[0:01] and it is four o'clock so maryland when you are ready we can start the meeting

[0:08] thank you

[0:16] all right can i have a movie the second to call the meeting to order please

[0:20] counselor cabral council for more that the special meeting of the council

[0:23] township spring water of may 4 2022 come to order at 401 pm all those in favor

[0:31] that is carried due to covert we continue to take

[0:34] the steps to limit in-person meetings and conduct the council meetings

[0:38] with council and staff virtually

[0:43] um you can watch the meeting live on the township's website at www.springwater.ca

[0:48] or you can um visit the webpage and watch the video

[0:54] on the township's youtube channel after the meeting are there any disclosure

[0:59] canary interest counsel

[1:03] all right now please to call upon mr john noss

[1:08] a partner of black line consulting to present the it master plan

[1:18] hi good afternoon everyone just making sure i can get my technology working now

[1:23] uh thank you very much i've got a presentation that i will share and walk

[1:27] through

[1:33] all right hopefully everyone can see the presentation that i have

[1:36] yes thank you great um in terms of agenda today we'll uh

[1:41] i'll briefly take you through the approach that we took uh the it master

[1:45] plan on page uh the importance of some of the systems that you have and uh and

[1:49] also the importance of systems going forward future role of iit

[1:53] the proposed initiatives uh the roadmap to get there and what you can expect in

[1:57] terms of future value from um uh implementing the it master plan

[2:02] okay so we'll let you make the presentation then we'll have questions

[2:05] after you finish the presentation perfect how do you pronounce your last

[2:09] name john nice nice thank you go ahead thank you

[2:14] um our approach uh we do quite a bit of work with other municipalities uh in

[2:18] developing ite master plans uh we use a four phase approach as you can see there

[2:23] starting with discovery performing analysis developing some

[2:27] insight around the recommendations on what we think that you should be uh

[2:30] doing going forward and then docking me documenting that into a final report our

[2:36] approach is by design highly collaborative it starts off

[2:39] understanding more about the context of the municipality um what your needs are

[2:44] from a resident perspective and from a staff perspective and then

[2:48] getting into the technology components of it

[2:52] um the i.t master plan on the page this summarizes both the vision some of the

[2:56] priorities and the proposed initiatives so as you can see we were able to to

[3:01] work with the the municipality to come up with a

[3:05] vision statement which is enabling the township to

[3:08] deliver efficient customer-centric services

[3:11] there's three priorities that were distilled based on the the initiatives

[3:16] and the current state and the first one is around digital services uh which

[3:20] again covet has been a bit of an accelerated to move uh many

[3:24] municipalities uh to to provide uh greater services online

[3:29] or robust services online

[3:32] i.t governance is also an important priority as the township adopts more

[3:37] technology and uses it needs to look at how we make decisions

[3:41] involvement of i.t and so on and finally system integration

[3:46] and enhancing the systems your staff use technology today they rely on those

[3:50] systems and the flow of information between one system to another can be

[3:54] greatly beneficial to eliminate manual steps uh and time consuming activities

[4:01] we've identified 11 initiatives now i will i'll go through

[4:05] each one of them but i'm going to pause there i won't go through each one right

[4:10] now i'll go through that shortly one of the key things uh for this

[4:15] strategy um is that uh the as i mentioned the the system enhancement and

[4:20] system integration you have a set of systems today um as you can see there's

[4:24] a a list of some of the key systems that you have uh which is which is great but

[4:29] one of the challenges that you have is one there's a few gaps with some of the

[4:32] systems uh that that you you that you're working with today uh i know citywide is

[4:37] one example where there's some enhancements that are being performed

[4:41] as well as integration there's not a whole lot of integration between the

[4:44] systems so even though you have staff using the right systems um moving from

[4:48] one system to another can cause some manual activity and as the the township

