
like. To also showcase to Councillor is that was not
captured. In the 2025 2020. Nine plan. Is the additional
key performance indicators. We will be reporting out on. Onto
first and foremost is our proactive press releases. We are
seeking to make sure that we are proactively engaging formally
through media at least twice a month. And we'll be
sharing. Those wins through social media and through connection with
our public safety team here at city, through our community
consultation process. Like I already spoke about was that ability
to tell our story in a better way in a
more timely manner and making sure that it is not
just reporting about a specific crime that occurred. On that
day, but being able to proactively send out public safety
messaging on trends that we are seeing within the community.
Working in partnership with city Communications will remain a priority
for this year. Also. In May of 2024. We also
showcased. The social media platform, which we've already spoken about
here in my presentation, but we will be reporting out
on public safety messaging as one of our key performance
indicators. Also proposed for the initiatives for this year. They
are in line with our 2024 2027 strategic plan. Which
I've spoken about many times to Councillor. Connected for a
safer city with four key areas of focus. Connecting connection
which is connect vulnerable people with appropriate supports impact crime
trends through intelligenceled strategies advanced partnerships for natural and human
cause disasters and drive results together. I will just quickly
highlight some of the initiatives that we will be focusing
on under each of. These pillars within our strategic plan.
So for. Connection. Collaborate with the RCMP community policing and
bylaw services for a youth liaison position to engage proactively
with at risk use and connect through education. Through the
school district and other platforms within the community. We are
also requesting an assessment and laying the groundwork for the
establishment of a child and youth advocacy center within the
municipality. The creation of a community safety unit, which will
be one of my requests to counsel today with a
primary mandate to collaborate with bylaws, provide youth outreach and
support to our most at risk within the community. This
will be a team that supports the integrated crisis response
team to improve outreach to those experiencing mental health and
substance abuse. And those also experiencing homelessness and be a
primary connection. To our shelters within the community. And in
addition, advancement of our equity, diversity and inclusion. Training within
the detachment focused on a trauma informed response to gender
based violent crimes. So to impact crime, I spoke earlier
about seeking a grant application for site funding. This is
through the provincial revoi program. Specifically requesting camera equipment.
In areas within the community, specifically this summer, where we
saw an increase in violent crime in an effort to
deter crime and or more effectively investigate these incidents further.
Collaboration with bylaw services. Completing such things as crime prevention
through environmental design or Sept, as you may have heard
it be. Called and Nanaima Square and other areas that
may have been identified through our hotspot. Initiatives. Proactive communication
in relation to crime trends, with a focus on crime
prevention and collaboration with our community policing team here in
the south, Okanagan. This is to advance preparedness for national
and human cause. Disasters working interagency training such as with
the winter shelter, the school district, the Penticton Indian Band
and the Penticton Regional Airport. And establishing the RCMP command
center, which I think you all had an opportunity to
see last. Week with the tour. And the area we
have identified for that renovation. And lastly, this is where
we work together as a detachment with the city to
drive results together. And this is where we come and
prioritize as a team what we would like led. In
the detachment, and it doesn't always have to be led
by the senior leadership team. By leaders identified from within
the detachment in areas such as increased our wellness initiatives
within the detachment employee engagement and training opportunities that are
modern and progressive leadership and development opportunities at all ranks
within the detachment in all category of employee. The proposed
creation of the operational review unit, which will lead enhanced
investigation capacity in the pursuit of organizational excellence regarding member
and municipal employee levels of service and expectations. Assessing the
renewal of the Pentictin traffic section and if we have
the resources available to reanimate that team within the detachment
will be a priority for this year. And internal reorganization
of our command structure within front line, which I will
speak about a little bit. Later on in my presentation.
I think one of the things that's really important today.
Is to be able to discuss with Councillor the work
that we've done internally. To really? Are we operating in
the best way that we can? Are we? A modern
and progressive detachment. We're in a small municipality within the
province and making sure that we are keeping up with.
Policing trends as it relates to how we conduct business
before we come to Councillor making these types. Of requests.
And so the team really leaned in on that, and
I'd like just to highlight some of the things that
we were able to be successful with this year. So
conducting the review in itself. And really, where do we
want to be three years from now? As a police
detachment. And what are some of the units that we
should be thinking about creating. Or. Are the teams that
we have created really providing the best response? And so
that was the review. Of our crime reduction unit and
making sure that their mandate was on point. And where
we saw the greatest risk to the community and making
sure that. We had a scope that. Could be measured
successfully. So we reviewed our repeat offender management team in
our program and how that was being deployed within the
city to make sure we could best address those people
that were driving. Up. Our crime rate in relation to
property crime. And basically, we also made sure that if
there was an opportunity. To task work that was being
conducted by your frontline officers to the appropriate municipal employee,
making sure that was freeing up valuable time from officers
for them to be able to get back out. Onto
the road. And so really leaning into both Ken and
Randy's team with our municipal employees and being able to
task them with additional work. So it will allow officers
to be out on the road proactively investigating. And being
present within the community. We also continue to see the
income coming from our digital forensic trios team. I know,
Ange. Is always pleased when we can say that we
are bringing in funds to the municipality, so thank you
again for that continued support. We have seen that this
really allows for a more timely examination of evidence and
our ability. To prepare reports to crown and present that
evidence for charge assessment. So we will continue to see
the benefits of that, and I know that we are
heavily tasked with that. One of the things that I
don't want to take credit for, but I know it
was in play, just. Before I arrived. So 2023. 2024.
But the city has really seen the benefit of the
staffing of the regional. Operations position, which is not municipally
funded, but. This position was vital because some of the
work that was being tasked to your municipally funded staff
surgeons was being done. For the region. And so the
creation of the staff sergeants that the regional operations staff
surgeon Dan Pollock has taken on that work. And so
the work, now that you see Bob and Andrew is
for the municipality and making sure they can focus the
work that they're doing. For those positions within the city
was so vital, and we've seen the benefit of Dan's.
Position. And him being appropriately tasked with that work to
the region. So making sure that we could focus the
work that both Andrew and Bob were doing back to
where they're funded to be, if that makes sense. So
hopefully I explained that well enough. Happy to answer questions
on that. Creating opportunities for shared response with bylaw. And
this was key, as we did the bylaw review with
Miss Check and the work that was being tasked with
both the RCmp and bylaw services and making sure that
they were lawful in their response and being tasked appropriately
and for those calls of service. But also, when possible,
a shared response was so vital to our ability. To
quickly. See the benefit of. A two agency response and
so more to follow out on that. But I think
less calls for service or less questions about which department
was going to be taking that call. And definitely more
clarity on that piece was a win. I spoke on
our last quarterly report about public works collaboration with Ms.
Dixon in regards to where we see trends as it
relates to areas where we have lots of traffic complaints,
traffic accidents and if there is work to collaborate there,
and I think we'll continue to see some of the
benefits of that. More so in 2000. And 25. But
that work was started this year, the camera program, and
I know that was supported. By the city. But I
think being able to liaise of the downtown business association.
On that work and making sure that we can help
inform them as it relates to some of the decision
making on that, so. That was. Inefficiency because. We will
see the benefit of the evidence. When we lawfully secure
it from them as it relates to some of the
property crime businesses. Are experiencing. And lastly. This is a
great deal of work done by Staff Sergeant Bayless, and
we have done a reorganization of our frontline supervision. We
identified the need for guidance and mentorship on the road.
And the way we were organized internally, we had watches
that were run by a watch commander of the rank
of corporal. And so we relied on. Senior constables to
provide supervision on the road. And mentorship as we are
responding for calls to service. We were able to reorganize,
and we will now be staffing each watch with a
sergeant. So now, with two positions going to sergeant rank,
we will have four frontline corporals on. The road. Supervising
this will be key. To pushing our members to be
more proactive in those areas where we see property crime
taking place be more visible in relation to road checks.
I heard at the open house about wanting to see
us out there doing traffic enforcement, but also just making
sure that we're providing that best police response, and it's
so key. As we have junior members on the road,
that they're guided in how we respond to those calls
for service. So in the new year, you will see
four watches being supervised by a sergeant. And four corporals
on the road supervising our frontline teams, and I think
that will be a huge win for 2025, and we
were able to do that all internally before I come.
To you today making the asks that I will be.
So details for the RCMP budget can be found on
pages 163 to 164 of the plan for the 2025
proposed budget. The net cost for the RCMP is budgeted
at $15.3 million, an increase of 1.1 million from the
2024 budget. Revenues for the RCMP consists of recoveries of
services provided and have increased 155,000. Specifically for the DfT
work that Superintendent McKinney mentioned before. 98% of the RCMP
expenses consist of labor costs for the municipal employees as
well as the member contract. These have increased 1.3 million
overall, with over 700,000 of those increases as a result
of annual contract inflation. The remaining additional cost for the
new staffing resources being requested, which will be discussed in
detail in the next few slides. Key budget drivers for
the RCMP include the contractual labor increases for both municipal
employees as well as the members, and in addition to
the new employee request and member request, that we will
be talking about over the next few slides here. Well,
the first proposed initiative for the RCMP is an increase
of two additional member resources to create a new community
safety unit. This unit will have a primary. Mandate to
collaborate with bylaw services, youth outreach, and community engagement. The
unit will include the integrated crisis response team to improve
outreach to those experiencing mental health and substance use disorders.
As the approval of these members by Councillor through budget
results in a request to provide the members, which generally
takes twelve months. The $450,000 cost of these members is
being built until the 2026. Budget to ensure that the
city isn't taxing the community for service. It will not.
Receive until the following year. I'll turn it back to
Superintendent McKandy to provide. Further details on the member request.
The city of Penticton has continued to make investment in
public safety, specifically policing, for the last few years. There
were no additional budget requests made of the city of
pendiction from the RCMP. In 2024, the Penticton RCMP did
receive two provincially funded regular member positions that have been
staffed and one public service employee position. In 2022. As
you are all aware, the Ministry of Public Safety and
Solicitor General, policing and security Branch published a review of
police resources. The report documented that for municipalities, over 15,000
or higher, the criminal. Code. Criminal code. Caseload per police
officer in Penticton was 131. Second only to Courtney BC,
which was at 136 file per police officer. The provincial
average in modestipalities over 15,000 is 68. We are almost
twice the provincial average caseload. Per police officer. What are
results? What are the results of having this workload? There
are impacts of this workload. On all category of employees
wellness and our ability to respond to calls for service
in a timely manner, complete timely investigations, write up, score
and or categorize and capture, capture accurate information. Or prepare
the appropria. Appropriate report to Crown counsel for Crown's consideration
for charges. As the officer in charge, I have to
ask myself, does this work load impact the quality of
our investigations. Are we calling people back to provide them
with appropriate updates in relation to their police complaints? This
has been identified as a KPI in our detachment, and
I can say that I know that. There is work
that still needs to be done in this area. Showing
up at our best for every citizen remains a priority
of all of our officers, and we are dedicated and
working very hard. How long is it taking to get.
To get to 911 calls? The policing standard is seven
minutes. And we are not in a position to easily
gather this information. To provide you a summary of what
our average response time is, and we are prioritizing. That
we are able to do that for you in the
weeks and months ahead. We want to be able to
better examine our data and better tell our story. We
currently only have one criminal. Intelligence analyst for the entire
South Okanagan Samilcomine regional attachment. This position is funded 60%
by the city of Penticton, and the detachment could use
her 100% of the time. We are unable to deal
with our priority. Three and four calls for service adequately.
There may be some files that we are unable to
respond to other than providing a file number. For insurance
purposes or information only. This is not a popular position
for the police to be in. That being said, this
is the reality of our current situation. We are still
asking the public to report crime. If you see something,
we want you to say. Something. We need to be
able to capture the totality of what is required for
police in the city. We are making efforts to proactively
address crime trends and address repeat. Crime offenders. We are
constantly hearing about traffic safety issues from the public, and
my job is to lead a strategy to address our
obligations under our municipal policing agreement. Balancing the impacts of
overtast officers what is often unknown by the public and
local government is a requirement that must be met in
relation to ongoing police training standards. Mandatory training compliance, which
is either annual or set out otherwise. I often have
to consider sick leave injuries and annual leave obligations. To
just need a few other factors to consider. Our officers
are tasked with additional responsibilities in relation to court and
disclosure obligations. More recent case law such as Regina versus
Jordan or Reginas versus Morocca have placed additional demands on
our investigators, while digital evidence management requirements to better manage
our investigations electronically. To ensure we adhere to OB. Obligations
as to the MoU for the BC prosecution service. There
are no short of overtime shifts to fill, often reaching
out to detachments outside of the Sotho Ganagan. We have
leveraged relations with ships with some of our provincial partners.
Such as BC highway patrol. There are CFSeu, uniform gain
task force. As you saw last summer, our southeast district
major. Crime section and other provincial support units to assist
with local safety strategies. We have overtast officers and overtast
municipal watch clerks and support staff. Officers are tied to
their desks, trying to address outstanding investigations and requirements of
disclosure resulting in left officers on the road, being visible
and proactive. Our watch clerk should be assisting more with
frontline operations, but instead they are tasked. With other aspects
of file intake and management. Tasked with high risk work
that is part of the essential foundation of our ability
to respond, investigate. And engage and collect essential crime data.
There's more to follow on that particular topic. I mentioned,
we have done considerable work to examine our internal process
and looked more effectively deploy resources. While tasking work to
the correct level of employee. We were able to get
four additional resources on the road I told you earlier
about by adjusting our internal structure. We will see this
time, this come to fruition in 2025. That being said,
we have been asked to commit to additional activities in
the cities, such as the temporary winter shelter and the
increased partnership with. Bylaws. This is innovative and strategic work,
yet continues to task our staff. With the creation of
a community safe unit. It will include the integrated Crisis
response team, a wraparound response to supporting those experiencing mental
health addictions crisis while adding an additional layer in relation
to homelessness and the pediction RCMP's prior to connecting those
in our community with the correct supports the community safety.
Unit officers will work in partnership with the City of
Penticton Bylaw Services, the school district, community policing and other
key community partners. This team's mandate will include share patrols
in response with bylaws to address social issues, encampments, problem
property compliance and liaison with community shelters. Proactively engaging with
at risk Youth Business Association, a liaison and during the
summer months conduct high visibility foot and bike patrols. This
is a lofty mandate and. Will be implemented in a
phased approach based on the priority and greatest impact the
creation of this team aligns with the recommendations made in
the public safety review and seeks to shift some of
the work tasked to frontline officers to this integrated team
within the detachment. We want to make every effort to
provide the best response to those within our community. Are
experiencing crisis implementing a trauma informed response to services. Remains,
pardon me, remains a priority. And freeing up officers call
to attend for calls for service and related to unwanted
persons will impact their abilities to better respond and truly
implement the practice of trauma. Informed policing, supporting those who
have been impacted by violence or indoor repeat offenders. The
creation of a community safe. Safety team within the city
of Penticton is modern, progressive response to policing. This team
will start the creation of a foundational infrastructure in what
is needed within the city of pennticton. So the second
request is to increase municipal employee resources by two FTE
and implement an operational review unit staffed by operational reviewers
at a cost of $189,000. These new positions will assume
high level tasks from noncommissioned officers and watch clerks and
is strongly recommended due to the complex and high risk
nature of file review again. I'll let Superintendent McKinney speak
further to this request. What was really important, and I
think we had an opportunity to do it last week
when you had a tour of the facilities. Is really,
how are we supported internally by our municipal staff, who
really are the foundation of the work that we do.
In the detachment. And so I want to just summarize
for you how we are set. Up internally as it
relates to our watch clerks, which are four municipal staff
that support each of our four watches. A, B, C
and D watch. So currently, each of our four frontline
watches is supported by a watch clerk. This position remains
the primary support to the watch members, the watch commander
and the senior patrol sergeant. They are tasked with the
first and most critical step in file and take outside
of the initial police response. So once the file has
been dispatched by our operational call center in Kelowna, the
file is reviewed, scored in terms of entering the correct
crime type based on the nature of the call details
and the initial police response. By our watch clerks. This
response is then reviewed. This scoring and review can trigger
a number of other steps in the records management process.
Depending on the initial scoring done by the watch clerks,
This can be described as the building of the foundation
of our records management system. This is a huge responsibility.
Holds a certain level of risk and require significant experience
to get it right. This work is taking away from
the support that is typically assigned to the watch clerks,
like assisting the watch commander with supporting operations, overtime callouts,
managing members, court schedules, and Justin entries, which is the
platform we use. To schedule officers. To attend court. The
transcription of statements. Are frontline disclosure preparation, which will now
include preparation of body worn camera material, which we now
know is coming in February. Assisting with the preparation for
bale hub, which is when we have someone in custody
and they are being required to be brought before a
judge. There are just a few. These are just a
few tasks given to our watch clerks. If they are
over task. We are having to pay additional staff to
come in and transcribe statements. Which are required for disclosure.
This will hold up the ability to disclose in a
timely manner if our watch clerks are tasked with all
the jobs I've described above. This. Creates an additional delay.
And as you can see, There is a domino effect.
With the creation of the two person operational review Unit,
watch clerks will be tasked appropriately with work they should
be expected to do as a watch clerk, freeing them
to better support frontline teams. The goal of freeing up
officers to more quickly respond to calls for service conduct
more timely investigations. And resulting in earlier submissions to report
to Crown counsel. Assisting the watch commanders in tracking the
progress of complex and high risk files. The operational review
team will ensure best practice and inheritance to policy in
relation to intimate partner violence, sex crimes investigations and making
sure that we have applied the principles of trauma informed
policing to some of these high risk. Files. They will
also be assigning administrative follow ups and alerting frontline road
supervisors to files that require attention either with investigative follow
up victim management strategies or prescribe dates for judicial authorizations.
Some of these authorizations allow us to retain exhibits. And
evidence before charges have been approved. And if we fail
to complete those in the 90 days. We will lose
the ability to retain that evidence which is given permission
by this document. I'm. Talking about. So this is something
that has always existed but definitely become more apparent. And
the police are more heavily scrutinized on this in the
last five years, the operational review of files requires a
significant degree of judgment and discretion in reviewing investigational standards
to a broad range of cases, from minor offenses to
violent crimes against persons that could have significant public safety
implications further. Reviewers should have the experience, knowledge, and capacity
to identify aspects relating to a file and proactively engage
supervisors at all ranks and support units to manage or
mitigate deficiencies in these high risk areas. So, in summary,
the operational review unit will provide more investigative oversight, improve
quality of investigations, improve streamline with court process identify risks
that require immediate follow up that jeopardize prosecution or risk
to public safety. Allow for supervisors to be on the
road supporting frontline constables. More time will be spent on
the road by officers. Because they will have the support
of watch clerks to do their disclosures. More time dealing
with more complex investigation with the hope of improving the
quality of investigations. Allow for watch clerks to provide that
additional support, as I spoke about in relation to body
worn cameras, transcription disclosure, bail. Package preparations, training court. And
additional tasking. They will also for more proactive hours in
high crime areas because our officers will now be in
a position to be on the road. It is for
this reason that I'm requesting an increase of two municipal
resources for the Penticton RCMP, allowing for this risk mitigation
strategy to apply to all four watches seven days a
week. Thank you for this consideration. And that brings us
to the recommendation that Councillor approve in principle, the RCMP's
2025 to 2029. Budget as proposed, subject to final review.