[4:54] continues to grow one of the best ways of making sure that you can ensure

[4:58] efficient growth is by reducing some of those manual activities

[5:01] [Music] in terms of the future role of i.t i.t

[5:06] and technology is constantly changing we need to make sure that we've got a clear

[5:10] description of the roles and responsibility of i.t as well as the

[5:13] other departments and so for for for me when we do these types of reviews i'd

[5:17] like to make sure it's it's clear in terms of what the role of iit will be

[5:21] responsible for and one of the the key points that we

[5:24] have is around it should be involved in leading some of

[5:27] the decision making around the type of hardware uh and software that the

[5:31] township adopts to make sure that one it complies with security practices and

[5:35] standards but also it fits within the knowledge and capabilities of the iit

[5:39] department itself so that you're not picking things that maybe uh the i.t

[5:43] department needs to doesn't have necessarily knowledge or capabilities

[5:47] the second is that it's role is is not to to own the the optimizing of business

[5:52] processes that's the department's responsibility but it can play a leading

[5:57] role to really help uh provide opportunities for the departments and

[6:01] help them with their optimization um the next one continued to to keep

[6:08] technology up to date uh always a responsibility for it and this is just

[6:12] you know reconfirming that that is firmly the the responsibility of iit and

[6:17] lastly that it is also a steward of data across the township making sure it's

[6:21] secure available and that the performance is there to make sure that

[6:24] it can enable all the staff and departments to deliver the services that

[6:28] they're responsible for

[6:32] the next few phage phases uh pages i will walk through the proposed

[6:36] initiatives four phase uh four pages in total um the first starting with what we

[6:42] call develop a target systems and data architecture and as i alluded to earlier

[6:47] you have many systems in place today uh that are appropriate systems and now

[6:51] it's about making sure that we can build the integration between the systems uh

[6:55] so we can optimize uh the way that staff work

[6:59] and the first thing is about creating a blueprint as you can imagine

[7:02] building a house or renovations you have a blueprint you have a design

[7:06] and then from there you're able to update it and add the things that you

[7:10] want or remove the things so similar to this it's creating that blueprint and

[7:14] then looking at the data the information that exists in one system and another

[7:19] and seeing where there might be opportunities for improving that flow

[7:23] and then developing a plan around addressing some of those integration

[7:26] aspects the benefit is

[7:29] the intent of the benefit is to reduce some of that manual effort for staff

[7:34] the second one is formally include i.t in the procurement process you have a

[7:38] by-law for procurement however what we're suggesting is that

[7:42] it typically has a procurement guidelines it's a little bit more

[7:45] detailed it covers things like technical standards uh and that could be the type

[7:50] of software that you use uh whether you're a microsoft or oracle type

[7:55] organization uh may also talk about some of the requirements around

[7:59] security uh whether it's in the cloud or on-premise so there's a bunch of

[8:04] technical kind of guidelines that you can include you can create

[8:08] and include in rfps when you go to market but then also making

[8:12] making sure that you've got standards that it can operate from

[8:16] this will be helpful to to one improve the planning and resource management

[8:20] from a i.t perspective so that they also know when when they'll get involved and

[8:25] also that they won't necessarily have to undo any

[8:29] type of work that maybe a department's gone out to to market and

[8:33] the standards don't quite line up it also

[8:36] helps ensure the consistency of the technology that you adopt going forward

[8:41] the next is create a cloud-first policy for those of you that don't know what

[8:45] cloud is it's a kind of a short definition is where

[8:50] the the hardware the servers instead of having it within your office

[8:55] it's in the it's in a data center it's in a third-party organization um

[8:59] typically uh the the cloud provider will be in canada so that it complies with

[9:04] data residency rules but not necessarily um

[9:09] what we're suggesting here is that while the the the township has been um

[9:14] actively moving things to the cloud um creating some guidelines around when we

[9:18] should and when we should uh what are some of those factors and typically it's

[9:22] around privacy security uh financials um so that you do have a

[9:26] guidelines to to make sure that you are consistently uh making a the right