Thank you very much, Superintendent McKandy and Scambell. Councillor Gilbert.
Sorry. Yeah. Thank you. The chair. My questions in regard
to. The incident critical response team. 2024 100 and then
actual 2024 494. The two questions with that one. The
first question is, how's the morale with the team? The
three nurses and the three officers that are going out
on there. And two, how much are we. Seeing repeats.
That. They're getting the first contact. With the critical team,
the RCMP. How many of those people are we seeing
that are getting these repeat calls for those services. So,
as you can imagine, the number 100 comes from just
a guess, because. We didn't have any metrics in place
or any statistics. So I think the morale of that
team. Is they're energized by the work. They see the
impacts that they're having within the front line team. Having
three people in your office that are not police officers,
that come from a completely different field. It is amazing
to see the perspectives that they bring. And I think.
It actually has helped us be better in our work
in terms of compassion, understanding. Having an understanding of some
of the challenges these people are facing with. Various mental
health disorders and addiction challenges. So provide. An extra level
of patient and compassion to those teams, yes. They're incredibly
overworked, and we would ultimately love to. Have four nurses
and four constables assigned to each watch, but we're not
there yet. And that will come in time. So, yes,
they are busy, but they see the value in the
work that they're having. In the community. And energized by
that. And your question was about morale. And your question
was about and repeats. I used an Alas quarterly report.
We had one individual. That we had 109 calls for
service, and this was a huge win in our integrated
crisis response. Team. So I would suggest that individual. What
we would call, or you described as. A repeat or
repeat client after being engaged with our integrated crisis response
team and having basically a strategy to deal with this
individual. In the month of September, we had one call
for service from that individual. That's a huge win. And
that call for service would be definitely one where it
was. Very appropriate that they reached out to the RCMP
for support. So to break it down in terms of
repeat customers. That's just one example. I know. Is sourced.
And I would suggest that. We do have a certain
clientele that we see on a regular basis to give
you that. Number I don't have in front of me,
but where also some of the other. Success stories would
be. Youth experiencing crisis. Suicidal ideations and be able to
have that support and provide that to families. And I
know I've seen some positive messaging coming from families being
able to have that nurse and police officer respond. I
think. Those families were experiencing such crisis and were so
fearful. For their team that having that immediate response and
a strategy in place, they felt cared and supported. For.
So that's just another example that I can say. Those
five individuals in our detachment see the work that they're
doing and knowing the impact. They're having. Follow up. Yeah.
Thank you. Just to follow up, and it's just a
comment to it. And I really appreciate that because I
think when we look at this team, The concern that
I had with it is that when it was implemented,
is this going to be repeat, repeat, repeat. But it
is good to hear that there are hopefully services outside
of that they're. Getting from the rcmp. In the critical
response team to the services of interior health and elsewhere
to be able to manage. The crises that they're going
through, and it's not. Burdening the RCMP with the constant
call, so I'm really glad to hear that. And I'm
really glad to hear some of the successes from that
program. Thank you. Gratifying to hear that. The programs that
we put into place to help the RCMP be better
at the job are actually working. Councillor Conan is next,
and then I have Councillor Graham. Yes. Hi again. Apologize
for my voice. That I don't have today. But thanks
for all your hard work. I really appreciate it. Sounds
like we're really making progress. But what I want to
know is about these two new municipal employees. Are you
making the same ask to the rdos or something similar?
To help with. Their. Files. And with the provincial rcmp.
So that obviously our municipal employees aren't doing the work
of the regional district or that they are at least
contributing. So through the chair as it relates to requests.
Made to the Rdos and or to the province. So
as highlighted, and I'm sorry, which slide it was, but
in 2024, We discussed the fact that we received. Two
provincially funded regular member positions and one public service employee
position, which. Will assist with the support as it relates
to the RDos area. And making sure that the work
that is being done outside of the municipality is appropriately
tasked. This discussion is something our team has talked about
most recently. As it relates to the work that is
done in that regional district area. I spoke about our
analyst who is 60% funded by the municipality but also
40% funded by the RDos. And region. And so is
that correct? And so that is some of that analytics
work. That directs our provincially funded RCMP members in the
RDos area. That is some of the work that we
have. Been doing and assessing most recently to address the
question that you have. Do you have a follow up
question, your hand still raised? Yeah, I do, actually. Want
to follow up with. Making sure that you let us
know when we need to lobby for a position like
that, because. The municipality is taking possibly the brunt of
that work. And we may need to hire more to
help with. That work and. We need to lobby the.
Government to. Give support to the regional district. Rcmp. That's
all. Just through the chair to comment on that. I
spoke to you earlier in my presentation about. The criminal.
And answering your last question. We are considering for our
multi year resource planning that we will be coming to
strategically as it relates. To capacity for a criminal intelligence
analyst. Through the Rdos and through the region. That is
something. That is forecasted for us in the next two
years. But right now. That wasn't the priority. Ask for
us. But that is something that is definitely on our
radar specific. To leveraging Councillor and merit in relation to
that future, ask. Thank you. Any further questions from council.
Council. Grant. Sorry. Thank you chair. You had touched on
the psicted indian band. And trying to get their operational
hours up. Can you speak to what their current operational
hours are? Like how many officers there are and how
many days they're working. So those provincially funded ips. Resources.
They work. 08:00 a.m. To 08:00 p.m. At the pib.
And. They are providing care and support and response on
PIB. And also. To residents from PIB within community as
and when required. And obviously we do benefit from that
team. And the responses and skill set that they have
in community as well, readily supporting us. Whenever we need
them to. Any further questions, Councillor Watt. Thank you. Chair
to Superintendent McCandy. Just because I'm curious, I'm wondering. The
community safety unit, I would say at least stems from.
Mental health and addiction issues. There's a large component based
on that, but I don't. Think that interior health or
any health authorities throughout the province chip in on the
funding of that. Is there a model? Where health authorities
help fund. I know I'm jumping ahead. I'm just suggesting
that. I'm a proponent that we've made health and safety
our number one. And I certainly. Am happy that we're
moving forward with this. I just also know that many
times when it's mental health and addictions, probably the direct
payment shouldn't come from a municipality because provincial. Would probably
take the lead on that. I just wonder if there's
any models where the province has actually chipped in on
those. So through the chair. I'd like to provide some
clarity around the mandate of those two. Resources. I'm asking
to create that community safety unit. So in the last
four quarter presentations, I've given to city the number one
call for service for RCMP has been to deal with
unwanted persons. And I would say, more statistically. Those requests
come from local businesses. And that would be from people
loitering. In their business spaces in the morning. And so
being able to prioritize that call for service over a
break and enter you can imagine that a break and
enter in property or. That kind of report to police
would be of a priority. But creating a community safety
unit will help us address those calls for service in
a shared response with bylaw as it relates to encampments
in public spaces. And being able to address calls for
service at some of our shelter incidences, and being a
primary point of liaison to shelters. So the function of.
Those two officers will not be around those responses to
what we have tasked to our integrated crisis. Response team.
They will be a collective unit. That we will call
the community safety unit. The officers and nurses are the
integrated crisis response team. And the two or three officers
that we have identified. To hopefully becoming from this budget
request, we'll be forming that group, and we used to
have a similar team that Sergeant Rock was the downtown
enforcement team, and they were the primarily liaisons. To business
associations. And those people experiencing property crime downtown and being
able to do that work. Of supporting businesses locally with
crime prevention and anything around strategies to move people along
in the morning. That are maybe loitering outside of their
businesses and also being that primary connection with other supports,
such as we no longer have a youth position or
youth liaison position within the municipality, but we also want
this community safety unit to. Be engaged with youth in
the community, and we also would like them to be
engaged with supporting some of our seniors, more vulnerable seniors
in the community as well. And so that's the work
that I see this community safety unit doing. That is
outside the integrated crisis response team, which is why we
have not gone to a health authority to ask to
fund those positions. Thank you. That was a long answer.
Sorry. And I think that with the restructuring of the
ministries in Victoria now, that mental health and addictions is
going into. The health service under the Ministry of Health,
then that might be a good message to take to
Victoria. When we meet the ministers next. Councillor Gilbert. Yeah.
Thank you for the chair. I'd like to move the
staff recommendation seconded. We have a second. Any further questions
or comments. Bearing in mind that. These motions as we
pass them now are subject to final review and the
final budget decision making. Process. For the questions. Councillor Conan?
No, we're getting a negative from Councillor Connett, so I'm.
Going to call the question then. All in favor? And
Councillor Conan? That's affirmative. So that motion passes unanimously. Thank
you very much. Thank you. For your consideration. Thank you.
Thank you. I'd like to move on. With.
7.33 public safety and partnerships before we break for lunch,
And. We have director of public safety and partnerships, Julie
Check. And Ms. Campbell, please. Hello, mayor and councillor. I'm
pleased to bring forward the public safety and partnerships operating
budget. For 2025. The Public Safety and Partnerships Division is
a new department at the city with the responsibility of
both community safety and well being through direct oversight of
the social development department as well as bylaw. Services. Public
safety is a multi agency, multi jurisdictional issues that requires
coordinated efforts across various organizations to be truly effective and
responsive to the community's needs. Another function of this division
is to coordinate where others play a role through partnerships.
To this end, we routinely collaborate with key public safety
agencies, the nonprofit sector, and the business community. On joint
initiatives in promotion of public safety. Currently, the department consists
of approximately 20 staff, two in the social development department,
and a complement of 17 in bylaw services. That's also
supplemented by casual or relief work. By law enforcement and
social development can really be seen as two sides of
the same coin. Both are essential for enhancing community safety
and wellbeing. By law enforcement, maintains order and community safety
by. Ensuring compliance with local bylaws addressing social issues like
overnight sheltering and public spaces encampment responses, noise and property
compliance, parking enforcement and animal control, to name a few.
Meanwhile, the Social development department focuses on improving the quality
of life of community members by tackling social challenges such
as poverty, housing affordability, mental health, substance use and addiction,
childcare and food security. Together they create a balanced approach
of enforcement and non enforcement strategies that not only uphold.
Community standards but also address the root causes of social
challenges, fostering a safer and more cohesive community. In the
next few slides, I'll share a few notable. Achievements of
this division. The Social Development department collaborated very closely with
community partners to develop a comprehensive framework that outlines key
priorities for enhancing community health and well being. Actions are
organized under six key domains as shown in the visual
on the slide. And include actions under housing, mental health
and wellness, homelessness, supports for people using substances, childcare and
food security. As an example, this framework includes Activ. Activities.
Over 50 activities. To be more specific, and some of
these activities include the establishment of an extreme weather response
or winter shelter, foreign housed residents, the creation of an
affordable housing reserve to support nonprofits in developing affordable housing
and the opening of over 116 new affordable childcare spaces
through partnerships with. Provincial and community organizations. As a result
of these initiatives, other municipalities are reaching out to learn
more about our approach as they seek to develop their
own social development frameworks. Achievements of this small and mighty
team are making a real difference for our community by
expanding access. To childcare, improving inclusivity with the city's first
accessibility plan, and addressing food security with an enhanced local
infrastructure. Additionally, partnerships with indigenous groups are fostering reconciliation while
over a million dollars has been secured. Through federal grants
to support youth crime prevention, all contributing to a safer,
more resilient and equitable community. Bylaw services have also seen
some notable achievements. In this last quarter, we've extended our
operating hours from 06:00 a.m.. To 10:00 p.m. And introduced
an integrated model that improves efficiency and allows for cross
training in both byline enforcement and social disorder issues. Additionally,
provincial funding has been secured through a grant to reestablish
the Penticton situation. Table this is a collaborative initiative that
will bring together social services, law enforcement, healthcare, and community
organizations to support individuals at high risk of harm. Or
at risk of involvement in crime. This approach will enable
a quicker response to safety concerns, improve access to services
and ultimately enhance community safety. A comprehensive service review of
bylaw services is almost complete, and it will serve to
further optimize operations and strengthen our community, our community's commitments
to public safety. Collaborative initiatives are improving community safety. Through
strategic partnerships with organizations like the RCMP and the fire
department. Historically, many of these initiatives were led solely by
the RCMP, but through enhanced partnership with bylaw officers. We
are now supporting the RCMP through some of these shared
initiatives. Superintendent McCandy spoke to our shared vision of seeing
a further integration of bylaw with the RCMP, through the
community safety unit, and in the coming months and years.
We are looking forward to really shading out the nuances
of what this new model or approach will look like.
Looking ahead. The collaborative planning for the 2024 25 temporary
winter shelter is also a testament to the commitment of
multiple organizations working together for comprehensive 24/7 oversight or safety
plan in and around the shelter. Additionally, the revamp of
the community youth liaison program emphasizes. Outreach to at risk
use, reinforcing the community's dedication to fostering a safe and
inclusive environment and taking a prevention focus. Through these initiatives,
the community is making significant strides to enhancing safety and
support for all residents. Traditionally, in bylaw services, the key
performance indicators, or the KPIs, focused on calls for service
while the KPIs reflect a dip in historical averages. This
is due to changes in how data is collected in
track as well as a period of staffing transition earlier
this. Year that reflected a reduced level of service. Additionally,
as our work is increasing with the RCMP and fire
department, we will begin to track the number of assists
to other agencies as well as. Unique efforts that we
undertake jointly with the social sector. As noted previously, the
bylaw services department is currently. Completing a services review, and
one of our recommendations of this review will likely have
a focus on performance measurement. That is, to identify what
the measures of success will be. Identified the appropriate data
that we will collect and also the needed infrastructure to
enable modernized response to how we're tracking and reporting out
on data. Further budget processes. We'll see subsequent updates to
these KPIs based on the findings of this review which
will bring forward in the coming weeks. Continuing with our
key performance indicators, I also want to highlight several areas
of interest within social development. That emphasize partnership and strategic
policy. To support this focus, staff will continue to monitor
the city's policies and projects. To make sure that they
align with accessibility requirements as outlined in our accessibility plan.
Additionally, we'll report on progress related to the actions outlined
in the social development framework. And report out on grant
funding that's secured for social development opportunities in the community.
One thing I'd like to note is of the 57
or so actions of the social development framework. We've seen
significant. Progress in over 30 of those actions. Public safety
and partnership efforts, as I noted, are centered on partnerships,
maintaining and building them with a specific focus on relationships
with the business community, provincial government, and regional partners. In
this vein, this year includes a proposal to expand the
remote guard DPbia camera. Program, which Superintendent McCandy spoke briefly
in her presentation as well. The business community has seen
great success in reducing vandalism, property crime and graffiti or
social nuisance in the areas where cameras have traditionally been
deployed and if approved, staff would work with the Chamber
of Commerce, the BIA and other business leaders, the RCmp
and bylaw to extend the service beyond the downtown area
to include other area. Areas of the city, like the
industrial area and the south side of the city. Staff
are also proposing developing a community safety and well being
plan, which Miss Melnick spoke to during her engagement update.
Many municipalities across Canada are developing and implementing these types
of plans in response to provincial directives and a growing
recognition that public safety goes beyond policing. And law enforcement
and must take a multidisciplinary, systems based approach in order
to be effective. Municipalities like Vancouver and Victoria are incorporating
community safety and wellbeing plans into their overall planning and
focusing their efforts on mental health, homelessness, and harm reduction
as key elements of their strategies. Through extensive consultation, including
with the public, this plan would clearly define the community's
priorities and actionable steps to promote safety and wellbeing. In
other words, what it would aim to do is integrate
the efforts of all of our agencies. Social development bylaw
services, the RCMP, and fire into a comprehensive public safety
framework or a master plan of sorts. Looking ahead to
2025. The bylaw services department also plans to conduct or
do some analysis on our current data collection. And file
documentation, as I've alluded to in the previous slide, and
this review will compare our practices with other platforms and
programs softwares to improve our data collection and methodology. Develop
social disorder or heat maps, target repeat nuisance files and
facilitate better lawful information sharing with RCMP. These initiatives collectively
will advance our goals of fostering a safe and resilient
community. We're also dedicated to advancing the implementation of the
Councillor endorsed accessibility plan, working closely and collaboratively with all
city divisions and departments to create a more accessible community,
a key objective for 2025 is to enhance. Our internal
processes by reviewing city projects at the outset of their
implementation, ensuring that accessibility is prioritized from the very beginning.
This initiative is essential to our vision of livable and
accessible city. Additionally, we continue to focus on the priorities
outlining the social development framework. Our dedication to these actions
are vital as we strive to build a healthy, safe
and resilient community by making progress across all these domains,
we reinforce our commitment to creating an environment that is
both livable. And accessible to all residents. We are implementing
several key changes to improve how we deliver services and
operate more efficiently within the broader public safety ecosystem. And
Superintendent McCandy gave a very thorough example of how that's
being done. In bylaw services. As an example, we now
have daily shift overlaps that allow for better training, collaboration,
and proactive efforts like joint patrols with the RCmp. Scheduled
team overlaps and cross training also helps us to manage
our staffing challenges and improve interoperability within the team, which
was also a key recommendation of the. 2022. Community safety
resource review. Joint initiatives like hot spot patrols and joint
investment in crime prevention strategies like septed will continue to
reduce the pressure on law enforcement, allowing us to address
issues more effectively and proactively. In keeping our community safe.
Additionally, the social development team continues to bring in provincial
and federal investment. Minimizing the. Impact of municipal budgets while
supporting important community initiatives. The public safety and partnership division.
Total net budgets for 2025 are 1.9 million an increase
of 277,000 from the 2024 budget. Revenues from this department
consists of parking and fine revenues, as well as dog
licensing and fines, which have all remained consistent with the
2024 budget. The main expenses included in this division are
contract cost. Costs for animal control as well as staffing
costs for bylaw, social development and the director the 2025
budgeted expenses have increased over the prior year for contractual
inflationary increases and initiatives that will be reviewed in the
coming slides. The first initiative is the development of the
community safety and wellbeing plan, a strategic initiative. Designed to
enhance the quality, safety and quality of life for residents
within our community by addressing complex social issues with longer
term solutions. The budget request for this project is $75,000
and is proposed to be funded out of reserves. I
will turn it back to Ms. Chek to discuss this
project in a bit more detail. As noted, the community
safety and well being plan. Many municipalities in Ontario are
now legislated to develop these plans. That's not quite the
case here in BC. However, many municipalities are moving in
this direction. As a way of creating a roadmap for
long term systemic solutions. So the project would look at
including key elements such as community and partner engagements, data
collection and analysis across the system. So removing the silos
to really understand how those trends. Work across the ecosystem
of public safety. Development of strategic objectives, implementation of crime
prevention initiatives, and monitoring and evaluation. This plan is a
collaborative initiative that will engage residents, community organizations, and partners
to enhance the safety and well being of Penticton residents.
It also will provide counsel with opportunities for strategic advocacy.
As it will identify what those gaps could be and
where the municipality plays a role, where our sector plays
a role and where the province. And the federal government
plays a role. I will now turn it over to.