[9:31] decision the second is then looking at what you still have left which isn't in

[9:35] the cloud and creating a migration plan and in some cases that you may not be

[9:40] aware of but many of the vendors are moving to a

[9:43] cloud only option so in the future you won't necessarily have an option so you

[9:47] almost need to start preparing for that so that it doesn't happen to you

[9:52] and some of the benefits you can expect from this is improved resiliency so

[9:55] making sure available systems are more available and robust it also will help

[10:00] reduce some of the capital costs and shift that top rate expense

[10:03] and then additionally from an i.t support

[10:06] in some cases it helps to reduce that as well

[10:10] number four formalize it governance

[10:15] the importance of i.t is is increasing and i think all departments are quite

[10:19] reliant on it especially during covid um and what we're suggesting is that

[10:23] there's a regular cadence uh with it meeting with the

[10:27] different departments understanding what their needs are what their priorities

[10:31] are uh could be escalating certain uh incidents or tickets and things that

[10:35] it's working on but also having it involved in leadership

[10:39] meetings so that they're able to present and show the the leadership team what

[10:43] it's working on this will help improve planning as well

[10:47] as alignment between iit the other departments and leadership

[10:52] create an i.t literacy program as you can imagine

[10:55] the the township has a varied workforce different uh lines of business different

[11:01] type of businesses um and along with that you also have different staff some

[11:06] are very adept at using technology and systems and can learn it quite easily

[11:10] and others it's a little bit more challenging

[11:13] and as there's more dependence on technology for the different departments

[11:16] we need to make sure that we've got a good understanding of you know where our

[11:20] staff are in terms of their ability to use the systems that we have the

[11:24] information and technology create a plans and learning

[11:29] articles and a program for them to to make sure that they are getting the most

[11:34] out of the systems and they're able to keep up

[11:37] the benefit here and in many cases we find that you may have the right systems

[11:41] but may not have all the the right training for staff so the big benefit

[11:45] here is making sure you've got effective use of the technology investments that

[11:49] you've made but then also a better awareness of security

[11:53] number six is is meant to help improve uh it's ability to deliver service and

[11:59] also reduce some of the the manual activities

[12:01] that that it undertakes and what we're suggesting is

[12:05] implementing an it service management tool the service management tool very

[12:09] simply is uh does a number of things everything from

[12:12] tracking incidents and work orders uh can also help with asset management it

[12:17] can help with some automate some tasks such as pushing out

[12:22] software updates and so on so some of those activities that today are done

[12:25] manually uh what we're suggesting is to is to to select a tool revise the it

[12:31] processes and then be able to start reporting against it along with that

[12:35] what we suggested is uh that it undertakes itil training which itil is a

[12:40] information technology infrastructure library it's a common practice that's

[12:44] been in place for about 20 some odd years maybe even longer

[12:47] i know when i started my career it was it was quite uh prevalent

[12:52] basically it provides a framework and structure around it processes um how to

[12:58] do them uh what to do and when um the the benefit here is around

[13:02] automating some of its activities so that they get a bit

[13:06] more capacity to to refocus their effort in other areas and improve service

[13:10] delivery through consistency

[13:14] number seven is creating an uh asset refresh uh policy for it assets

[13:20] this will help ensure that the i.t department has

[13:24] asset information much more granular level of asset information so they're

[13:29] able to track it they're able to attach it to work orders and make sure that

[13:33] they can flag maybe where some some hardware may be underperforming and

[13:37] needs replacement um as well as just in terms of uh good practice around refresh

[13:42] making sure that we've you know stay compliant with uh with the the assets

[13:45] and making sure that they're not getting too aged

[13:48] aged assets can cause more work more break fix so improved

[13:53] effectiveness is the benefit as well as a more predictable expense

[13:58] number eight is consider outsourcing security services security is a you know

[14:03] continued threat uh cyber security uh it's quite difficult to keep up

[14:07] especially when you're a small department uh and one of the things that

[14:10] we suggest is that there are firms that do this uh only this that's their

[14:14] expertise they're able to provide this service for you so we're suggesting

[14:18] creating an rfp go to market create a business case based on what you find out

[14:23] and then implement the preferred option and the the benefit is improved

[14:26] resiliency for the township number nine is is uh is uh uh

[14:33] somewhat uh related to number eight which has created a cyber review

[14:37] schedule um so not just the security services but also cyber readiness making

[14:42] sure that you've got a plan that you can uh

[14:45] manage any kind of cyber event uh and and respond to it similar to disaster

[14:50] recovery or emergency uh plans that you know municipalities undertake and test

[14:56] annually this is a similar one it's just focused much more on cyber readiness

[15:00] [Music] last page on the proposed initiatives

[15:06] run a data warehouse proof of concept data analytics is going to be

[15:10] increasingly important over the coming years you've got the systems once you

[15:14] work out the integration then you'd be able to to really start turning uh

[15:18] pulling that data out and being able to do uh reporting and analytics uh what

[15:22] we're suggesting is to go to market evaluate some of the options uh work

[15:26] with a vendor to perform a pilot and then do cost benefit analysis

[15:30] if that if it provides the the value that you foresee

[15:35] this will help in terms of enabling the organization to be more

[15:40] data driven on its decision making increase efficiency and

[15:45] increase efficiencies as it relates to some of the manual reporting that

[15:49] happens today number 11 the last one which is robotics

[15:54] process automation effectively what this is is it's a

[15:58] method for which you can automate repetitive activities it's

[16:04] using software that it can have some intelligence to perform these activities

[16:08] and some of the common processes that it can help automate are accounts payable

[16:12] you know something that happens quite often um and it's it's quite repeatable

[16:17] um and what we're suggesting here is to select a platform robotics process

[16:22] automation platform uh perform a proof of concept against some of the the

[16:26] target processes that the municipality has and then roll it out it's a low-cost

[16:32] way of innovating some of your processes it's also a low-cost method that may be

[16:38] a better solution than integrating some of your systems in some cases it might

[16:41] be too costly this could be a good alternative for you

[16:46] so those are the 11 recommendations that we've suggested as

[16:50] you can see with the five-year roadmap it is front loaded

[16:54] many of these some of these activities are already underway um uh that we've

[16:58] spoken with the cio and with it um so they've been working on some of these

[17:02] already uh because for example formulas and i.t governance uh is a good example

[17:07] and number six as well uh so some of these are in flight and things that that

[17:11] you should continue on with uh but as you can see it's front loaded

[17:15] uh and then uh the the latter few are pushed out um uh one of the things in

[17:21] terms of dependencies number one is quite important for some of the other uh

[17:25] initiatives so it is an important kind of um

[17:29] activity to perform uh early on and lastly in terms of future value what

[17:35] will you get as you as you implement the it master plan there's a number of

[17:40] things that we see around improving the resiliency and security

[17:43] of the of the township improving customer service uh improving

[17:48] productivity as well as providing uh greater data and analytics and insight

[17:52] for the municipality

[17:57] so that's the presentation for today i'll stop there and

[18:00] open it up for questions thank you mr nas

[18:04] good good summary lots of information there before we get into questions

[18:08] discussions i do want to extend a thanks to aaron devried and

[18:12] michael bernie to hard-working staff members for leading the it master plan

[18:17] initiative and working with blackline so thank you both for uh

[18:22] for making that happen so i'll open it up to questions comments

[18:26] council

[18:31] council cabral

[18:36] oh thank you mayor allen maybe it's possible to remove the

[18:40] presentation so i can see everyone once again

[18:43] thank you

[18:45] i i like the idea of the i.t department not necessarily going

[18:52] out to vendors all the time i think maybe worth exploring whether or not the

[18:56] i.t department since the demands on it are only going to be

[18:59] greater that maybe coming down the road we should look at maybe

[19:04] an additional staff member in that particular department because a lot of