There you go. One more initiative. In 2021, the city
partnered with the DPVIA on a pilot project to improve
community safety. And livability in the downtown area through the
security camera program. This project was further invested in by
the city in 2023, with a further $100,000 contributed to
the program in August of this year, the chamber and
the DPA attended a committee of the whole meeting and
provided details on their pond expansion. Of the program, looking
for the city to consider supporting it again. At that
meeting, Councillor passed a resolution to support the program from
April 2025 to September 2026 and to consider the funding
request during budget. This $94,000 is the contribution requested for
2025 with the remaining 56,000 being put into the 2026
budget year. That brings us to the recommendation that Councillor
approve in principle the public safety and partnership 2025. To
2029 budget subject to final review. Thank you very much.
And Councillor Conan. Yes, thanks. Through the chair.
Can you explain? Are we going to be repeating a
lot of things that were in the safety report that
we already paid for a couple of years ago that
was very extensive and gave lots of ideas. I think
it cost us $75,000 also, is it something that we've
already done. Through the report that we paid for a
couple of years ago. Thank you. Through the chair to
Councillor Conan's. The intention is really to bring an update.
Many of the recommendations that have been made that were
actionable at the municipal level are being implemented and have
been implemented. I think the other element. Of the community
safety. Well being plan is actually one of the recommendations
that were outlined in that report. For further actioning. So
this would really seek to really take it to the
next level. I think there's been a lot of work
that's been done both in the RCMP. And bylaw services
to eliminate redundancies in the areas where there is need
for joint response. It's to complement each other's authorities and
every effort. Will be made through the development of this
plan. To identify what those opportunities moving into the future
could look like. We also know that the provincial government.
Has just recently reformed. As part of that new mandate.
Provincial minister of state, responsible for community safety and integration
of services. And so this would really look. At. Leveraging
and building on the momentum that is happening provincially to
bring us into an updated plan that reflects the key
priorities and the gaps in our community. The other piece
that I would add would be. New and enhanced is
really a focus on. When we identified those shared priorities,
identifying the way that we're going to measure success. And
reporting it out on a routine basis so that Councillor
and the community. Have that information. Reported in. A more
deliberate way rather than ad hoc. At the request of
other reports. So. Those would be what I envision. Being
the benefit of. This community safety and well being plan.
Thank you. Councilor Grime? Yes. Thank you. The chair. I
have two questions. First one, could you speak? A little
bit more to the detail of these cameras at our
last open house. I got inundated. With a lot of
questions regarding the camera program and the reinvestment to that.
And briefly talking them about the fact that these are
24/7 monitored cameras, it seemed that the community bought in
a lot more. Could you speak to the fact that
there's a big difference between. Normal security cameras, let's say
your business or in your home to the pole is
the ones that we are reinvesting in throughout the community.
That's my first question. Thank you. Through the chair to
Councillor Graham. I'm not as familiar on the
technology of the cameras, but what I can say is.
That some of the cameras. Do have technology. That's remote
guard that would deploy. Public safety agencies. When they're monitored
and others are just static and collect the information. But
that is information. I'd be happy to source for you
through the DPPIA on the exact technology. Thank you. My
second one, when you're opening here, you discussed that with
the framework that. We've created in house with our senior
team here that other communities are asking for your advice,
your help, or essentially trying to copy what we've created.
We currently at our RCMP detachment. We have one forensic
employee that we lease out for $5,000 around the Okinawan
which we're all for now, if other communities are coming
forward, to the city of Penticton. And specifically this. Asking
now, are we looking to charge these other communities? Is
that something that's coming down? The pipeline. Thank you. Through
the charit of Councillor Graham. Some of the conversations have
been in relation to. The social development framework and the
accessibility framework as gold Star templates that other communities are
looking. To adopt. We have not explored charging other municipalities
for our advice. However, what I will say, there is
a high level of reciprocity in the partnerships that we've
developed with other agencies. And that highway goes both ways.
And we also seek out our colleagues in advice when
we're implementing our own. Strategies and solutions. I see a
consultancy job just developed right there. Council. Any further questions?
Any comments? Councillor Gilbert? Yeah, thank you. The chair. I
like to move the staff recommendation. Do you have a
second? We seconded. And I've got one question. The community
safety wellness plan. That's a $75,000 line item, but that's
coming out of reserve. So that's not going to affect
the budget. Per se. Is that correct, Ms. Campbell? That's
correct, your worship. We're funding that. Through the financial stabilization
reserve. Yeah. So I would say to Ms. Check. Obviously,
reserves are limited. And. Obviously, you put some thought into
this, but is this the best use of $75,000? For
your department. Is there anything else that. You thought about,
but put aside. Thank you. Through the chair. Mayor Bloomfield,
I do believe this is the best investment of the
resources, as I've mentioned. We have a whole new lineup
of public safety agency leaders. A lot of new staff
and new key players in the community. And I think
operational excellence is driven by good strategy, and this allows
us to develop that strategy. And long term game that
we can follow. That would see future budget asks really
be thoughtfully considered around how we prioritize and sequence further
investments that are required in the public safety role. Thank
you. Councilor. Any further questions? Comments? None. I'll call a
question. All in favor? And Councillor Conan. Says yes. And
so that is a unanimous decision. And thank you very
much. Thank you. So we are going to take a
break for lunch. And we'll cut it down a little
bit. Cancel. 45 minutes. 115.
For November 19 and moving straight into. Section 7.4, development
services. And starting off 7.41, development services with Mr. Levin,
Director of development services, and Ms Campbell. Good afternoon, your
worship and Councillor. I'm privileged to be here today to
present the development. Services 2025 operating budget to you with
Mrs. Campbell. Development services assist the community by creating a
positive environment for community growth. We work with the public
the business and development community, governmental and nongovernmental organizations to
guide growth, according to the city's official community plan. Led
by myself, the director of development services. Our division consists
of 24 and a half full time equivalent staffs. Our
division leads work to advance council's strategic priority around livable
and accessible, focusing on housing, deliberate growth and working towards
a community that is healthy, safe and desirable for residents
to call home. As a summary of what we do.
We do land use and planning approvals, so that establishes
a growth vision for the city and ensures alignment to
that vision through construction and development. We do building and
permitting and inspections, ensuring a safe and well built community.
We do development engineering, ensuring that subdivision development and building
processes integrate with the city's transportation water, electrical and sewer
infrastructure and our parks and urban forest. Our division also
manages the city's. Business liquor and cannabis licensing program licensing
over 3700 businesses 150. Registered not for profit organizations and
340 short term rental businesses. And finally, we oversee the
city's. Economic development function, which involves multiple city departments ensuring
the economic vitality of the community. Over the past year,
our division has seen several successes aligned with the livable
and accessible community priority. We've seen strong development statistics this
year, particularly on housing. What we assume. Councilor Conan is
having trouble getting the audio through. It just started for
me. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Carry on then, please. Sure,
no problem. What we assumed going into 2024 would be
a slow year on par with 2023. We've actually surpassed
the housing unit targets for the year and are seeing
continued growth in that area. Part of the success is.
Through the partnerships that we have cultivated with the building
industry and building organizations to ensure continued investment. In the
community and ensuring that Penticton remains a great place to
build. Specifically on the policy side, we've had a number
of accomplishments, including amendments to the city's. Official community plan
and zoning bylaw stemming from recommendations from the city's official
community plan task force, which ran all throughout 2023 and
from the new provincial housing initiatives passed in 2023. The
process improvements that. Have resulted from these changes will serve
the community well into the future. Beyond those, though, we've
also made great strides towards having the city's first social
housing plan, which will categorize and prioritize social housing projects
to ensure housing needs as outlined by our housing needs
assessment are being met and address housing for the most
vulnerable in the community. Coming out of other recommendations from
the OCP Housing Task Force, we've made progress on. Unlocking
three city owned sites for social housing projects for workers,
youth and seniors. From the economic development function. We've put
the community's best foot forward. Through. Strategic media buys earned
media and continue to market the community as a desirable
place to live, work and do business. All of the
work we do in economic development is dependent on the
partnerships we maintain with other internal departments and outside organizations
like the Chamber of Commerce, travel Pentictin, the Industrial Development
Association, Downtown association and others. I'd like to take this
opportunity to highlight a few key performance indicators for the
development. Services division. We've issued for construction 260 units of
housing through Q three in 2024. And this is well
beyond the minimum needs for the community per year, which
is determined by our housing needs assessment at 200 and.
18. We've processed 490 building permits, which is slightly lower
than our five year average, but. Quite a bit higher
than last year. We're seeing high construction value or higher
than our five year average we've processed. Close to $160,000,000
in construction value so far this year. And on the
inspection side. We've completed over. 300. 600 inspections this year
and closed over 560 development files. And for licensing, as
mentioned before, we maintain over 3700 business licenses and 340
short term rental licenses. This side gives a snapshot of
housing numbers, and these are numbers of units that were
approved. For construction over the past ten years. Just showing
how strong 2024 was. A year keeping us above. That
what we need to achieve for a medium growth scenario?
There are a total of three initiatives proposed for our
division in this year's budget, which are outlined on page
83 of the plan. The ones with financial impacts will
be discussed later on in the presentation, but I'll just
give a quick overview of the three initiatives here. The
first is advancing housing affordability and this initiative support. Supports
and provides funding for four main projects, the first of
which is development of an affordable housing incentive policy. So
looking at tax incentives, development cost charge reductions, other fee
charges, density bonusing, And using funds to help develop that
policy. The second is developing housing on city own land
work that we've already started, but will continue in 2025.
The trends are oriented areas. This is something that. Was
imposed upon us by the province, and we have three
areas that we've identified as transit oriented areas in the
community. These funds will go towards doing some very minor
area planning and creating some vision around how development of
those three transit oriented areas can occur. And then implementing
the social, housing and infrastructure plan once it is presented
to Councillor and received by Councillor early in the new
year. We have funds for the implementation to ensure that
the initiatives that are highlighted in that plan. Can proceed.
The second initiative that we're proposing through the budget is
Okanagan lakeshore and Esplanade plan, which is intended to create
a vision for this unique area of the community. And
the budget request for this is $140,000. And then the
north gateway. Work. We also have funds in this plan.
Or initiatives in this plan that continue the work to
develop the north gateway area of the city. Speaking now
to the operational. Efficiencies of our division. The biggest efficiency
over the past year has been the amendments. To the
OCP zoning bylaw and development procedures bylaw that I spoke
about earlier. This is really eliminated many of the processes
that slowed down development and now allows projects that are
aligned with the vision in the OCP to move quickly
from idea to construction much more quickly. Than previous. We're
also seeing the positive impacts of council's investment in digitization.
Over the past few years with almost complete online application
processes set up, and this saves massive amounts of time
and money for the builders who we do business with,
who used to have to show up at city hall
with multiple roles of building plans and now can upload
plans into. Our digital online application review portal and communicate
with the inspectors that way. So huge efficiencies there and
based on investments made by Councillor over the past few
years. And on the digitization. We're actually going back now
and digitizing a lot of our historic files so that
plan retrieval and record retrieval happens in a much more
streamlined and accurate focus, which helps when real estate professionals
want to access city files or builders need to access
building plans or other. Reasons to access city files. Development
Services also subscribes to an ethos of continuing incremental. Improvement
which has served us serve to keep us as one
of the most desirable. For developers and design professionals to
work within the province. The net budget for the development
services division for 2025 totals $1.6 million a $269,000 increase
from the 2024 budget. Revenue from this division consists of
building permits licensing fees, inspection fees, and planning application fees.
2025 has a budgeted overall increase for revenues of just
under 100,000. Relating specifically to building permits and licensing expenses
for the division consists of all costs associated with the
building planning and development departments, including economic development. Included in
development services expenses is $314,000 for the local government housing
initiatives, which is funded by a provincial grant which we
received in 2024. For reporting purposes. This revenue is included
in the general government revenues and not within development services.
Through further reviews of grant funded projects in preparation of
these budget deliberations. It was noted that some of these
revenues were intended to be spent during 2024, however, have
not been expended yet, and are not planned to be
expended by year end. As a result, staff is proposing
to amend the 2025 Dra. Draft budget by 138,000 in
recognition of bringing that deferred revenue forward, which will offset
some expenses in 2025 and reduce the tax increase by
0.3 of a percent. Otherwise, overall expenses have increased for
specific one time initiatives, which will be detailed separately over
the next few slides. The first initiative is advancing housing
affordability. The budget request for these projects is $130,000 and
has been funded through the online accommodation platform reserve, so
has no impact on taxation. I'll turn it back to
Mr. Laven to discuss this initiative in more detail. So,
led by our housing and policy initiatives manager, this initiative
supports and provides funding for four main projects. The first
two are continuation of work that was started in 2023
as recommendations from the official community plan task force and
involve the development of an affordable housing incentive. Policy, which
I spoke about a bit earlier, and developing housing on
city owned lands. So we have put one of the
city owned lands into the BC builds project. The other
land. We do need to use some funds to create
a vision for. How that parcel of land is going
to be built out and how we can maximize the
use of that really important site in the downtown. The
other two projects are for the development of our transit
oriented areas and the implementation of the social housing and
infrastructure plan. The second initiative is for the Okanagan, lakeshore
and Esplanade plan. The budget request for this project is
140,000 and is proposed to be funded through the financial
stabilization reserve. So again, no impact on taxation. Again, I'll
let Mr. Lee and provide some. Further details. This plan
will create comprehensive vision for this unique area of the
community. From Marinaway north up to the KBR right of
way. Several important decisions need to be made in regard
to this area by the city with regard to some
buildings that we own in the area. Park space that
we manage. As well as other groups like the Penticton
Marina and the Penticton Tennis Club. Both of which are
organizations who want to make investments in their facilities and
the services they provide. To the community in that area.
But first need to understand the vision of the city
for the area before they can make those investments. The
funds being requested will be a year long engagement and
planning process to establish a vision for this area. And
will help us to make decisions the funds will go
towards. Professional reports qualified environmental professional review. Technical review as
well as the engagement materials and the plan development process.
So with that, the recommendation is that Councillor approve in
principle the development services 2025 to 2029. Budget with an
amendment to increase revenues by $138,000 for the local government.
Housing initiatives grant subject to council's final review and again,
that increase of revenues, as noted in the recommendation is
for the grant funding, not. Noted earlier that will be
forwarded from 2024 into 2025, offsetting some planned expenditures and
reducing the proposed tax increase by 0.3 of a percent.
Thank you. And, councillor, any questions? Development services. Councillor Gilbert.
Yeah. Thank you. To the chair. I like to move
the staff recommendation. And second. Seconded. And further comments. Any
questions? Sorry. And Councillor Conan. Thank you.
Through the chair. For the $130,000 advancing housing portability. Is
that going to be? Four different reports that come to
us. With those targeted projects, because I feel like a
lot of that is something we're already doing? Our staff
is already doing. Or are you hiring consultants? So why
would it cost? 130,000 is what I'm. Asking. Mr. Legging.
Yeah. Through your worship, there will be some consultancies that
we will be relying on. We have cost it out.
Each individual of the four projects have different costs to
them, so that 130,000 is cumulative. Of the four projects,
and I don't have the exact breakdown, but. There are
some consultations that will occur. There will be some architectural
consultations that we'll. Be getting there's some various engagement. Initiatives
that we'll be doing, but all of that work will
be led by staff. These aren't reports that we're going
to be turning over to consultants to develop. Reports. This
is money that will be used to develop those plans
internally, relying on consultants to feed into that process, but
the majority of that work will be done at the
staff level, and I should mention, and I think it
was mentioned. The money that we're using, the 130,000
is coming out of the short term. Rental online accommodation
platform. Tax that we collect from the short term rentals
that goes into an affordable housing reserve and I think
in reviewing what we wanted to do around affordable housing
from a policy perspective, we felt these were the best
way to move the needle. And using that money for
what it's intended for, we felt, was a good use
of those funds. Thank you. Thank you. And any further
questions? And hearing none. And I'm going to call the
question. All in favor? Councilor Conan says in favor as
well. So that's unanimous. Thank you very much, Mr. Label.
Moving on to 7.5. Corporate administration 7.51 corporate admin. Manager
of Councillor and executive operations, Cheryl Hardisty. And Ms. Campbell,
please. Thank you, mayor and Councillor. I will just jump
right in. So the corporate administration division addresses citywide organizational
needs, ensuring council's decisions are implemented effectively. And providing strategic
advice. Key responsibilities include providing advice to Councillor to support
informed decision making, managing government relationships, including with appendicated indian
band supporting the senior leadership team. Facilitating council's priority setting,
training and orientation programs, and advocacy initiatives, as well as
providing comprehensive administrative support to Councillor and the city manager.
So corporate men consists of mayor and Councillor who are
supported by the city manager, Anthony Hadad. Myself, Councillor and
executive operations manager, and Claire McLean, the confidential admin assistant
who has joined us. In the gallery. So Councillor serves
as Penticton's elected body, governing the city and promoting its
economic social and environmental well being. You provide strategic direction
to the city manager, and he ensures services align. With
the community needs and priorities. The city manager's leadership extends
across the entire organization, overseeing eight direct reports making up
the senior leadership team of the. City. Together we drive
cross divisional. Coordination, ensuring cohesive leadership and strategic alignment across
all city departments and operations. As highlighted in the overview,
corporate Min leaves the broad operational and strategic functions required
to support the city's objective. This encompasses everything from coordinating
city council's orientation and priority setting to strategic direction that
ensures organizational efficiency and alignment with community needs and Councillor
priorities. In addition to our core administ. Administrative roles. Corporate
Min serves as the city's primary contact for government to
government relationships. Our goal is to establish and nurture collaborative
partnerships with other levels of government, including the Penticton indian
band regional district Okanagan, Samuelkamine and other local governments in
the valley and beyond. We aim to create lasting partnerships
that benefit not only our municipality, but the broader region
as well. Through these relationships, we are better equipped to
advocate for our community's needs, respond to shared challenges and
work collaboratively on solutions that have meaningful and positive impacts
on our residents and partners. Alike. So in 2024, council's
attendance at key conferences, including UBCM, Silga and FCM demonstrated
a commitment to ongoing learning and regional collaboration. These events
facilitated strategic networking and enabled Councillor to gather insights on
emerging municipal challenges and best practices. Outcomes from these engagements
continue to inform city initiatives and strength. Strengthen partnerships, benefiting
both the organization and the wider community. This year, Councillor
attended several conferences, including the UBCM Housing Summit, which focused
on the continuing crisis and housing affordability and attainability. Mayor
Bloomfield presented to the delegation about short term rentals alongside
Sarah Kirby Young of Vancouver city Councillor Amir Doug O'Brien
from Parksville. The local government leadership academy, or LGLE, which
deals with the regular course of business items that keeps
everything moving along. Things like Budget 101, fair value accounting
concepts, BC assessment, natural asset management, integration of land use
planning, and climate action. SiLga, the Southern Interior Local Government
association, passed both resolutions. The city put forward this year
one about the need for a complex care services and
the other about upgrading the 201 as it's relied on
more and more regularly. At Penwor, the Pacific North Pacific
Northwest economic region summit. We heard about hydrogen infrastructure and
opportunities achieving energy transition and have the opportunity to tour
many of the Whistler housing authorities, many projects with Whistler
Mayor Jack Crompton and the UBCM, and finally the UBCM
annual convention. This year, Councillor met. With Minister Kalon to
discuss progress of the Skah Assembly. Minister Fleming, regarding the
201 and we were honored to have PIb join us
to speak with Minister Cullen and municipal affairs staff. About
water partnership opportunities. Council has also participated in tours of
city facilities, which has been mentioned today, which we aim
to offer valuable insights into our key infrastructure and service
areas. We've conducted the 2025 priorities setting, aligning our focus
with community needs and long term goals. We've held regular
intermunicipal advisory committee or IMAC meetings, which have strengthened our
partnerships with neighboring municipalities. We also held a Councillor to
Councillor meeting with Penticton indian band, furthering our shared commitment
to collaboration and close government to government relations. In particular.