[19:07] the technology that's coming down is going

[19:12] to put greater demands on them um i i do know that i think for

[19:17] municipalities um our our sensitivity to um

[19:24] keeping our our documents in house i think that is something that uh we need

[19:29] to really consider before we uh

[19:32] move stuff to the cloud uh only reason being is uh unlike um

[19:38] unlike uh manufacturers and other businesses uh

[19:43] there are certain pieces of legislation that a municipality has to follow

[19:49] freedom of information that sort of thing that i think places

[19:53] a much broader sense of responsibility on a

[19:56] municipality i think that's maybe one of the reasons why a lot of municipalities

[20:00] don't necessarily keep their sensitive data on a cloud

[20:05] i think the other aspect too on on that particular one would also be that

[20:10] whenever you engage a vendor or uh license

[20:14] um i think you also have a lot of conditions and stipulations that have to

[20:18] be met so i like the idea of it

[20:24] basically being at the leadership table because

[20:27] they need to be there to hear what's being said and and also enable them to

[20:32] kind of provide the direction for the it department to follow to achieve the

[20:37] goals that township itself wants so

[20:41] overall a lot of great stuff and i do appreciate it and it does build one

[20:46] thing on the other but as i say i think uh

[20:50] making the cloud necessarily a priority i think

[20:54] that would be something that would be have to look at very critically to see

[20:58] whether or not that's something that should move forward just given that

[21:03] most municipalities do not do that and uh there's got to be a very valid reason

[21:08] why they why they do so those are just a few comments but

[21:12] thank you very much for the presentation i found it very informative thank you mr

[21:17] nas any comments with respect to those points

[21:21] no through your worship the only comment

[21:24] just on the cloud the

[21:26] we are seeing a lot more activity with municipalities moving to to the cloud so

[21:31] that that is uh that's definitely something that that that is happening uh

[21:35] but uh but and you know having a good plan around it is is key yeah so that's

[21:41] why culture richie

[21:44] thank you mayor allen actually i'm this new technology is just

[21:50] uh it's just it's everything's such a moving target today but um our it

[21:55] coordinator mike bernie i'd like to hear from him

[21:59] and what his comments are on that because

[22:02] uh mike leads us every day does a

[22:06] just an amazing job so uh i'm i'm i'd be curious to know what

[22:11] mike's thinking please enlighten us

[22:14] okay um michael

[22:18] thank you maron and uh through council i certainly appreciate the comments uh

[22:23] i'd like to hear positive feedback so that's great um but uh certainly with uh

[22:28] you know i've worked closely with john over the past few months and a lot of

[22:31] his recommendations i i would agree with he's he's put a lot of thought into them

[22:37] you know we discussed them in great length certainly some of the concerns

[22:40] council cabral was talking about uh definitely worth considering um

[22:45] if it's about security and stuff like that i would actually

[22:48] i would almost hazard i guess that it would almost be more secure in the cloud

[22:53] because then we aren't exposing our internal environment to uh

[22:57] to any sort of hackers and stuff like that once we start putting stuff in the

[23:00] cloud we'll make sure it's secured with uh with extra securities like

[23:03] multi-factor authentication if you're familiar with that but basically you

[23:07] know it's like those those extra codes that you get when you gotta log into

[23:10] your email uh things like that just to ensure that

[23:14] all of our documents and everything like that is secure

[23:17] um but certainly all of john's recommendations you know we've like i

[23:21] said we discussed them in length um i i think there are a lot of great uh

[23:25] opportunities there you know john's been in the field uh for a long time i

[23:28] certainly respect his his opinions there so um and even a lot of the recommended

[23:34] recommendations he had yeah i've certainly uh i've had the same thought

[23:38] uh even but prior to uh going through this process but

[23:42] you know there's there's certainly a few there like the cloud first policy

[23:46] and uh and you know the robotic process automation and the policies that uh