We've also seen some great successes with RDos. With the
partnership on the shelter funding and Councillor Watt appointed as
vice chair. So corporate Amin is proposing one new initiative
for council's consideration, which is the advocacy planning. And intergovernmental
relations that aims to establish a proactive and sophisticated strategy
for engaging local, provincial, federal and indigenous governments and other
key partners. We'll talk a little bit more. About that
on a later slide. For efficiencies. Part of the city
manager's role is about creating and supporting efficiencies that enhance
the performance of all departments, ensuring we work together cohesively.
To meet citywide goals, prioritizing organizationwide systems, shared resources, and
collaborative processes. Empowers each department to operate at its best.
This approach reduces redundancy and builds a strong, adaptable workforce.
Specifically. Interdivisional collaboration, which. Aims to strengthen cooperation across divisions
to optimize optimize resource use and improve service. Delivery overall
organizational review regular assessments of the organizational structure and operations
to ensure efficiency and alignment with council's priorities and core
values link to operations. Communicating and integrating core values. Into
operations to foster accountability and drive a culture of continuous
improvement. The detailed budget for corporate admin can be found
on pages 148 to 149 of the plan and reflects
the total cost of $842,000 for 2025. Expenses are made
up of Councillor wages, staff wages, public relations conferences and
training. Increases over the 2024 budget are related. To conferences
and memberships for events such as Silga and the UBCM.
Council wages, which are based on the council's remuneration bylaw.
An additional cost for the initiative that will be discussed
on the next few slides. Proposed in the plan is
the incremental cost of $25,000 for the advocacy and intergovernmental
relation planning to enable the city to advance priority issues,
secure funding, and influence policies that directly benefit Penticton. I'll
turn it back to Ms. Hard as you discuss that
initiative further? Thank you. So as mentioned earlier, the advocacy,
planning and intergovernment, intergovernmental relations initiative aims to establish a
proactive and strategic approach to engaging local, provincial, federal and
indigenous governments, along with other key partners, it will position
the city to advance priorities and influence policies that directly
benefit Pentictin. This initia. Initiative will consider items, including formalizing
a coordinated advocacy calendar, conducting organizational needs assessment, improving alignment
between Councillor priorities and external funding programs and enhancing relationship
management with partner and senior government officials and agencies. Key
components of this initiative include the development of a comprehensive.
Centralized strategy for engaging senior and cross border government partners.
Leverage efficacy needs like Silga networks like Silga, UBCM, FCM,
penwork amplify the city's advocacy efforts. Formalize a calendar, as
I mentioned, identify organizational needs and develop reports to support
funding applications and policy alignment. Create professional advocacy materials, including
briefing notes, brochures, and visual presentations. Strengthen partnerships by hosting
dignitaries and key partners to showcase priority projects and foster
collaboration. And integrate Councillor priorities with evolving external opportunities to
maximize financial support. So without your worship, council's recommendation or
staff's recommendation, to Councillor is to approve. In principle to
corporate admin. 2025 to 2029 budget subject to final review.
Thank you. And Councillor. Any questions? Any comments? Getting a
negative from Councillor Conan. Councillor Gilbert. Yeah. Thank you. To
the chair. I like to move. The staff recommendation. Move.
Seconded. Seconded. And any questions? Discussion hearing? None. I'll call
the question. All in favor? And Councillor Conan in favor?
Yes. And so that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Moving
on. 7.6. Finance and administration. Ms. Campbell, you're on your
own. Thank you, your worship. You finance an administration division
works as a strategic partner with departments throughout the city
to ensure effective delivery of services and programs by providing
financial, human resources, information technology, legislative, procurement, and communication services.
We are also responsible for the overall financial administration and
collection of all city revenues. Led by myself. This division
consists of 77 FTE and leads work to support the
organization with a focus on organizational excellence, partnerships, and the
provision of effective and community focused services as. The support
division for the city. We are engaged, adaptable to the
changing organizational needs and pressures. And strive for modern delivery
of city services. Our division includes financial services providing accounting,
budgeting, financial analysis, and revenue and collection services for the
city procurement and inventory provides centralized purchasing services for the
acquisition of goods and services, including management of the city's
inventory and disposal of city assets. It, and GIS is
responsible for providing technical support to all city departments. This
department plays a crucial role in helping us to innovate
and focus on modernization, human resources and occupational health. And
safety is responsible for recruitment and retention, compensation, safety and
employee well being, training and development benefits and payroll and
develops and manages corporate programs related to. Employee and labor
relations. Legislative services carries out a wide variety of statutory
responsibilities and ensures city decision making processes maintain transparency accountability,
integrity and accessibility. They are also responsible for the city's
election processes. Communications and engagement provide strategic communications services that
are essential to achieving the city's business objectives. As well.
The municipal RCMP provide an integral service to the RCMP
members through electronic file management and disclosure victim services programs
exhibit management crime analysis digital forensics community policing custodial guards
and restorative justice. Programs. Although structurally the municipal employees belong
in this division, for operational purposes, they were represented in
the RCMP presentation earlier. So if achievements throughout 2024 include
procurement staff working with other local governments for group purchases
to gain economies of scale in the past year, they
took the lead on a very complex project for waste
collection for five municipalities in the regional district. The finance
team successfully implemented a change in property tax due dates
from July 31 to the first business day in. July.
This change was the first step in ensuring that the
city is able to meet updated legislative requirements under the
Local Government act. In addition, they also implemented overthecounter credit
card acceptance at city hall to provide residents with additional
options for making payments. The business continuity plan for city
hall was updated to reflect new legislative requirements. Items highlighted
from that plan have been earmarked for continued improvement into
2025. The human resources team successfully led bargaining negotiations with
two of the city's unionized workforces on the legislative services
team. Implemented the EScrib system, which has improved Councillor and
committee meeting processes. While increasing accessibility to public meeting information.
The IT department continues to leave the city's digital transformation
and during 2024 started the implementation of Microsoft 365, leveraging
operational communication tools such as teams. The communications team, along
with our sustainability department was recognized by the IABC with
winning the Gold Quill award for our books recycling turns
a new page campaign. And finally, City of Centigton was
again awarded the Organizational Safety Excellence Award for 2024. In
addition, one of our safety staff members was named an
Excellence awardee for safety leader of the year in the
2024, Canada's safest employers Awards. Some KPIs from this division
that I'd like to highlight include maintaining performance measures on
financial stability ratios, which is an important aspect of the
city's financial management. The city continues to sustain stable ratios
for financial assets to liabilities as well as debt to
operating revenues. The IT team completed 25 software improvements in
eight projects. HR offered a number of internal courses. And
workshops, both online and in person, and procurement issued 23
contracts valued at over $14 million and issued over 400
purchase orders totaling just under $6 million. There are a
total of four initiatives proposed for 2025 for safe and
resilient. We have the implementation of the updated City hall
business continuity Plan, as well as advancing digital transformation and
innovation, which includes leveraging available technologies to focus on increasing
operational efficiencies, collaboration and new communication tools available within Microsoft
360. Five also included in the focus work for 2025.
For it will be a review of the existing phone
network system and planning for transition to a digital system.
The city has experienced several phone outages over the past
year, which is in relation to our former provider. We've
switched switched over to a new provider while we work
through the transition plan for the digital system. Under the
vision, mission and culture. There's a planned expansion of strategic
communication programs, including transition. From strictly tactical communications and marketing
activities to a focus on strategic planning and delivery. Creating
a process to monitor and collect citizen data and sentiment
to be used to inform strategic communication decisions and developing
a proactive corporate communications. Framework and strategy for the organization,
including both internal and external communications. Additionally, the city will
conduct the request for proposal process for procurement of an
external auditor to ensure that Councillor is able to make
an informed decision when appointing the new auditor. Operational efficiencies
for 2024 include implementation of Escribe, as previously mentioned, which
has improved counsel and committee meeting processes internally, making the
process of organizing these meetings more efficient. Implementation of Microsoft
365 allowed staff to start utilizing operational. Communication tools such
as teams. We also shifted away from Zoom meetings, which
has decreased expenses as we reduce these licensing fees. By
entering into an operating agreement with the community foundation, city
staff were able to reallocate staff time to other functions,
allowing greater capacity to support internal departments with financial analysis
and lastly, through these efficiencies, noted internal cap. Capacity has
also been utilized to assist other departments within the divisions
that were oversubscribed. Ensuring our teams are cross coordinating to
provide support where needed. Work capacity and skill sets allow.
Moving into the financial details. The net budget for the
financial and Administration division for 2025 totals $4.5 million, a
$306,000 decrease from 2024 revenue for this division. Consists of
gaming revenue, the municipal portion of traffic fines, and miscellaneous
collection recoveries. With the 2025 budget remaining similar to the
previous year. Expenses for the division consists of all costs
associated with communications and public engagement. Citywide information technology support,
including cybersecurity HR support, including hiring of all employees, legislative
and regulatory requirements, and all finance functions, including insurance and
debt servicing costs as well as procurement. Overall expenses have
decreased, mainly with the introduc. Introduction of budgeting for staffing
vacancies and RCMP contract offsets additional expenses in 2025 include
racking for newly established inventory area, higher insurance premiums. The
new communications system to inform strategic communications and a new
buyer position that we will discuss in the incremental initiatives.
Simkey drivers from this division include the increases for contractual,
labor and software licensing and maintenance. These costs are nondiscretionary
and often rise at rates above inflation. Additionally, the city
continues to see a rise in its insurance premiums. However,
this year, in order to mitigate against the significant costs,
the city has reevaluated its methodology on certain assets in
an effort to bring. Premiums down as we work on
reinsuring by the end of the calendar year. Original estimated
increases for insurance over 2024 budget were just shy of
$200,000. However, using this revised method, the increase was adjusted
to 85,000. Although interest rates have more recently stabilized, the
city has been impacted by several debt issues being refinanced
at significantly higher rates than. Previous debt terms, many of
our issues had previously seen rates decreased to less than
2%. However recent refinancing rates are closer to 4%. Interest
rates also impact the amount of interest paid on deposits
the city holds and pays interest on, such as landscape
deposits or prepaid taxes. As interest rates have gone up,
so has the city's cost in holding these funds. For
example, with previously. Low interest rates. The cost was zero
in 2021 for these and has risen to over $250,000.
In 2024. And as mentioned on the previous slide, a
few incremental expenses have been included in this year. The
first is to provide for racking within an outdoor inventory
building at a one time cost of $40,000. Without this
racking, the area cannot be set up effectively to house
as many products as possible, allowing for consolidation and working
to lessen the city's inventory outages. The second item is
immediate monitoring service. That public affairs and communication departments utilize,
which includes. Social listening, media management, and a variety of
influencer and consumer intelligence. The cost of the system would
be $16,000 annually, with the data available to use on
a customized dashboard that can be used to create reports
based on their analysis of online news, broadcast news, social
media comments and print media. The data would be used
to assist in making communication decisions and allowing staff to
have a more data. Datadriven approach. For the 2025 budget,
the division is requesting an increase in staffing resources within
the procurement and inventory department for a buyer position. With
the significant increase in the city's capital program, over the
past several years and the increasing technical details required in
those projects, such as the LS four dam the procurement
department requires an additional resource in order to provide. The
support needed to produce rfps, rfqs and tender documents in
a more timely manner. With over $80 million of capital
projects in 2024 and preceding years, the department has had
to prioritize projects, leaving lower priority ones, waiting extended periods
of time as the team focuses on the more complex
and costly initiatives we are currently unable to provide. The
level of service. Requested by other departments to deliver on
the number of extensive projects that the city is trying
to complete. This additional resource would provide the needed capacity
to support the various teams throughout the city that require
procurement services. Without this resource, the procurement team will have
to continue to prioritize projects based on a variety of
factors, with the remaining waiting until capacity allows. Based on
the previous years of annual capital budgets as well as
carry forward projects. The total budgeted capital work to be
completed has grown from 22 million in 2017 up to
an estimated 90 million for 2025. This is largely due
to some significant projects, such as Ellis Fordham. The upgrades
to the wastewater treatment plant and the PRV project, in
addition to other inflationary impacts. That we've seen over the
years in themselves, these large projects can take anywhere between
40 to 100 hours of dedicated procurement time to complete
the procurement staff that produced the documents to tender these
projects has remained at two since 2018. However, over that
same time frame, the capital program has grown over three
times from what it was in 2024. Procurement had. 75
projects included in their work plan for both capital and
operating. Of those to date, they've been able to complete
32. They have nine in progress and another 34 that
have not yet been started. Projects often have windows of
completion due to a variety of factors, such as weather
or, say, the fish window. If procurement is unable to
move these projects forward during those time frames, they may
end up being significantly delayed, and additionally, we're seeing cost
escalations by the time we're able to start the project.
Adding this additional buyer position would allow the purchasing team
the capacity to complete the annual work that is being
allocated to them based on departmental needs within the time
frames needed. So it brings us to the recommendation that
Councillor approve, in principle, the finance and admin Division's. 2025
to 2029 budget, subject to final review. I'm happy to
take any questions Councillor may have. Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
Council questions? Comments? Councillor comments. Yes, thank you. Through the
chair. Did I miss it or is there an it
position also that was added or was set? In a
different presentation. Thank you for the question through your worship.
So there is an it position being proposed. However, it
was being internally funded, so it's not an incremental ask
we repurposed. Existing internal funds that would otherwise have to
be expended so there is no cost saving. So should
Councillor decide not to approve that FTE position, the budget
would not change because those expenses would still have to
be incurred. We're simply reallocating existing funding to hire an
FTE to do that work and create other internal efficiencies.
And then, so that's sustainable through the chair, that sustainable
year after year, that position. Through this funding through your
worship. Actually, we anticipate that we might be able to
see further reductions to the budget based on this new
position and what they're able to do. The conversations I've
had with the IT managers looking at reducing further costs
for some of our other consulting fees that we're hoping
that this position would be able to take on. As
well. Okay. Thank you. Unless someone has something else to
say, I had a motion to make. Carry on, carry
on. So just with the expenses that we have this
year, including the deferred taxes, And the. Multiple new staff
required, especially for safety, RCMP, et cetera. I think that.
We should delay. Hiring the buyer this year, and so
I'd like to remove the buyer position. From the budget
for this year. That's my motion. Do we have a
second for that motion? Seconded. And so would you
like to speak further on that, Councillor Conetz? Well, just.
What I said again is that. I think these are
all. Staff has done a great job of paring down.
A lot of what they felt was needed. And I'm
sure that this is a very important position, but I'm
thinking. That. There has to be some give and take.
Especially when we're asking for this many positions at once.
There needs to be. Some. I believe that this is
probably a position. That would have the least impact if
we can delay it. For a year until next budget,
possibly. Councilor Gilbert. Yeah, thanks. Through the chair. I appreciate
Councillor Conan is trying to look at this budget with
a fine tooth comb and look. For those savings. I
will be voting against this motion solely for the fact
of after doing the facilities tour and hearing how much
some of these capital projects are not being done. We
need to start moving on. A lot of capital we've
seen, I think, across this whole country, especially if you
look at the city of Calgary, where they've had a
water main break and they're still dealing with that problem.
We have a lot of capital. Projects that have not
been attended to over the years and throughout the two
years of being on councillor, we have dealt with pain
for a roof. For the sports plex and realizing it
wasn't procured properly or done properly before. And so we
had to buy a brand new roof to install it.
Our fire halls have pipes on the outside of their
walls. They've reached the end of life. McLaren and memorial
have reached their end of the life we've had to
dip into. Our emergency funds to pay to make sure
that our community center was operational for the people. So
I understand. Trying to me, the cost savings are going
to be getting these projects done at a time when
we can start affording them instead of having the cost
keep going up over time and seeing the state of
some of our infrastructure. I think it's time that we
need to be able to put a position in to
get these projects going and to ensure that we're not
paying for it or having to decommission. A whole clubhouse
because our roof fell, that we thought King's park, that
now we lose. An amenity for our community. So I
will be voting against this and be voting for moving.
The recommendation to hire that staff member. Councilor Watt. Thank
you. The chair. I also will be voting against it.
Seconded for the opportunity to speak to it. We are
ultimately victim of what we've created, and ultimately, that is
what I'm suggesting is staffed as such an amazing job
vetting this budget. That we find almost as an obligation.
Reasons to say no to everything. It's our job. And
I'm sorry we're. Doing it. I would like to give
you a chance, if I may, because. I believe this
position. Is absolutely, fully justified. But if you could speak
just a little bit more in depth as to the
additional cost savings. I think that that helps us understand.
The budgetary 104,000. Again, I know that we put you
in this position because ultimately. And I'm not even sure
the community understands. How intensely this budget gets vetted before
it comes to this desk. But then we obviously feel
a real big obligation to say no. Ms. Campbell. Yes,
through your worship. And I appreciate Councillor Watts comments. Staff
does really do an incredibly thorough job of going through
the budget to bring Councillor the best budget that we
possibly can. So that Councillor isn't looking to reduce service
levels. That Councillor is able to accept the budget that
is presented before them. In terms of this particular position,
I think the challenge that Councillor will have is that
this position will likely save the city hundreds of thousands
of dollars in capital. For the small incremental tax increase
that will be needed to fund it. Because like I
mentioned before, the delay in some of these projects could
cost us 20% to 30% in incremental costs for inflation,
which is what we are seeing in the delay. Of
projects, and what the procurement department is doing right now
is prioritizing their work, but unfortunately, there is far too
much capital work that the city needs to do. And
when Councillor looks forward into their future at things. Like
the Community Safety Building, which potentially is a $40 million
building for those new fire halls. That is going to
need an excessive amount of procurement time in order to
get that contract off. The ground, which means something else
will not be done in between, and that is a
significant risk. That the city takes in terms of other
things not being done and costing the taxpayers increment. Incrementally
more money, even if it's on the capital side. That
means we're able to do less capital work than we
otherwise would be able to do. Thank you. And follow
up. Thank you. And again, if this wasn't a capital
budget, I think what we'd be seeing is probably a
net savings, and that gets lost in this. And so,
again, thank you very much for explaining it. Council. Any
more comments? Councillor Connes, do you have a reply? Councillor
Conan? Yes. Yeah. I understand. I'm sure it's a very
important position. I do want to say. That staff has
done an amazing job. In paring down this budget before
it gets to us, and I really appreciate that, but
I do want to say that. I haven't seen. Everyone
turning down everything. I've only made two motions, and I'm
sure this one's going to. Be defeated too. No one
else has made any other motion if they don't want
to. That's fine. And if they don't feel it's necessary,
but. I don't think that as a Councillor, we're turning
down everything. So far in this budget. And I hope
that, Councillor, even though staff has done such a great.