[23:52] align with that um those are those are all great insights and i certainly

[23:57] uh respect john's uh input on uh on all these things i.t

[24:03] thank you any follow on kelsey ritchie

[24:07] no i thank you mayor ellen uh i i just it that gives

[24:12] gives me some comfort as a counselor that

[24:15] we're moving forward and

[24:18] hopefully we're we're going in the right direction so thank you okay other

[24:22] comments

[24:26] councillor cabral thank you once again mayor allen i'm

[24:29] just uh touching on what's being proposed

[24:33] down the road for a lot of remote we have already been doing that

[24:38] and i was wondering um uh from mr nas and also

[24:44] coordinator bernie with respect to uh physical tokens for

[24:49] accessing uh remotely um our our servers whether they be on the in

[24:54] the cloud or whether they be uh housed in the house

[24:59] is that something that's taking place now i mean obviously for us it's not

[25:04] because um i don't have a physical token but i'm wondering about that going

[25:10] forward i know it's a big thing for security for people who are are working

[25:15] remotely and it also prevents uh i guess um data

[25:20] being breached should that particular laptop or that piece of equipment

[25:25] actually fall in the wrong hands because without the token there is no access so

[25:29] maybe you could just bring bring counsel up to speed on that whether or not

[25:33] that's something looking at as well coordinator bernie i'll let you uh take

[25:38] that first thank you maryland and through you to

[25:40] counselor cabrel uh absolutely so i without going into too many details

[25:44] obviously you know security being a you know sensitive topic uh we do have

[25:49] hardware tokens in place uh we are rolling it out currently um and it will

[25:54] be an initiative with the new um with the new council going forward as well

[25:59] but currently yes most most staff are using uh are using that sort of uh

[26:05] system okay

[26:09] other comments councilman chapman thank you mark allen i'm just wondering what

[26:13] the next step is after this we go through each of the

[26:18] top um that where you said it was um heavy at the first

[26:23] first year would you go through those first

[26:26] so i just want to know what the next steps are

[26:29] uh mr nas yeah through your worship um the the plan that we've laid out uh

[26:34] we've worked with with um uh with michael uh to kind of work through the

[26:39] timeline uh so from my perspective you've got the plan and it's a matter of

[26:43] you know being able to execute it um so i would suggest that you you know you

[26:47] undertake it in the order that we've that we've put together um uh in terms

[26:51] of the you know the the year so i wouldn't necessarily say

[26:55] um you know start number one right away you could

[26:58] start all the you know all the ones for for year one uh at the same time or some

[27:03] of them uh that michael we did speak about and i said whichever makes sense

[27:06] to you uh that's that's kind of leeway because there may be other things that

[27:10] happen throughout the year um that i don't have awareness about so you need a

[27:14] bit of flexibility so that's why that's why when we build these plans it's

[27:17] usually kind of you know the five years rather than being more specific than

[27:22] that because uh uh i.t and and

[27:25] and you know the changing business world uh you need a bit of flexibility so so

[27:29] we did discuss it and i think you know uh michael's very capable he's gonna be

[27:33] able to move things forward michael your thoughts on that

[27:38] thank you marilyn uh yeah absolutely the first year you know there's a lot there

[27:42] but i i think that they're they're definitely achievable

[27:46] um you know i uh i think you know some of the policy making and stuff like that

[27:50] there are frameworks out there that we we can adopt and again you know going

[27:54] through itil training and stuff like that that john had mentioned uh will

[27:57] certainly help in that regard um and certainly like we're looking to sort of

[28:02] jump the gun so to speak and get started on uh on some of those initiatives for

[28:07] 2022 as well because you know some of them are needed uh sooner rather than

[28:11] later with with the uh growing municipality so um so you can almost

[28:16] think of the the 2023 year as a 2022-2023

[28:21] in a way because you know we still got a fair amount of time this year

[28:25] okay all right if there are no more comments

[28:31] we'll go to the next portion of this uh kind of a mover and secondary to enter

[28:36] into the close closed session please counselor more

[28:40] deputy mayor coughlin that in accordance with section 239 of the municipal act

[28:44] 2001 corporation township of springwater does hereby resolve moving to closed

[28:49] session at 4 30 pm for discussion pertaining to the security of the

[28:54] property of the municipality or local board a personal matter about an

[28:58] identifiable individual including municipal or local board employees

[29:02] labor relations or employee negotiations and the topic is it operating model the

[29:08] confidential recommendations all those in favor

[29:12] that is carried [Music]

[29:18] so let's start then by discussing

[29:22] uh item four i recommendation for uh mr

[29:28] mr nos did you have anything further to say about the gs gis technician

[29:33] i know councilor cabral had a point that he wants to make and discuss

[29:37] no not at all and just for for for open purposes um you know one of the

[29:41] suggestions we had was to to hire a gis person uh this growing need for gis

[29:46] services both internally and externally uh so it is a gap um it can be quite

[29:52] um uh important uh for the municipality

[29:57] going forward uh and and we suggest that you hire it should be part of the it

[30:02] department uh because it will be more of a centralized service for now so that's

[30:06] the just to to present it uh in open uh that's great

[30:11] before going to council cabral um michael you had some thoughts with

[30:15] respect to this and uh also the consideration of cost recovery i believe

[30:20] you and i had talked about that uh thank you mayor allen yes uh

[30:26] yeah we had a brief discussion about that um internally and i know

[30:30] uh ceo schmidt and i also discussed it um

[30:34] and uh and again it and with john i should say

[30:38] um so

[30:40] one of the one of the struggles that we're having right now is that many of

[30:45] the departments be it finance planning building

[30:48] they're all very heavily relying on gis systems right now

[30:53] uh citywide city view you know for those softwares they're they're all integrated

[30:59] into gis and one of the issues that we're having

[31:02] right now again is that the county's uh

[31:06] service uh their service level right now maybe

[31:09] isn't adequate for us simply because they're they're probably understaffed on

[31:13] their end too and they're having a hard time keeping up with uh with

[31:17] the rest of the the other munis the partner

[31:19] municipalities requests as well so um

[31:23] what i would say is that if we had a gis technician or coordinator depending on

[31:28] uh what we end up going for it would be

[31:33] someone who could be that sort of intermediary with the county's gis

[31:37] department and to be able to develop applications and integrations in-house

[31:42] layers and stuff like that on the maps that we can then send to the county

[31:47] servers and and then that way we don't necessarily

[31:50] have to involve the county except they're just hope they're the host

[31:53] environment for you know all of the data

[31:56] and then you know things like public layers you know

[32:02] one example would be on the county's gis map right now they have garbage

[32:07] collection dates you know that that's that's one particular piece of data

[32:11] that's handy to the residents when they log into that map

[32:16] being able to feed in specific township data to those maps directly from our

[32:21] environment would be a huge benefit and i don't unfortunately have the gis

[32:26] expertise to be able to facilitate that right now

[32:29] we have used internal staff from public works and planning to develop these

[32:34] layers but they aren't gis technicians they're you know they have some training

[32:38] in that but it's not the level that we need and certainly they're they're

[32:42] pulled doing other things they're they're swamped enough so having

[32:45] a dedicated resource for to develop those uh those layers those maps and

[32:50] applications would be a huge benefit to the township

[32:54] um and with regards to um

[33:00] uh you know finding finding the money for

[33:02] it so to speak lost for words right now um would be to

[33:06] hopefully uh you know through application fees

[33:10] pay for that position so uh you know through building permit fees

[33:15] planning application fees you know certainly our planning and building

[33:19] departments are both swamped right now um and uh and if if we had more you know

[33:25] logical tools and and mapping tools where you know someone could click on a

[33:29] property and be able to see everything about their own property

[33:33] uh that that would be a huge benefit and potentially reduce the number of calls