Job. Through the chair. I hope that Councillor continues to
look at this critically because that's our job. Thank you,
Councillor Conan and I agree that is our job. And
Councillor, what stated as well. I think we're here. We
have been doing our job over the previous months. And.
Staff have reacted to that. And come in with a
budget. That on the face of it looks like it's
been a very thorough and well thought. Out process. Any
further questions, council? Hearing? None. I'll call the question on
that motion. To. Remove. The procurement position. All in favor?
That's Councillor Conan in favor and opposed. And as Councillor
Gilbert Graham, Councillor Watt and myself opposed. So that motion
is defeated. Do we have. Another motion. Councilor Gilbert. Yeah.
Thank you. The chair. I'll move to staff recommendation. Second.
Seconded. Any further discussion? Any comments? Councilor Gilbert. Yeah. Thanks
for the chair. I wanted to make him before, but
I think I. Want to make it. Now, I do
want to say that I do appreciate Councillor Conez's. Outlook
and to bring up some of these things and what
her views are, because she does represent the community. And
I do want to say that I do appreciate that
Councillor Conez does. Bring up these motions. Any further comments?
Questions? None. I'll call a question. All in favor? And
opposed. Councilor Conan is opposed. The motion carries. Thank you
very much. And 7.62.
Civic grants and partnerships. Ms. Campbell, please. Thank you, your
worship. The grant program for 2025 is significantly different than
in previous years, due to the municipal grant operating agreement
with the community foundation that Councillor approved at the September
10, 2024 regular Councillor meeting the agreement is in effect
from January 1, 2025 until December 31. 2030, with an
option to extend for five additional years, provided both parties
agree to the renewal. This year. The grant presentation will
provide Councillor with an overview of the current civic partnerships
and operating agreements previously approved, as well as the allocation
to the foundation and one additional event agreement that's being
proposed. There are three Councillor policies related to municipal grants
and special events. The municipal grants policy municipal special events
grants policy and the city manager Grant approval policy, the
municipal grants and municipal special event grants. Policies provide the
structure for the two year pilot program, for operating and
event agreements. For consistency, they've also been incorporated into the
grant. Administration agreement with the foundation in order to guide
the administrator in determining eligibility and categorizing and evaluating applications
to allocate the funding. The city manager grant approval policy
allows the city manager to approve requests along as existing
budgets are not impacted. For 2025, the overall grant budget
has been reduced to just under $1 million, which is
largely due to the final year of Ironman taking place
in 2024. As seen in the civic partnerships line in
this table. Council approves multi year and Oneoff agreements for
specific events when they are brought forward, which generally occurs
in advance of a budget year. There are currently three
events with previously approved agreements for grants and partnerships spanning
various lengths of time. The 2025 agreements include the CSSHL,
Okanagan Grand Fondo and Hudo Adventures. Following the June 2023
update to the grant policies, the city began the pilot
program for operating in event agreements which were approved by
Councillor at the November 7, 2023 regular meeting. The operating
agreements are with not for profit organizations occupying and providing
maintenance to city owned facilities or property. Two year funding
agreements were entered into with the organizations list. Listed in
this table as part of the pilot project totaling just
under $300,000. The event agreements are also with not for
profit organizations providing economic benefit and social vibrancy to the
city through the organization of community events. Two year funding
agreements were entered into with the organizations listed in this
table as part of the pilot project and total $118,000.
In 2025, the pilot program will be evaluated and the
policies will return to Councillor to consider. Continuing longer term
funding agreements into the future. Due to the timing of
the change of the city's grant administration to the foundation
and the timing of this specific event. The city worked
with the Penticton Art gallery to accommodate a request for
the Ignite, the arts festival scheduled for March 21 to
30th of 2025. In 2024, Councillor approved a combined cash
and in kind grant to the event in the amount.
Of $20,450 for 2025. The art gallery requested 25,000, and
staff is proposing an inflationary increase to 21,000. This would
be a one year event agreement which would expire at
the same time as the others within the pilot program.
This leaves the remaining grant allocation to the community foundation,
as well as for transition purposes, keeping a small portion
of grant funding available for minor requests through the year
for in kind that could be approved through the city
manager. And that brings us to the recommendation that Councillor
approve in principle, the Civic grant and partnerships 2025 to
2029 budget subject to final review. Councilor Gilbert. Yeah. Thank
you. Through the chair. So I just want to clarify.
With the ignite the arts festival. Is that what we're
saying here is including when it comes. Up next year.
Like, if they come to us, is it going to
be included with the two? Year program pilot. Festivals that
we have on there or. Would that agreement go back
to them applying to the community foundation? Through your worship.
That would depend on council's appetite to include further agreement.
So part of when staff brings the pilot project back
to Councillor, we will be looking for some direction. If
Councillor. Wishes to proceed with the existing agreements, or if
Councillor would like to open it up to other organizations,
so that would be at council's discretion. Any
further questions? Comments? Councilor Conan. Yes.
Through the chair. Are we, as a Councillor, not going
to see the grants that were turned down? Ms. Campbell.
Through your worship, there are no grants anymore that are
turned down. The grant program will be administered through the
foundation, and we will be able to report back to
Councillor on the applications. That were approved through the foundation.
If Councillor wishes further information about the foundation process, I'm
sure staff can bring that back to council. I think
what Councillor Connes was asking. Will we get a report
back from the community foundation? Showing which grants were successful
and which were not. Yeah. Through your worship, I believe
the intention was. We would be providing counsel with a
listing of the approved ones if Councillor wishes to see
what wasn't approved. We can ask the foundation for that
as well and bring it back to. Council. Councilor Conan.
Do you want to follow up on that? Yeah. I
think it would be just good information to have in
case someone walks up on the street. To me and
says that they were turned down. Just so I have
a heads up, I'm sure. The community foundation. Did a
stellar job, but just good for information purposes. I actually
concur with Councillor Conan on that one. I'd like to
know. The full details. Do you need a motion for
that, Ms. Campbell? Three year worship we were planning. To
bring that information back to Councillor anyway on the approved
we will just ensure that the foundation gives us the
full report of who applied and who was funded. Okay,
thank you. Any further questions from Councillor? Are we looking
for staff recommendation? Or do we have further questions?
Councilor graham. Can you explain how the art gallery with
ignite the arts has parachuted in and asked for some
more money. Through your worship. So because of the timing
of the change of the grant program, typically speaking, the
foundation will be running its grant program at the same
time that the city used to run there. So around
the September October time frame because of the transition between
the city moving its administration over to the foundation. They're
actually going to run their grant program starting, I believe,
in. January and award them later in the year. The
Art gallery. Approached both the foundation and the city to
talk about the timing because their event happens in March.
And they were looking for the security of the funding.
They asked if we would consider doing a one year
exception and including them through this process in order to
ensure that they knew the funding that they had was
secure before they planned out their entire event. Councilor Gilbert.
Thank you. Through the chair. I guess I somewhat struggle
with this because it's not that I do not want
to. Not support the ignite Yards festival. The issue is
we, as Councillor, have decided to go ahead. With a
different model. And to have an exemption right off the
bat sets the presidents of basically being, well, if I
don't like what the community foundation's timing or I don't
like the decision by the community foundation. I can just
go to councillor and get money from them instead. When
we have decided that we want the administration to come
to the community foundation, so. I'm struggling with this because.
I think. I want to see and ignite the arts
festival funded. To me. There's a process that we have
agreed upon and all the other groups that get funding
through $240,000. Are also adhering to that process that we
have put forward and are modifying probably a lot. Of
their scheduling and how they do it because of that.
And the community foundation has also been willing to do
earlier submissions in January to accommodate some of that, so
I am struggling a bit. With this just because we
passed a process. And now I don't want to see
this go through and then next year have another. Organization
come out and say, well, we didn't like what happened,
so we want money from Councillor instead. Through your worship.
I think Ms. Johnson would like to speak. She spoke
with them directly on the request. Thank you. Through the
chair. So. This very clearly not precedent setting. What's very
unique is the timing. As Ms. Campbell alluded to. I
just want to clarify, though, that this is the only
returning event that actually occurs. Within Q one of this
upcoming year. That does not have secured funding, so we'd
be looking at all of our event rosters. This was
the only one that fits within that, and very clearly.
One time exception, not precedent setting, and moving them to
the regular process. Once we complete this. But it is
the only event occurring within the Q one. So just
clarifying that. I actually have a question from this Johnson
on a follow up to that. So the art gallery.
They've started advertising there, ignite the Arts festival. And so
they're advertising an event that they haven't got funding. Approved
from Councillor yet. Do they have other funding that has
been approved? How are they advertising an event that they
haven't secured the funding for yet? I'm just trying to
square the circle here. Yes, through the chair. Sir. I
was just trying to pull up the budget that they
provided us. Without seeing it directly. If it's not confirmed,
they are certainly making assumptions. Of other revenue streams, whether
it's grants, sponsorships and ticket sales. So they did provide
us with. The budget expectation within that, as we noted,
they have requested 25,000. We're proposing 21 to reflect the
inflationary increase. I can go back and seek that information
about. What? Of those revenue assumptions have been confirmed. But
within their budget, they did have a few assumptions on
revenue expectations. And through your worship, if I might add,
their typical budget is, I think, around $190,000. To host
the event. So the 25,000 is a small portion of
the overall cost. Of the event. Another point. Was if
this was granted. Would the community foundation be taking that
into account in their grant application for the rest of
the year. Through your worship. Yes. The community foundation is
aware that we are proposing this and that their funding
is decreased because of this request, and so they would
not be considering using the city fund for this further,
Councillor Grant? Yeah. Can we circle back to that? So
if we approve this today, we. Are taking funds from
the other groups that have gone through the proper channels.
With respect to the community grants. That's correct. We approve
this. We're taking from other groups through your worship. So
on the screen here, I've got the allocation for the.
Community foundation, it would have been $21,000 higher. Had we
not incorporated this request. So the actual budget for events
and grants itself was already set. From the previous year.
We just increase it for inflation. We just removed that
portion from what would go to the foundation to be
allocated to all the other requests. Okay. Another question, if
I may. Any decision that's made at this moment. Would
that still be subject to approval of the final budget?
Through your worship? Yes. If Councillor wish to. I mean,
Councillor could defer this decision until the. End of budget
deliberations. Should they wish, they can approve the other grant
information as presented. And refer the special event request to
the final if you would like more time to consider
the request, Councillor lock. Thank you. Chair. I'm just curious,
Ms. Johnson, because you had mentioned that this is. The
only repeat organization. That's q one. Do we have any
new organizations applying for Q? One that probably should be
addressed during these meetings as well, then. Through the chair.
So we have not been informed or alerted of new
events that would be applying, requesting funding if we were
to see that we would likely direct them to the
especially now. That we are at budgeted liberations, we'd refer
them to the CFSos. To go to the program in
that avenue. I didn't answer your question. To the chair.
Not really. But. I guess I'm curious if it's going
to be. An ask for January 15. They can't really
be referred to the process that the community foundation is
going to do. Because they'll miss the opportunity. So in
this particular case, I have to admit, I know. This
is a transition year, and we're just getting used to
the new grants. I very much understand that we've all
agreed in the past. What's beneficial to the community is
something we'll look at for a grant than aid. And
I'm certainly supportive of this, to be very honest. But
I am also curious. If this is going to happen
for five or six more events, shouldn't we have been
addressing that already. So through the chair, if I may.
On the screen here, you do see that there is
another. Opportunities line. So say an event were to come
up. Ms. Campbell, you can confirm this? They can. Be
brought forward to Councillor, and we could potentially use. That
again, from my sense in the event world at this
point in time to bring forward an event that we
are not aware of that would be occurring. January, February,
March is very low likelihood. But it is possible that
we could utilize that if the timing didn't work out
for that group. Yeah, through your worship. If I can
just add, being involved in the grant administration here for
many. Years. We typically don't see a lot of new
events come forward to, Councillor, especially not in the off
season of January, February, November, December. So, as Ms. Johnson
said, I think the risk would be pretty minimal, that
there would be any groups that would still come forward.
But as she mentioned. Yes, there is that 34,000. Dollars
of grant money that's existing that it can either be
approved by Mr. Hadad. Through the city manager approval policy
or come forward to Councillor. So there is money. We
did allow for money. Given that the transition this year
was awkward. And not every agency might realize that we
changed if they weren't a returning grant applicant. But we
wanted to allow opportunity that no one was going to
be turned away without a conversation. And available funding. And
my understanding is that the community foundation. Is sitting to
assess the grants and award the grants. In January. And
in future years, they'll be doing that at the end
of the year rather than the beginning of the next
year. Is that correct? Yes. Through your worship. So they
accommodated us this. Year. They've already run their regular grant
programming time frame they ran very similar to the opening
time frame that the city did itself. Where we ran
like August through September, they had a very similar timeline,
but because. We've transitioned. They're actually doing a special grant
program starting in January, so it's just this one year
where the timing is off. Next year, all the applicants
will run. At the same time in the fall, just
like the city's grant program would have been. Councilor. What?
Thank you, chair. I would chalk this up to transition,
and I'd move the staff recommendation. Do we have a
second? Seconded. Do we have any further discussion? Councillor Gilbert?
Yeah. Thanks for the chair. So. I am going to
support this motion going forward. I understand that this transition,
I do appreciate staff going over the detail of it
and really being clear that. I understand that as a
transition that we're doing this, and I appreciate the explanation
of the other opportunities as well. And I'm hoping that
next year. I do not want to see exceptions coming
forward. This is the process that. I wanted to see
going forward, which is going through a community foundation. But
I will do it for this year. Further comments and
questions. I'm going to call a question. All in favor?
And Councillor Conan is in favor, and so that is
a unanimous decision. Thank you. Moving on. Actually, we're moving
on to. Actually. Bring.
Some of tomorrow's agenda items into today's agenda. So we're
going to need. An agenda. Motion to amend the agenda.
And we're going to start with. The section 3.1 for
tomorrow infrastructure. And so I'd like to make a motion
to amend the agenda. To include 3.1 from tomorrow.
And do we have a seconder for that?
Copies are available for tomorrow's agenda as well. So we're
dealing with the Councillor vote right now. So we can
see about getting your copies of tomorrow's agenda. For sure.
They were online. So we have a seconder to that
second it. Yes.
And any questions from council. And hearing none, so I'll
call the motion. Call the question. All in favor?
Like to reconvene the Councillor meeting for budget deliberations and.
Just to update. We are moving into the agenda for
tomorrow. And we are starting with section 3.1. With the
infrastructure. It's a three point eleven. General manager of infrastructure,
Ms. Dixon and Ms. Campbell, please. Thank you, your worship.
So the infrastructure division is responsible for planning, designing, constructing,
operating, and maintaining city infrastructure assets, including the electrical distribution
system, roads, bridges, parks, beaches, water treatment and distribution networks,
and sewer collection and treatment systems. We also collect garbage
and recycling, set utility rates and manage the city's contract
with BC. Transit. The infrastructure division is led by myself
and includes 123 FTE providing engineering, public works, utility and
energy and environmental services for the city of Penticton, and
the members of my team are here with me today
and listed on the screen. So the infrastructure division is
responsible for overseeing many of the city's operations that enable
our residents to go about their daily lives, ensuring taps
flow, toilets flush, lights turn on. Transportation network is maintained
and everything in between is beautiful and accessible. Engineering is
responsible for planning, designing and executing construction contracts for any
planned upgrades, expansions or changes to the city's transportation network
and underground utility systems. Public works manages the roads, sidewalks,
lanes bridges transit compost site and sign maintenance in the
community, as well as the parks and cemeteries utilities keeps
the community safe by providing clean drinking water. And reliable
sanitary sewer system and stormwater drainage system. They also provide
raw water to the agricultural areas and operate and maintain
our city owned dams. The energy and environment area is
responsible for overseeing operations, maintenance, and ongoing improvements at the
electrical distribution system, as well as sustainability, solid waste and
recycling. Collection. 2024 has been a very busy year for
the division, and I'm pleased to highlight a number of
achievements over the next few slides on council's priority of
safe and resilient. We introduce the Friendly Streets Initiative, which
involves community collaboration, Ashwald Art and other creative elements to
build friendlier spaces for everyone to move, play, and grow.
Two locations were completed in 2000 and. 24, including Ellis,
Nanaimo and Jermaine Avenue and KVR middle. We continued the
saferds to school program that was launched in 2023 intended
to create a safe environment for students to walk, wheel
and roll to school wherever possible, with plans for Columbia
elementary and the new Skaha Elementary School well underway in
2025, engineering will be focused on delivering recommendations from the.
Skaha elementary plan with specific attention to the safety of
the intersection at Scaha Lake road. And Green Avenue, which
is a key corridor for students who will be attending
the new elementary school. The engineering department also introduced a
streamlined neighborhood traffic management policy to facilitate more responsive action
to citizen concerns related to transportation network and the safety
of all road users. And I'll speak more about the
implementation of this policy during the capital deliberations. 2024 also
saw the completion of reach three a, three B of
the Pendicton Creek restoration, which was a multi year project
that involved extensive partnerships and stakeholders. Stantec, the consulting Engineer
on the project also receives a 2024 award from the
association of Consulting engineers of BC for best project in
the natural resource and habitat category. City staff are currently
preparing the tender documents to procure the next consulting engineer
for reach. Two of Penticton Creek lS four dam is
also currently under construction and is scheduled to be completed
this winter, and the city is also in the process
of updating a number of our dam safety reviews to
meet our regulatory obligations. Switching to the advancing, livable and
accessible priority. There are a number of achievements worth noting,
including improved accessibility at Scaha beach with the Mobi Mat
installation. This has been very well received. And staff will
be reporting back following council's recent resolution to explore options
to expand this program and increase accessibility at our beaches.
The Offleash pilot project was completed for five designated public
spaces and is set to come back to Councillor for
further direction before the end of the year. We also
completed the refresh. Of some of our dog parks to
improve experience and enhance accessibility. The city has now largely
completed the point intersection grouping of projects and work is
underway to complete the final section. Section one of the
all ages and abilities lake to Lake route we have
seen. Roughly 115,000 active transportation trips through the Eckert and
Martin intersection in 2024. To date up from just under
100,000 in 2023. Since the project was started, we've seen
roughly 20% to 30% annual increase each year, and we
expect this to continue as the route is completed. I
had the opportunity to co present with travel. Penticton's Tom
Tishick at the BC act of Transportation summit to showcase
the work and success that Penticton is seeing in the
act of transportation. Front and showcasing how that could be
leveraged to support tourism. In the city. We also took
measures to improve walkability in the city, including implementing a
pedestrian safety guide for construction sites within the city, installation
of sidewalk on middle bench road and we will have
upgraded eleven of 42 intersections to the audible standard by
the end of the year, all signalized intersections in the
city have been upgraded to include a leading pedestrian interval.
This fall, we had the opportunity to officially reveal the
new lighting at Riverside park skate park and basketball court
and saw tremendous support in attendance from the community. The
completion of this lighting will allow this community asset to
be used year round maximizing utilization. We also took the
opportunity to enhance the entrance to this facility, including the
addition of a waterfill station and repair station, and the
upgraded walkway, which connects to the washroom in the area.
The city recently adopted its first urban forest management plan,
which was developed with a comprehensive community engagement program and
sets an aggressive plan to achieve an 18% canopy coverage
by 2045. We also developed a parks application to enhance
asset management capabilities for the city's parks and amenities to
proactively plan for renewal, growth and replacement. And finally, we
saw the continuation of an award winning book recycling, our
award winning book recycling program. Since inception in January 2023,
the program has successfully diverted 36,000 book waste from the
landfill. The city took over operation of the Bike Valley
program in 2024, and from April to August, the program
parked over 1600 bikes, including 700 ebikes. The new electric
utility building opens in November 2024, which will host critical.
Pieces of equipment and supplies for the electrical utility, and
the building is the city's first ever solar ready build.
We also hosted our second annual public works open house,
and despite what can only be described as some challenging
weather. We welcomed over 1000 attendees from eight schools. Switching
gears from achievements to some key performance indicators, I would
like to take this opportunity to highlight a few for
the division that may be of interest to Councillor on
the public. Starting with public. Works. I would note roadway
line painting. This was down in 2024 due to the
large volume of capital projects that are underway, so we
generally don't pay to refresh the lines. That will be.
Removed through construction. So it is expected that we'll return
to normal in 2025. New tree installation, roughly 88 planned
for 2024, proposed to increase to 130 in 2025 and
will be discussed in the initiative section related to the
Urban forestry master plan. One KPI that is a bit
more of a long term indicator is the hectors of
active parkland, and this is an important indicator that is
particularly influenced by infill, where it can be more difficult
to add parkland relative to new development areas when these
amenities are added, where these amenities are typically added as
part of a build out. And we'll talk a bit
more about that later as well. On the transit side
of things. BC transit utilizes an April to march fiscal,
so that is what is presented on the screen, and
we saw an increase to roughly 436,000 trips for the
23 24 fiscal compared to 385,000 the prior year. Ridership
on the route five continues to be the backbone of
the system, and the proposed initiatives speak to the expansion
plans targeted for this route in particular. For the utilities
department, I would like to highlight a higher than usual
number of water main breaks. With a number occurring in
the summer which are more reflective of aging infrastructure as
opposed to winter. Breaks, which often are reflective of ground
shifting from cold weather. The 2024 data also includes a
larger one on the raw water main on Lakeshore Drive,
which we were able to repair in a timely. Fashion,
utilizing storage in the system. And Councillor will see a
project in the capital budget aimed at improving resiliency of
this important pipe. We also treated 7.5 billion leaders in
2023 and just over 6 billion leaders to date in
2024. In addition, we delivered 2.2 billion liters of raw
water to the irrigation systems in 2023 and 1.6 billion
leaders to date in 2024. On the wastewater side, we've
treated roughly 3 billion leaders to date and reused roughly
1.1 billion liters of treated effluent through our irrigation system.
From the energy and environment department. I would like to
highlight the growing number of EV charging stations. And note
that there's a typo in the number of chargers in
this table, and it should state that through 2025, we
actually anticipate having 18 level two and four. Level three
fast chargers for a total of 22 public chargers and
twelve fleet. With more stations, we're expecting more. Hours. And
I would note that we will be before Councillor in
the near future with a review. Of the charging rates,
as we have not yet established a rate structure for
the level three fast chargers that will need to be
set prior to these units coming online before the end
of the year. Lastly, I want to highlight Sadie and
safety, our metrics that measure our power outage frequency. And
duration. We have had a couple of really great years,
making us the third best overall in Canada in 2023.
But 2024 will not be quite as strong due to
two Fordis BC main outages at the Westminster substation, which
resulted in thousands of customers out as a result. This
highlights. The imperfectness of the measure. Given that Fortis would
only have counted as one customer out. Despite being a
bullet customer where we had to report thousands. However, despite
these two incidents, we're. Still a highly reliable utility. The
infrastructure division is proposing 13 initiatives for council's consideration in
the draft budget, starting with safe and resilient. The ongoing
wastewater treatment plant project has specific goals for 2025, including
the continuation of works associated with the installation of the
new secondary clarifier nitrified mixed liquor pump and remediation of
the headworks. Concrete and slidegate, as highlighted in the capital
slides. Additional works are budgeted in 2025. To replace MCCs
and to begin design of a twin fermenter plan for
2027. To advance council's priority of a livable and accessible
community, the following initiatives are presented for council's review and
consideration. The electoral utility will lead to demand side management
pilot project to manager. Demand for electrical service in a
concerted effort to decrease the peak energy use for the
city. All in an effort to reduce our bulk electrical
charges and defer capacity, upgrades that will be required to
support electrification. The electrical modern metering program will investigate and
create a plan to replace our current meters with modern
advanced metering infrastructure. Advanced. Modern metering infrastructure enables a collection
of detailed and accurate energy usage, which is then transmitted
automatically. Eliminated the need for manual meter reading. The department
will also assess the opportunities and challenges associated with converting
from a twelve and a half kilovolt system to a
25 kilowatt system. Through a voltage conversion study. The project
scope includes evaluating. The existing infrastructure, including substations, identifying necessary
equipment upgrades, and estimating cost and capacity gains next, the
city will be working with facilities to conduct a feasibility
study to identify appropriate rooftops. To have solar panels added
to offset energy costs and reduce peak energy demand separately
in the capital budget. Later, you will also see a
proposal to install solar panels. On the water treatment plant
roof. In addition, the regional collection contract is set to
become effective July 1, 2025, for the new regional waste
collection agreement to serve the city of Penticton in the
Soth Okanagan. And smelkamine communities. Improved single packer collection vehicles
are proposed to utilize smart truck technology to reduce contamination
rates for recycling yard waste and future mixed food and
yard waste. The first initiative on this slide is a
bundle of capital projects, including the Penticton Ave. PRV project
Ridgedale reservoir Predesign worked uv feasibility study for the water
treatment plant. And Lakeshore Drive in Martin street. Raw water
main replacement, all aimed at increasing water service quality. And
reliability. We have also included the Eckert Avenue Quarter reconstruction
project, which is a continuation of work. Started in 2024.
An RFP for construction will be issued over the winter,
and the design is currently being finalized following an ICBC
road safety review of the draft design. The KBR master
plan and green corridor strategy seeks to create a comprehensive
green network by integrating existing green corridors, parks, trails and
open areas throughout the city. The project will also include
a review of the trail standards, amenities and branding along
the trail. The department will also lead upgrades and replacement
of Lakawana park to improve accessibility and health. And safety
requirements. With the initial public engagement already underway to support
the continued work on the Urban Forest Management Plan, a
dedicated parks technician and additional tree planting is being recommended
for 2025. On this slide. We have a continued focus
on transportation safety through the traffic calming crosswalk improvement. And
sidewalk programs, all of which will be discussed further during
capital deliberations. And lastly, is the preparation for the transit
network expansion plans. To support these expansion plans, this work
will include a review of bus stops along affected routes
and planning for future infrastructure upgrades. To support the revised
routing and for increased frequencies. This will be a multiyear
project starting in 2025 in anticipation of the expanded service.
While preparing the draft budgets, staff are acutely aware of
the financial pressure the city is facing. Staff are constantly
evaluating opportunities to create operational efficiencies to offset increasing costs,
and I will speak to a few of the ways
we try to do this. One way do we do
this is by repurposing, where possible. So, for example, Given
that there will be no Iron man in 2025, we
were able to reduce our parks. Event support budget. Another
way we seek to do this is through automation of
tasks. For example, the parks line painter or the smart
technology for waste collection that we'll be speaking about shortly.
We also look at our external costs, such as the
bulk electricity bill from Fortis, and create initiatives aimed at
reducing those external costs. The demand side management pilot is
a good example of this. Type of initiative. Similarly, we
look at our contracting costs and consider bringing work in
house when it can be done more cost effectively. A
good example of this is the proposed CCTV camera equipment.
For inspections of. Our sanitary storm lines. We also look
to leverage grant funding to reduce the burden on Pentictin
residents and businesses, and we've been successful on a number
of these, including the flood. Mitigation efforts on the creek,
the dam, and through active transportation programs and most recently
for the Gyro park cooling station project. So just to
note that the infrastructure budget has been presented to Councillor
just a little bit differently. Than all the other divisions
just because of the breadth of the department. So the
first one that we're going to look at is a
summary of the public works with the 2025 proposed net
cost being 8.7 million, an increase of 871,000 over the
2024 budget. Revenues for these departments include internal and external
cost recoveries for the fleet department, transit revenue, and fees
for stormwater and cemetery, which have increased 492,000 over the
2024 Amenda budget for inflationary increases. Stormwater revenue was the
largest contributor with the incorporation of rates that were approved
by Councillor in September of 2024. Expenses are for all
the costs relating to maintaining the current service levels for
parks, cemetery, roads, and stormwater, as well as incorporating additional
costs for new green spaces and the urban forest management
plan transit expenses have increased for the contractual inflation as
well as Councillor directed transit expansions that will be discussed
in future slides. Key budget drivers in the public works
area include contractual labor, proposed ftes, which will be discussed
in a few upcoming slides. Operational increases, including 65,000 for
pavement condition assessments and 40,000 for sign sanitization. Further impacts
include past Councillor decisions relating to the implementation of the
Urban forest Management Plan and transit expansion. Stormwater is operated
as its own self funded utility within the general fund,
and as such, the total balance for any given year
should balance to zero. This table takes into account total
revenues operating expenses, allocations, capital spending and any transfers to
or from the reserves when the rate structure for storm
was developed, asset replacement costs were built into the user
fees, and as a result, any excess of revenue over
expend. Expenditures for the year is transferred into the stormwater
reserves to fund future capital needs, which is proposed to
be a transfer of $1 million for 2025. The first
two initiatives for the parks department are connected to the
advancement of the urban forest management plan. This is the
first year of a ten year implementation plan estimated to
have a total financial impact of roughly 1.3 million annually
above 2024 service levels through a combination of operating and
capital funding. The first is an increase to the operating
budget of 30,000 to increase tree planting requirements. And the
second is. 116,000 for a parks technician to lead the
implementation of the urban forest management plan. The third initiative
for the parks department proposes to create a second full
time gardener role to meet service level expectations and maintain
city gardens, hanging baskets, and landscaped areas to note. This
was a deferred position from the last year's budget. The
cost for this position are partially offset by the replacement
of a six month seasonal labor position. For a total
additional request of 70,000. This position will allow the city
to address the growing inventory of horticultural assets, including newly
or planned planted boulevards. These amenities both assist with stormwater
management, but also beautify the city's infrastructure. And I'll let
mistakes and discuss those park requests a bit further. So
the city gains assets in two ways. They are either
constructed through city initiatives such as capital projects. So here
are just a couple of areas from the point intersection
project or through development contributions. It's not typically one individual
item that triggers the need to necessarily expand resources, but
a number of additions over time, while there are generally
less large projects turned over to the city like this
picture of the ridge park, or, for example, Sundero park.
The city continues to try and add green space through
development and capital projects to both improve storm drainage and
enhance both community aesthetic experience. As well as improve ecosystem
services. Thinking back to early in the presentation, when we
reviewed KPIs, these initiatives are directly reflected in some of
the measures, such as active parkland per capita and the
number of trees proposed to be planted. Ridge park is
a large new amenity that influences a variety of the
incremental changes to the park's operating budget, and I just.
Wanted to highlight a few of those for you with
a collective combined impact of roughly. $30,000 annually just in
the parks area for items such as irrigation, mowing, playground
maintenance, horticulture and tree management. The final initiative for the
public works areas related to the plan, transit expansion and
costs associated with the service additions to the 2025 budget,
which are estimated at 205,000. These costs have been prorated
based on the forecasted timing of the expansion taking place
with additional costs impacting 2026. Once the service comes online,
Ms. Dixon will provide some additional. Details on this. Earlier
this year, Councillor received an update from BC Transit on
their annual operations and options for network expansion these network
expansion plans aligned with the planning work that was completed
over the last couple of years to create the city's
network. Restructure plan the first expansion initiative recommended in the
network restructure plan is to increase the frequency of route
five to 15 minutes, which meets. A frequent transit service
definition with revised streamline routing. The second will introduce evening
service to all local routes, which will replace the current
route 15, which is the designated night route. These expansion
plans are also subject to provincial funding and prioritization by
BC transit, as the province contributes almost 50% of the
cost for transit services. The costs have also been spread
out to reflect. The expected implementation, which is largely contingent
on the bus procurement process. So at this point, we
just want to stop very briefly to see if Councillor
has any questions. Specifically on the public works area before
we move into water in sewer. Council, Councillor Gilbert. Thank
you. Thank you. To the chair in regards to the
transit network expansion plans. One when is the contract up
for the bus stops. And is there an advertisement policy
in regards to. What can be shown on those bus
stops. Through the chair. We recently renewed our contract. For
transit shelters, and Patterson does have an advertising policy relating
to both the transit shelters and the bus benches, if
that's what you're asking. I'll have to double check the
time frame. Mr. Boyco may know off the top. Of
his head. But I think we have at least another
15 years to go because I think it was a
20 year contract, and we're only probably roughly five years
in. I don't know if you want to answer the
question. 2035. That doesn't stop the city. If I could
just add it where I think you might. Be going.
It doesn't stop us from adding additional shelters at locations
where we may want to pursue them in the future.
And that is one thing we've been exploring there's. Grant
funding through the province in BC transit and other ways
of doing that. So we're not necessarily restricted to just
the patterson shelters, but. It is one mechanism for cities
to see those put in place. Follow up. Yeah. Thank
you. Chair. There's two things with it. One I want
to see. They're only going to put bus stops up
in shelters where they seem fit, and I think we
need to encourage people to take the bus more, so
it'd be nice to see more shelters go up. And
I guess the reason why I asked for about the
advertisement policy. I'm not really impressed when the advertisement on
the bus stop is promoting not taking the bus, as
we saw with the. U share ride car share, saying
that it would get there faster. Like traffic problems in
the city. Or if we're anticipating more density, we're going
to have to utilize transit car sharing is not going
to solve that problem. We need to look at all
aspects. I'm not really appreciative of that. Type of advertisement
on our bus stops. Fair enough. I can provide that
feedback back to them. Councilor Conan. Thank you. Through the
chair. Chairman. The transit expansion. Is based
on the procurement of the buses. So if we don't
get the buses in 2000, And 15 if we're not
able to. Will that 205,000 go into general surplus? Through
your worship. So because we're actually forecasting a deficit for
2025, it would actually reduce the deficit that we're planning,
as opposed to flowing into surplus. Okay. What I'm saying
is that what would happen if we did not put
that 200,000 towards. The bus buses this year, and then
if we are able to procure the buses, then. We
make an amendment to the budget. Whatever time during the
year that's to happen. So through your worship. That is
obviously a Councillor decision to make. If we had to
amend the budget later next year. We probably have to
draw from surplus to able to be able to amend
that contract. I think the bigger decision for Councillor to
make is just because the phase one. Of the
transit. We've actually already split the cost between 2025 and
2026, so. There's already 267,000 going into 2026. Plus there's
an additional 348,000. For the evening service. So Councillor would
just be pushing that further cost into 2026. So we're
already forecasting. A 1.35% increase related to transit in 2026,
we would be pushing that additional 205,000, which would be
somewhere around a .6% tax increase into that year. As
well. So it's just a decision on where do you
want to see that tax? Incre. Increase hit. 2025, matching
where we're anticipating the service to take place or pushing
it all into 2026, which. Will obviously have a higher
tax increase that year. But can I ask again? I'm
sorry. If we aren't able to get the buses this
year, that 200,000. Wouldn't go immediately into 2026 towards the
buses. It would go into general surplus. Through worship. That
is correct. The money cannot be reallocated into another year.
It has to. Be budgeted separately into that year. Thank
you. Councilor Gilbert. Yeah. Thank you to the chair. I
appreciate Councillor Conan bringing up this kind of. Like the
timing of it. I'm just kind of curious. What would
the timing be? Because there's the provincial share to this.
So let's say if we didn't. Do that. Would that
make it harder for us to get the province to
fund that extra step for us? Let's say, for example,
we decided not to do it here at this budget
and decide to do it when we found out about
the buses. Would that hinder our position with the province
to get them to fund. The share of our bus
services. Thank you. So through the chair? No, we have
made the commitment. So the province in BC transit. Aren't
concerned with how we facilitate that on our side through
the budget process when we signed off on that expansion
plan back earlier in the year. That was their confirmation
that we're in the queue. We've committed to paying our
share of the cost when they're. Able to deliver that
service expansion so it wouldn't have any influence on when
they do or don't approve that expansion. It's going to
be my question. Councilor connets.
Sorry. Yeah. I think this would be a good time
to make a motion. To remove that 200,000 from the
budget, but. I am definitely supportive of the expansion. And
if we do get the buses, I'd like to see
us. Start the program right away. It's just that I
know this takes a long time and. I don't want
more money going to general surplus. I'd rather. Have it
ready for the bus. Buses when we get them. Which
could be not until 2026. So my motion would be
to. Remove that from the budget. I think we got
the motion to remove the item from the budget, but
your audio is fading. Councillor Conan, so not sure if
we can do anything about that at this end or
whether you need to just get a little closer to
your microphone at your end. Okay, so we got a
motion to remove that item from the budget. Do we
have a second? Seconded. Discussion. Questions. Councilor Gilbert. Yeah. Thank
you, chair. So. Just to be clear. I understand where
it's going. What would be the impact on the budget?
Removing it and not removing it. So, through your worship,
the total cost of the service for both phase one
and the evening service. In 2026 would be $820,000. So
it'd be just shy of a 2% tax increase. No,
sorry. I wasn't worried about that. Oh, the reduction to
2025 would be about. No, not even a reduction. Like,
what would happen? I guess. I just want to be
clear on where this money is going. So if we
don't. Do the two. If we do the 205 and
we don't get a bus, what happens? To that money.
And if we don't do, if we wait later. Until
we get guaranteed the buses and then do the 205.
That's where I'm kind of like wondering. Is it the
same thing? Is the process different? But we still get
the same outcome. So. Through your worship. So if Councillor.
Keeps the 205 in the budget and we don't realize
that cost. It will decrease the deficit for 2025 if
Councillor removes it from the budget and then the service
comes online and. We have to add the money to
the budget. We will then draw from surplus to pay.