[33:37] that we get into customer service and and you know a lot of the back and forth

[33:41] with some of our more senior members and uh

[33:45] and certainly it would be a boon to to staff as well internally you know

[33:49] being able to see all of that information

[33:52] on a map at a glance uh without having to log into separate systems and stuff

[33:56] like that and again i i believe all of this is

[34:00] achievable with the county's tools

[34:03] um again hopefully uh from my understanding those those tools should

[34:07] be adequate um going forward you know um

[34:12] we've been using them for

[34:14] years now and uh they've been solid uh provided we have

[34:18] the the avenue to to get our information on the county's mapping

[34:24] then the only cost to us would be staff time

[34:28] for that gis technician so yeah we i don't think we would

[34:32] necessarily need much else in terms of

[34:37] in terms of project fees and stuff like that unless there are more integrations

[34:41] to be made councillor cabrillo

[34:47] thank you marilyn i i think i get the gist that this wouldn't just be for

[34:50] internal just from what uh coordinator bernie said i think it would

[34:54] also provide a portal for the public as well to

[34:58] access information so he's answered it thank you

[35:01] thank you councilman chairman

[35:05] thank you mary allen and thank you for the presentation and thank you

[35:08] coordinator bernie for your expertise and knowledge so it sounds like with

[35:13] what um coordinator bernie sand with the gis that this could be probably a top

[35:18] priority and if so where do we go from here do we

[35:22] have staff report on

[35:25] financial end of it or just i just like to know that

[35:31] okay well um the motion that is uh

[35:35] proposed in the agenda uh

[35:39] talks to um receiving uh what we have been provided

[35:45] today and then uh approving the master plan and directing

[35:49] staff to report back to council regarding its initiative one to 11

[35:53] outlined in the it master plan and recommendations one to four so it'd be a

[35:57] further reporting back to us about implementation is what

[36:02] i interpret ceo schmidt uh thank you mr to uh councilman

[36:07] chairman um so councilman chapman uh depending on council's

[36:12] decision today the idea would be is as you may have seen or you would have seen

[36:17] or you should have seen when we were talking about some staffing

[36:21] requirements late last year we did have a somewhat of a five-year

[36:25] plan and we did have a gis technician slash kind of i.t position in the next

[36:30] five years uh after

[36:32] completing this exercise i think what you'll see depending on council's

[36:36] consideration today is uh if council is supportive of that you'll likely see a

[36:41] request come through the 2023 budget uh for a gis technician so um and or if

[36:48] council wants to see something prior to that obviously we're in your hands as to

[36:52] as to what you'd like to see

[36:55] okay um then can i have a mover and secondary

[37:00] for the motion at hand please counselor moore and councillor ma

[37:05] chapman that the presentation regarding the i.t

[37:08] master plan presented by john nass blackline consulting be received and

[37:13] that council hereby approved the it master plan and that staff be directed

[37:17] to report back to council regarding initiatives 1 to 11 outlined in the iit

[37:22] master plan

[37:25] 2022-2027 report and recommendations one to four outlined in the confidential

[37:30] report it operating model all those in favor

[37:36] is carried unanimously confirmatory by law mover and secondary police

[37:41] uh councillor cabral and councillor richie

[37:45] then bylaw 2022.034 to confirm and adopt the

[37:49] proceedings of cancelled special meaning held on may 4th 2022 listed here and

[37:54] beside and so by the mayor and clerk all those in favor

[37:59] that is carried and mover and second to adjourn this meeting

[38:03] please counselor ritchie councillor moore that

[38:07] the special meeting of the township of spring water does now adjourn at 5 10

[38:11] p.m to meet again in the regular meeting may 4th 2022 at 6 30 pm all of us in

[38:16] favor that is carried again thank you mr noss

[38:21] for the report and good presentation thank you and have a good evening thank

[38:26] you thank you

[38:32] you

Special Council Meeting - May 4, 2022

Transcript