For it in 2025 and add it to the 2026
tax base. So we'll either reduce the deficit in 2025
if it doesn't happen, or you'll have to pull from
surplus if it does happen. Good. You're going to follow
up. So I do appreciate. Trying to. Maybe change the
process to try to find cost savings in it. However,
I'm going to vote against it just for the fact
that I really want the city to commit to this,
that. We are going to expand the transit network and
if anything, we are going to decrease the deficit. Of
the bus system if it doesn't. I'm going to vote
against this motion just because I believe, and we need
to put money into our transit system. Any further comments?
Questions. Councilor Watt. Thank you, chair. Because I think we
can still put back into the transit. I don't think.
This is a non investment into transit. It's because we
don't have it. We don't necessarily need to allocate the
funds. We will fund the funds when we need it.
So I'm actually going to support this. Yeah. This is
a difficult one. On the one hand, we had a
motion earlier in this year to direct staff to include
this in the financial. Report and the budget. If I'm
remembering that correctly. And it's okay to say we'll pull
from surplus, but that's providing we get a surplus or
we have a surplus. And I'm just wondering what removing
it from our actual budget? What message that sends to
BC transit. I know. Okay. Maybe they'll carry on with
the supply of the bus and the service. Knowing that
we will have to make a motion later on in
the year to pull that. From surplus. Is there any
reserve that could come from if there's no surplus? Through
your worship. So there would be other opportunities, perhaps, for
Councillor to pay for it in 2025. We could give
Councillor options. I think the bigger consideration for councillor is
that the money will have to then be added to
the 2026 budget, so it will have to be a
tax. Increase. It's just when Councillor puts that tax increase
in in 2025 or 2026. So let's talk about that
a little bit now and. It's on topic, I think.
For what we're deferring to 2026. So I think the
tax increase that we've deferred with the RCMP, the 2026.
Is that somewhere around 1%? That's right, your worship. Approximately
1%. We got 1%. With the presentations we've had today,
we've got a 1% budget increase for 2026 because of
the extra RCMP positions. And now we're going, okay? We're
going to have a tax increase in 2026. Of what
percentage for transit under the current numbers about 1.8%. So
1.8. And so. If we defer the bus, then it's
1.9. Is that right? About half. It'd be two point.
Three, right? It'd be 1% for the RCMP and 1.8
for the. Transit, so you'd be looking at a 2.8%
impact. We're already saying we're going to have a 2.8%
increase in 2026 with what we've had presented today. So.
That's something to consider as well. I prefer an incremental
approach, and I prefer living up to what we promised
earlier on. In the year, so I think I'll vote
against this one. But we'll see how it goes. Councillor
Watt. Thank you. The chair. Well, then, it appears we
are doing a reverse deferral. We're putting money in so
that it's there when we need it. And is this
a guaranteed happening this year? Through the chair. We have
no crystal ball on whether or not pc transit will
be able to deliver the expansion. We have approved our
share and we wait for approval from the province and
prioritization. From BC transit. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for
the answer. That's sort of getting at is this is
extremely hopeful, and I would suspect extremely likely. But until
it's a yes, it's. Happening? I'm not sure that it's
something I think we budget for. Because, again, reverse deferral
is wonderful. Put cash away for when you need it,
but not when someone's paying for it. Thank you. Any
further comments? Questions? So the motion is.
To remove. The budget request for the bus for the
$205,000. Remove that from the budget. And I would say
all those in favor? And opposed. And that's Councillor Gilbert
and myself opposed. So the motion carries. And that is?
Removed from the budget. Okay. Thank you. Continue, please. Thank
you. So the total proposed 2025 overall net expenses for
the water and sewer utilities are a credit of seven
and a half million before transfers to capital and reserves,
which is $440,000. Higher than the 2024 budget. The water
utility consists of all associated costs with collection, treatment, and
the distribution of portable and irrigation water. Water revenue is
budgeted to increase 410,000 based. On the Councillor approved 2025
rate increases. Expenses for the water utility include increased debt,
interest costs for the renewal of previous debt, a water
optimization and corrosion study, and contractual inflationary increases. The sewer
utility consists of all costs related to the collection and
treatment of all sanitary sewer. Revenue is budgeted at 1
million higher than the 2024 budget incorporating the council. Approved
2025 rate increases sewer expenses increased for inflation, in particular
around items such as chemical costs key budget drivers for
water and sewer include the contractual labor and various operational
increases for screening, irrigation intakes, the water optimization and corrosion
study of 140,000 lab supplies and required uv bulb replacements.
The detailed budget for the entire water utility can be
found on pages 217 to 224 of the pond, including
supplemental schedules, breaking down water treatment plant and water distribution.
As its own distinct fund. The water utility balance for
any given year should be zero. This table takes into
account total revenues, operating expenses, allocations, capital spending and any
transfers to or from reserves. The summary provides a holistic
view of how the overall revenues and expenses and transfers
to long term capital infrastructure contribute to a net operating
surplus or deficit. Allocations are related to the. Administration overhead
credit from the general fund, which allocates expenses to each
utility based on the services provided by departments such as
corporate administration, legislative services, it, HR, and finance. In addition
to the debt servicing costs. Transfers include DCC revenues being
moved to or from reserves and transfers to fund capital
with any residual excess of revenues over expenses for any
given year being transferred into or drawn from reserves. The
total plan draw from the water reserve for 2025 is
1.2 million. The detailed budget for the entire sewer utility
can be found on pages 225 to 231 of the
financial plan, including supplemental schedules for the treatment plant and
sewer collection. Similar to the water utility, the sewer utility
has its own fund, needs to have a balance in
any given year of zero. This table takes into account
all the revenues, expenses, allocations, capital spending, and transfers. To
or from reserves. Allocations include debt servicing and utility overhead
allocation. Transfers include DCC revenues being moved to or from
reserves and transfers to fund capital with the residual excess
either being transferred into reserves or pulled out of reserves
for 2025. The draw from sewer will be 1.1 million.
If it's okay with your worship, I'll just pause here.
If there's. Any questions on the utilities before we move
into energy and environment? Cancelled. Any questions? And hearing nothing
from Councillor Conan, please continue. Thank you, worship. The energy
and environmental departments overall 2025 proposed net expense budgets total
accredit of 5.8 million, an increase of 185,000 over 2024.
Revenue for these departments are fees for solid. Waste and
recycling collection, climate action grants and electric user fees. Electric
revenue has increased 2.9 million for Councillor approved rate increases,
which is offset by increased expenses for power purchases of
1.2 million. Expenses for these departments are for all collection
of solid waste and recycling materials, sustainability programs, street lights
and traffic control upkeep and all costs related to the
electric department costs have been increased. For the new waste
collection contract that was approved by Councillor and the smart
truck technology, which will be discussed in future slides. Key
budget drivers for this area include contractual labor, the increase
for the recently negotiated waste collection contract increase in electricity
cost and the receipt of three years of the local
government climate action program funding. Upfront that funding will be
used over the next few years as it's been put
into the climate reserve. However, this will now show in
the financial plan as a reserve transfer. As opposed to
revenue as it was in previous years. A significant portion
of the electric utility operating expenses is for the cost
of purchasing energy from Fortis which makes up 87% of
our costs. The detailed budget for electric utility can be
found on pages 213 to 216 of the plan and
as with water and sewer, the utility balance for any
given year should be zero. Allocations include the utility overhead
allocation as well as transfers in from other departments for
direct costs such as engineering facilities, information technology and fleet
transfers include the electric. Dividend transfer to the General Capital
Fund, a transfer to electric capital to fund current and
long term capital infrastructure, the repayment for internal borrowing from
the general fund, amortization, and a transfer from surplus to
offset the deficiency in revenues over expenses. The Electrical dividend
is a transfer from the Electric fund to general capital
and funds a significant portion of the general capital budget
annually. The dividend formed part of the 2023 rate review
project, and as a result, the financial plan reflects the
calculation as outlined in the Councillor approved electrical dividend policy.
As detailed in this table, a draw from the electric
surplus of 4.7 million is required. To balance the 2025
electric operating budget. The energy and environment department is seeking
approval to utilize $45,000 from the multimaterial BC reserve to
procure advanced technology for recycling collection vehicles to reduce contamination.
This reserve is funded through the recycled BC revenues, which
are transferred directly to this reserve to fund recycling initiatives.
This technology is proven to reduce contamination rates for recycling,
which will assist with meeting. The city's contamination targets. Implementing
a smart onboard truck technology reduces the risk of facing
service level failure credits and reducing the financial incentives provided
by recycled BC by $120,000 per year. Is there anything
you wanted to add to that? No. Well, it brings
us to the resolution which I will quickly change. To
say.
Okay. The Councillor approve and principle the infrastructure Division budget
for 2025 to 2029 with the removal of 205,000 for
transit expansion, subject to final review. Councilor. What? Moved. Seconded.
And any questions? Comments? Councillor Conan. Yeah, I was going
to make a motion. Did somebody just make a motion?
To approve this. I'm sorry. The motion is to approve
the staff recommendation with the removal of the $2,005 $205,000
for transit expansion. Subject to final review and approval during
the budget roundup. Okay, I'll wait till budget. Roundup, then.
Thank you. Thank you. Any further comments? Questions? Council. Conan.
Still got your hand up? Are you okay? And hearing
none. I'm going to call the question. All in favor?
And opposed. Council. Conan supposed. The motion carries. Thank you.
And so. Moving on.
And we've got 3.22 community services. But do we want
to move on? I'm going to leave. To 3.23. Finance
and admin. Through your worship. If Councillor is wanting to
move into the capital, I do have an overview presentation.
That I would like to provide first, and then we
could move into some of the presentations. Oh. Sorry. Yes.
Thanks to the chair. Just. My personal opinion is that
we've gone through a lot today. I was just kind
of. Wondering if we can get how Councillor Conan is
doing as someone being sick, we're asking. Her to stay.
I've been asking her all through the day, which is
good. She's. Good. Yes. She shows me she's okay. We
got a thumbs up. There we go. Thanks for the
thought. So. Yeah, sorry. Capital budgets. So. 3.21.
The capital overview, Ms. Campbell, please. Thank you, your worship.
So before we review the capital budget through each division
and department, I would like to give an overview of
the plan, including what's new for 2025, the presentation approach
and a summary. So, as noted earlier today, capital budgets
have been separated out from operating, with the focus of
the capital budgets being on year's 2025 through 2027. Similar
to the operating presentation, senior staff members will co present
with myself for their respective areas with time for Councillor
to ask questions. And deliberate over each divisional or departmental
budget. Councillor is welcome to comment at any stage of
the presentations. And can make motions to amend what's being
presented throughout each division at the end of each presentation,
a motion to approve in principle will be made subject
to the final budget. Of review. After Councillor is deliberated
over, each area staff will provide the final recap to
review any set aside items and present the final motions.
This year, capital budget introduction has been added to the
beginning of the capital section to provide additional information on
the capital budget process, how capital requests are evaluated and
funded. In addition to the added information on capital versus
operating, the detailed information on how capital is funded the
sources of funding utilized, as well as project highlights and
information on asset management and capital. Boring has been refined
to provide added clarity. For 2025. The capital budget information
has been expanded to include the 2024 budget as well.
As the projects that were carried forward into the 2024
year. Combined, these total just under $85 million of capital
projects for the year. In addition, the firm capital budget
this year has been expanded to include three years. So
Councillor will be reviewing the 2025 to 2027 capital projects.
A frequent comment we get from the public during budget
period is understanding capital versus operating budgets. Capital budgets cover
the cost of creating, renewing, or growth of an asset.
Projects like replacing playground equipment adding new lighting to the
riverside park or putting a roundabout in an existing intersection
would be capital. Projects. These costs are added to the
city's tangible capital assets and written off, or amortized over.
Their useful life and may also have different funding sources
on our operational budgets. Do the majority of the general
fund capital program is not funded through taxation, so changing
a capital budget will not impact the tax rate for
the year. However, it may impact any associated operational costs.
For example, changing a capital budget for creation of a
new park will have associated labor and supply costs to
ensure they are proper. Properly maintained. Adding more amenities to
the project may increase operational expenses relating to the costs
or, conversely if the project was canceled or scaled back,
operational costs would reduce. To note the majority of funding
within the general capital funding envelope cannot be repurposed for
operating uses. Its use is strictly related to funding capital.
In the utility funds. Operational and capital projects are mostly
funded through the same sources, utility user fees changing the
capital program may impact rates in future years as the
rates are designed to incorporate capital needs now and into
the future. As opposed to capital operating costs, cover maintenance
to use an asset. So things like labor, utilities and
day to day repairs. Other costs for operations would include
things like interest on debt payments, snow clearing landscaping, mowing
or trail maintenance changes to service levels to operate the
city's assets impact taxation directly. The more assets the city
owns, the more assets we have to maintain. If an
asset has maintenance expenses associated with it, there may be
an impact to operating budgets. However, if asset renewal work
is not done, this can also increase operating costs as
the asset fails. A recent example of an added asset
is the completion of the Ridge park, a park designed
as part of a development which is now the responsibility
of the city to maintain. Many budget line items are
impacted by new parks or garden space. Such as flower
beds, mowing, snow clearing and weed control, adding new areas
one at a time. May not have an incremental impact
at that moment. However, over the course of years, as
amenities are continually added, the capacity to maintain more and
more spaces becomes challenging. The capital schedules in the financial
plan are presented by project instead of department, ensuring all
project costs are included together, even if funded by different
sources or funds. Project highlights are included for some significant
items to provide additional details to Councillor onto the public.
These project areas are earmarked throughout the plan with an
asterisk to identify when this additional information is present. These
highlight pages form part of the financial plan package as
supplementary information and can be found on pages 253 to
267 of the plan. In addition, these projects will be
highlighted throughout the divisional presentations. Moving into the budget summary.
The capital program for 2025 is being proposed at 31.3.
Million between all of the funds, 27.7 million for 2026
and 35.1 million. For 2027. The remaining years include a
further 72 million of capital projects. The detailed breakdowns of
projects for each department will be provided. In each individual
divisional presentation. Of the $31.3 million of projects in 2020,
515.8 million are for water, sewer, electric or storm projects,
with the remaining 15.5 million being for general, some capital
highlights for 2025 include community center upgrades for fire suppression
and energy and emission reductions. The Power Street Childcare center,
sidewalk network improvements, expansion upgrades of the advanced wastewater. Treatment
plant and renewal of aging water and sanitary sewer infrastructure.
From the latest asset management investment plan. The breakdown of
the replacement cost of city assets now totals 1.4 billion,
which breaks down to 713,000,000 of assets for the utilities
and 688,000,000 of general assets. When we talk about funding
assets and setting aside funds into reserves. It's to ensure
we have adequate resources to replace these assets. Now into
the future. The work done in. The utility rate review
highlighted that the city has historically been under investing in
its assets with the new rate structures being designed to
set aside appropriate levels of reserves in order to start
addressing that shortfall. The city utilizes many different sources to
fund our capital program. Each capital fund has distinct funding
sources. Available to it. Some of these are restricted to
their own funds, such as water, sewer and general capital
reserves through legislation such as the community charter. The water,
sewer and electrical reserves are funded through user rates. As
mentioned previously, the rate review recommended investing more funds into
these. Reserves to fund our future capital needs. These funds
must ultimately be used for the purpose they were collected,
so water reserves must ultimately be used for water projects.
The general water and sewer funds also have DCC or
development cost charges available to them that can be utilized
for growth projects along with city contributed funds. Contributions to
DCC reserves are made through developer contribution. Contributions and the
projects that they can be used for are identified within
the DCC bylaws. Other reserves, such as the Canada Community
Building Fund or Climate Action, which are both funded by
the province can be used for any of the funds.
However, only certain projects qualify as they are limited per
our agreements. More details on how each reserve is funded
was provided during the reserve presentation that Miss Jones made
this morning. When funding capital projects staff, review all available
sources to determine the optimal funding we'll take. A closer
look at how the 2025 draft capital plan is being
funded on the next slide. Capital. Funding sources for 2025
include the utility funds, grant funding reserves such as equipment
replacement, asset sustainability and the Canada Community building funds, so
projects may be funded for multiple sources. For example, engineering
projects are often multi funded, including things like DCC's water,
sewer, electric and general funding. As I spoke to earlier,
capital and operating expenses. Are distinctly different. Some of these
sources are restricted for use either by the community charter
or through city bylaws and cannot be used for purposes
such as offsetting operations. As presented by Ms. Jones in
the debt and borrowing presentation. This graph shows the city's
forecasted debt to 2028, with no new borrowing being proposed
for 2025. The PRV borrowing is noted in the table
was approved by Councillor in 2022. Proposed future debt financing
includes standard projects for LS two Dom in 2027 and
further expansion. And upgrades to the advanced wastewater treatment plant
in 2028. Those project costs are purely estimates at this
point and may vary when further costing is done closer
to the project timelines. Included in the financial plan on
page 273 is the schedule of capital projects without identified
funding to provide visibility to additional capital needs that have
been noted beyond those included in the pond, which are
now estimated at $161,000,000. This list is not exhaustive and
does not include all the projects that may exist, including
those within existing master plans. Nor have they been fully
scoped or coded when these projects have been fully scoped
and costed funding options will be brought back to Councillor
for discussion, approval and funding decisions. Should the cost for
these projects become prohibitive. They may be deferred or the
scope may be redefined. In summary, the 2025 to 2029
draft capital pond is focused on the continued advancement of
council's refocus strategic priorities, including projects such as the advanced
wastewater treatment plant expansion upgrades, Power Street Childcare center, safe
roots to school and the connected community capital program. Any
questions from Councillor at this point before we move into
the divisional presentations? Council. Any questions? Overall. Capital projects.
30,000 foot view. No questions. Please continue.
Thank you, worship. If it's okay with Councillor, we'll start
with the finance and. Administration program. In this division. Included
capital projects are related to the Information Technology department, with
projects including hardware such as servers, computers, and phones, as
well as infrastructure such as the local area network capital
projects for the IT departments are detailed on page 242
of the financial plan. A summary of the five year
cost is provided on this slide for 2025 capital projects.
Total 595. Thousand, 746,000 pound for 2026 and 826,000 for
2027 with remaining years, including projects estimated at approximately $2
million. Annual budget. Items for regularly scheduled replacement include hardware,
software, and av capital needs. A significant project for 2025
and ongoing years, includes upgrades to the city facility network
wiring to ensure reliability in our communications network in each
city facility. The city currently has 300 desktop phones and
180 cellular phones, which are scheduled to be replaced on
three year cycles, which. Is reflected in the 2027 budget
figure. Other annual capital costs include printers, infrastructure and system
reconfiguration costs, which are upgraded on a cyclical basis throughout
the organization. That brings us to the recommendation that Councillor
approve in principle the finance administration 2025. 2029. Capital plan
budget subject to final review. Council. Any questions? Councillor Gilbert?
Yeah. Thank you to the chair. I'd like to move
the. Staff recommendation. Seconded. Comments questions. Councilor Grime.
Yeah. Thank you. Chair. Can you go back to one
slide there? The 100,000 2025, 26 and 27 for SOEC
hardware. Is that just maintaining or is that updating? Software.
Is that? What exactly is that? With respect to the
event center hardware? Sure. So that's. The upgrade and replacement
of their IT and audiovisual equipment as required. So it
is just an annual cyclical replacement based on their asset
values. And any questions?
Do we move? In second. So further questions? Comments. Councilor
gunnance, we. Okay, no comments, no questions. Call the question.
All in favor? And that is unanimous. Thank you.
And where to next? Ms. Campbell 3.24. Apartment, your worship?
Certainly. So fire services capital includes equipment replacements and improvements
to the emergency training center, fire fleet or facilities capital
are included in those areas, respectively, and not in this
presentation. The capital budget for the years 2025 to 2029
is in the range of $65,000. Annually and can be
seen on page 244 of the financial plan. Capital cost
for 2025 through 2027 include regular upgrades to the Emergency
Training center and scheduled replacement for equipment and fire hoses.
The recommendation is that Councillor approve in principle the fire
department. 2025 2029 capital plan subject. To final review. Any
questions? Any comments? Councillor Graham? Yeah, I like to move
the stock recommendation, please. We got to. Move. Do we
have second? Seconded. Questions. Any questions? No comments.
Call the question then. All in favor? And Councillor Conan
is in favor, and so that's unanimous. Thank you. 3.25.
Going through all the quick ones first, your worship. Yes,
I see that. For public safety and partnerships. Included in
this division's capital program would be items such as parking
meters and machines. The capital budget for the year's 2025
to 2029 is in the range of $15,000 annually and
can be found on page 244 of the financial plan.
The ongoing capital program consists of downtown parking, paystation additions
aiming to increase the number of electronic. Pay stations in
downtown. In the downtown area is existing paid parking area
on Main street. The city and the Downtown Penticton Business
Improvement association have received complaints from seniors and frequent downtown
visitors who find the current distance between pay stations is
too far. Currently, there are two pay stations on each
of the 2345 and 600 blocks with three on the
one. Flock in
2025 due to its length, high concentration of businesses and
heavily used paystations. The 300 block will be the first
to see these changes. And the recommendation is Councillor. Approve
in principle the public safety and partnerships 2025 to 2029.
Capital plan subject to a final review. Council. Any questions?
Comments? Pretty straightforward. Councilor grime like to move the stock
recommendation, please? Do have a second. Seconded. Questions? Comments Councillor
Connie. No comments, no questions. On the poll of question.
All in favor? And that is unanimous. Thank you. So
I think we're moving on to 3.22, is that correct?
Community services. Your worship. Yes. Council before we go into
community services. Community service is going to be rather longer
and more detailed. Is that correct? And then we've got
infrastructure, which is going to be equally long and complicated,
is that. Correct. No. Do we have appetite to do
this today? Do we want to defer to tomorrow? Councilor
Conans. How are you feeling? How much longer? Does the
rest of the Councillor want to go for? I'm in
if you all are. Are you planning on going till
five? No, we certainly won't be going to five, I
don't think. I'm looking at Councillor here. I'm looking for
direction and input. Well, I'm not sure we'll get it
all done today. But move forward. Doing five minute break.
Yes. Okay, we call a five minute break. We give
everybody a chance to refresh. Back in five minutes. Thank
you.
To reconvene the Councillor meeting and we're going to go
straight into. 3.22 of tomorrow's agenda. Now today's agenda with
community services. Ms Johnson. And Ms. Campbell, please. Thank you,
your worship. The community services capital program consists of facilities,
projects which include things such as building envelope works, internal
building systems such as HVAC or plumbing major. Refurbishments, upgrades
or renovations in new construction. In 2024, the facilities department
undertook delivery of a total of 82 capital works projects
with a budgeted value of 17 million, consisting of 22
carryover projects from 20 23, 43 plawn projects and 17
unplanned capital works projects. The 2025 capital budget is $5.5
million, with 2026 at 3,000,020 27 at 2 million, which
are detailed on pages 240 to 200. Sorry, Councillor Conan
doesn't have any sound. She has no audio at the
moment. And I get a thumbs up from it and
I get a thumbs up from Councillor Conan, so please
continue. The financial plan pages for the community services budget
are detailed on pages 240 to 242 of the plan.
It's important to note that the 2025 figures do not
include any of the unfunded projects or the 15 and
a half million of works in process from 2024. And
earlier, 2028 to 2029. Figures are based on known work
and will be compiled in more detail. In future budget
years, but are currently included in the plan at 1.75
million per year. So the 2025 through 2027 facilities capital
program is comprised of a number of individual projects a
few of which I will speak to and highlight in
greater detail as we progress through the presentation. So for
this first group, I want to note the replacement of
the BMS controls throughout. A number of our city facilities,
which include city hall, city. Yards, the Hub Building and
the library Museum. This, basically. So a BMS is a
building management system, and it monitors and manages technical equipment.
Within a facility. The existing BMS controls are nearing their
end of life and are limited in ability to control
building functions. This project is expected to span over two
years, beginning in 2026, and will consist of replacing the
BMS controls and also adding new control sensors to increase
the overall capability of the system. Overall, this will improve
energy efficiency and increase productivity as staff are able to
better. Leverage technology to maintain and troubleshoot mechanical systems. Elsa
was noted as one of our major initiatives for the
division staff will be proceeding with the work associated with
the city yard's main building upgrades, which is an ongoing
multi year project staff has been providing updates on this
during the quarterly capital reports this year. I believe the
last Q three really wowed people with the time lapse,
and for 2025, work consists of the design. And construction
of a new fleet shot building, which will then free
up much needed space in the main building. And the
last item on the slide that I'd like to highlight
is the Cleveland theater. Lighting. So the existing lights are
original to the facility, which was installed in 1981, and
a number of the components have become completely obsolete, making
it increasingly difficult to repair and replace items such as
bulbs and dimmers for the current fixtures, just to provide
a little bit of reference for the age. Of this
technology. The board that runs the lighting actually requires a
floppy disk in order to save shows or lighting sequences.
In addition to the antiquated equipment, the cables from the
tails of the existing lighting fixtures have become brittle with
age, which is increasing the risk of potential electrical fire.
Or electrical shock to individuals working on the system so
the lighting upgrade will see. Updated led fixtures, lighting consoles
and dimmer racks with all the necessary cabling and staff
will be seeking grants and rebates to offset some of
these associated costs with the project. Next, we have a
few projects lined up for the community center that will
provide a bit more. Detail on in an upcoming slide
and for the community safety building project. This is in
reference to the first priority project coming out of the
civic places and spaces plan earlier this year. Councillor. Endorses
the sites for this project, which would see a newly
constructed firewall headquarters built. At the site. Firehall number two
on Dawson and the refurbishment of hall one into a
satellite. Hall at Nanaimo Avenue. Further, the bylaw and community
policing services would be colocated in a strategic downtown location.
The 2025 costs include 45,000 for professional services associated with
the bylaw community. Policing services building and 500,000 to complete
the integrated project delivery, or IPDE, validation phase for the
new fire hall headquarters. Is there a slide for that?
Here we go. Okay, there we go. So, yes. What
is IPD? IPD is a collaborative project delivery method designed
to maximize value. Efficiency and project quality. By involving all
stakeholders from the beginning, IPD encourages teamwork and early collaboration
among the owner, architect, contractor and key partners aiming for
aligned goals and shared. Accountability. Core principles include shared risk
and reward early involvement in collaboration from design right through
to construction joint decision making and transparency. So the traditional
project delivery of design bid build often sees the project
being delivered in silos through three very distinct phases, that
being design, bidding and building. The owner will contract an
architect or engineer to design the project. Once the design
is complete, contractors then bid on it, and then the
owner selects the contractor. And essentially, the owner holds separate
contracts. Risks are transferred as much as possible, and rewards
are individually. Pursued. The process overall is very sequential, so
best used when the project scope is well defined and
unlikely to change with IPD. The project team has established
early on in the process and includes the owner, architect,
general contractor and trade partners. The team merges into a
single, shared, multi party contract so that's one of the
very distinct components of this process. And has mutual goals
and shared risk and reward. Once the project team is
established, we begin the validation phase, which is conducted over
approximately four months. During the validation phase, the project partners
together perform preliminary design and intensive cost estimating to confirm
that they can build what is expected within the maximum
allowable budget in the time allowed and within other constraining
require. Requirements. Once the validation is approved by the owner,
the IPD team can proceed to manage the project, jointly
working through detailed design and construction to achieve the base
program. We've seen the IPD process being adopted for an
increasing number of public sector projects. So. Examples include the
construction of two new fire halls in Burnaby, the renovation
of the Canada Games Aquatic center in Kamloops, as well
as the active living center project in Vernon. The canadian
construction industry has been developing considerable capacity and valuable. Experience
applying IPD for a wide range of major projects and
has proven to lead. To improved project outcomes, including reduced
costs, shorter delivery times, enhanced quality, and added value incentives.
So now that the space programming and general floor plan
has been completed for the fire hall. Headquarters staff are
recommending that Councillor endorsed the IPd process to advance this
project. Another group of programs that I briefly alluded to
in a previous slide is the energy and emissions Retrofit
project, which is funded by a substantial grant from the
Government of Canada. This aims to increase energy efficiency and
slash emissions. At the community center. And this comprehensive initiative
includes upgrading HVAC equipment, implementing advanced heat recovery systems, and
enhancing pool retention. Techniques. Specifically in 2025. Staff plan to
address the fire suppression system. So this encompasses the sprinkler
lion heads. And panels. We'll undergo a completed refurbishment, enhancing
safety and bringing the facility up to current standards. You
may know, in the past few months, we've had two
heads break due to corrosion. Which has underscore the importance
of proceeding with this project in 2025 and then in
2026. This includes the replacement of the boiler system, which
will boost energy efficiency and ensure system reliability. And I
just want to note that staff are going to continue
to look for other grant opportunities. As we look to
increase the energy and emissions. Savings here. Next, we have
three of the six connected community grant projects that Councillor
approved earlier this year. I'm going to chat about details
of three of them, and then the other three projects
will be included within Miss Dixon's infrastructure presentation. I also
want to note on this slide that the Edmonton Ave
fire suppression retrofits slated for 2027 is for the old
building portion at that site, not the new building. And
another one I want to note here is over at
the Kings Park Sports Complex, the temporary washrooms that were
placed on site two years ago are at the end
of their serviceable life and staff are proposing a more
permanent solution be provided. So the $550,000 allocated to this
project would see a renovation at the Sportslex facility to
ensure. That their adequate washroom facilities available and directly accessible
from the exterior of the building. So this can provide
an amenity to the field at that site. And the
last item, actually, I want to highlight in this group
is the. Washroom accessibility upgrades at Lacawana park. This upgrade
is in alignment with a larger lack of one of
playground and splash pad renewal project that Mysticson's team is
leading and public engagement on the design options is currently
underway, and accessibility is a key priority as we look
to invest at this site. You'll be hearing more about
that larger project tomorrow. So again, as I mentioned, I
wanted to highlight the three of these six connected community
grant projects. So over at the outdoor rink. Activate centigan.
Aims to enhance the outdoor rank by upgrading the public
skating facility to improve inclusivity and safety, so the project
includes installing long term netting and perimeter glass. Additional province
include radiant heat for a warming hut, rubber mats, benches,
waist receptacles, and bike rocks. The project cost is $188,000
with. Activate pinticton. Contributing $15,000 towards it. Over at the
Learhouse, the Pinticton and district. Community Arts Councillor project enhances
the safety and security of the Learhouse site. Its tenants
and visitors. The project involves upgrading the upstairs flooring to
durable vinyl to address trip and asbestos hazards. As well
as the supply and installation of an intrusion alarm and
CCTV system. To ensure security for all user groups at
that facility. The project cost is just over 84,000. With
the PDCAC contributing 2000 towards it. And last but not
least, the Penticton. Lawn bowling club project includes replacing the
roof shingles of both the clubhouse and the garage as
well as installing new floors in the clubhouse and supplying
a new set of lockers. Both the roof and flooring
have exceeded their useful life and require replacement to maintain
the building's integrity this project. Cost is a little over
$62,000, with the club contributing 25,000 towards it. On this
slide. We have a number of major equipment replacements due
for the library museum complex in 2024. We had a
mechanical systems condition review conducted on the site, which identified
a number of items that needed to be addressed, and
it also provided us with the condition information needed to
ident. Identify and prioritize the individual projects. I'll note that
the majority of these equipment replacements provide an opportunity to
reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and staff will
be seeking grants that support this type of capital project
to help offset these costs as well. This slide highlights
a number of projects identified for the RCMP building. And
this is a combination of scheduled lifecycle replacements, as well
as required safety improvements that were identified in a recent
safety audit. So, under facility improvements for 2025, we are
looking to make enhancements to the cell book. Encounter area,
as well as improvements to address the need for secure
parking in a new vestibule. For prisoner relief and then
the other line items noted here are just general lifecycle
replacements required. And for the final facilities capital
projects slide here. I want to note that Councillor has
already approved. The $580,000 for the roof bubble recover project.
And this project is completely committed. This is not a
new ask. It is just being reflected in the 2025
capital budget. And also want to note that the Ssycamus
repair is an abatement. It's for a required abatement of
peeling lead paint and asbestos that is located inside. Of
the ship and in a public area. This is separate
from the exterior lead paint abatement project that I've mentioned
in previous councillor meetings, and that project is still estimated
at approximately 1 million and is currently unfunded. So
with that, the staff recommendation is that Councillor approve in
principle the community services 2025 to 2029 capital plan proposed
projects and budgets subject to final review. Council. Any questions?
Comments. Do we have nothing from Councillor Conan? Do we
have a recommendation moving? Second? Do we have a second?
Seconded. Any questions? Hearing? None. I will call the question.
All in favor? And Councillor Conan in favor? Yes. And
so that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ms.
Johnson. And. Scaha Lake lacrosse box
design work. We want to move to that. Next on
the list. Right. Well, I'm here. Okay, so just following
up on the direction from Councillor that was received at
the November 5 regular. Councillor meeting with respect to the
Scaha sport box. So the direction was to present these
estimated costs and what we've been able to gather. Is
that estimated costs associated with the design work is going
to be approximately $20,000. And I just want to note
that prior to commencing the design process, staff would need
to undertake a bit of an engagement. Process and utilization
analysis to determine which dry. Land sports would need to
be involved and considered with the design, especially if we
are opening it. Up beyond lacrosse. So just consideration on.
That design cost will be about 20,000. Dollars. I also
do want to provide a little bit more background on
this specifically. The pendictive Minor Lacrosse association had submitted an
application to the connected Communities grant program with the request
for funding to upgrade. The box to a regulation size
covered the crossbox. At that time, the estimated project cost
outlined in their application was 1 million. With the request
of the city to fund 975,000. Of that this request
ultimately exceeded. The amount allocated to the full grant program,
and the project did not advance to phase two. It's
also worth noting that there were a number of other
applications received for recreation related facilities and amenities that also
did not proceed. And this kind of helps paint the
picture of the wider scope of the needs in our
community. The Paddle Sports association is seeking funds to replace
their boathouse, the Penticton Tennis Club requested funding to improve
lighting and resurface their courts. And the people for Pendict
and pets requested funding to enhance dog park facilities in
two locations. Other applications came from the fintech and track
and field Club, Kisu Swimming Club. However, these did not
meet the eligibility requirements set for the grant program. I'll
note that. And I've touched on this before, a major
initiative. Of our division is currently undertaking the sport and
REC needs assessment, which is intended to inform responsible asset
management and guide decisions on facility utilization and investments to
best meet the needs of our community. So the final
assessment report will be delivered to councillor in the spring
of 2025 and with that we expect a number of
prioritized recommendations. Given this, staff are recommending that the decision
to invest in design work to update the box be
delayed until the findings of the assessment are presented. And
should that be the decision? I've left a recommendation here
for council's consideration. Council. Questions. Comments.
Motions. Maybe. Ms. Johnson, do you want
to. Councillor Conan has a question. I think that. Sounds
like a legitimate request to. Wait to get beneath this
assessment. We do know there is a need. For an
indoor facility for multiple dry line sports. And if you
think that that's coming. In. In early spring. I think
that's fine to wait until. That. To follow through with
the report. So I'll make that motion. Seconded. And so
the motion. Is. The staff recommendation. Is that your motion,
Councillor Garnetz? The motion
is to wait until that comes out. And then. I'm
sorry, Kelsey. Is it to wait until that report comes
out before we do the. Report for the box. Can
you clarify your motion? Is that, in effect, deferring it
until early spring when the other reports. Come in. Yes,
thank you. To the chair. Yes. That's. What recommendation is
that, Councillor? Direct us to include consideration. Of the Scaha
Lake lacrosse box upgrade, design and construction alongside. Us, providing
you all of the. Identified priorities in the sport and
reck needs assessment, which is expected to be coming to
Councillor. Early spring. So, Councillor Conan. That's effectively the staff
recommendation. The staff recommendation, right. Yes. I do make that
motion, and it looks as if that will help with
the design. Eventually, if we have that report first. It
identifies the needs before we do the design. Right. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, it sounds good. Yes, I'd like that motion.
I make that motion. Seconded. And. Do we have any
further questions? Any further comments? And hearing? None. I'll call
a question. All in favor? And Councillor Conan is in
favor as well, so that's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you,
Ms. Johnson. At this point.
We call an end to these submissions by staff. And
we move on to section eight, which is a public
question, period. And so now is the time to ask
Councillor questions with respect to items that are on today's.
Agenda. Each question must be limited to two minutes. For
the total of 15 minutes for the public question period.
If you're on zoom, then you need to. Raise your
hand on zoom in order for you to be heard.
And question to be heard. And do we have any
questions from the public? Regarding the agenda items to today.
Do you want to fight me for it? Okay. Lindelfield
Street. He keeps trying to turn me off. Long day.
A lot of information. And. Definitely. Congratulations to the finance
committee and the staff for what they've done today. A
couple of things sort of confused me in terms of.
What Councillor was asking. One of them was. The $205
for the bus. I think it felt like a shell
game to me. Do we put it into 2025 to.
2026. So. I get what has happened. I guess I
get it's a difficult decision, but sometimes I think?
We don't see the immediacy, but we look forward to
pushing. You push something. Away. It's definitely going to cost
you more. I appreciate the way the budget has been
put together. I've got all the pages. Eventually. Well, I
think I've got most of the pages. I haven't got
as many. Scamble as. I'd like to thank Councillor for.
Their. Trepidance. In staying through all this and trying to
keep. The information.
That is for the staff that we're presenting, including Miss
Gamble. Sorted. I have one question. And. How much did
it cost for the course for you to take to
learn how to talk so. Damn fast because. Every single
one of the presenters spoke so fast that sometimes I
was having difficulty keeping up, so. Maybe I can ask
you to slow it down a little bit. And Mr.
Mayor, I'd like to ask you to speak up a
little bit. I was having difficulty hearing. You okay? Thanks.
Have any more questions from the gallery. Any more questions
from zoom? There are no raised hands in zoom, your
worship. Do. One last call from the gallery. Any questions?
And hearing none. I recall the question period to an
end and motion to adjourn moved, seconded. All in favor.
And we are adjourned for today. And we'll see everybody
back here at 09:00. A.m.. Tomorrow.