promote green infrastructure improved
flood plain mapping and avoiding
construction on floodplains many
recommendations a MoU was asking for to
adequately funding infrastructure
programs provincial support for robust
prevention and response bill 108 was
discussed and I'll pass some information
on to our Planning Department about that
and ended indigenous relations
throughout the province was discussed as
well and I think that's about all there
was other things so but those are kind
of some of the key hype they think of
councillor Dodge as well we have the
face or the face retreat Christmas
market coming up on December 7th that's
in the evening I think it starts at 3
o'clock and goes until 8 o'clock
councillor Williamson just in terms of
the new information on the budget
process does that go through you to the
clerk does that conform with our
procedure of bylaw I thought we could
make amendments any time
for clarity sake it's not that they
can't be made amendments can definitely
be brought the evening of it's just that
stuff there's 24 hours to be able to
prep them so that's why we have the
second budget night set aside over the
last couple of years thank you
okay thanks for the clarification okay
and then we also have a public meeting
on December 9th and this one's at the
Meriton lions community center and
that's regarding a proposal for the
former merit in high school and I would
just remind Council as well on December
12th we have the public meeting on the
new community improvement plan and that
takes place at City City Council
Chambers here at 6:00 p.m. all welcome
and on the planning one just remind
council your role isn't to take a
position on a proposed plan that's in
front of us if you're at a community
event like that your role is to listen
and again under the Planning Act if
you're out there saying what your
position is when it comes to actual
decision making time which could be
three months down the road you could be
compromising yourself by saying I'm
against this right away without even
hearing any of the actual planning
report coming in so just be mindful that
when you're out there listen to what the
residents are saying but if you are out
there also saying I'm against this I
will fight this tooth and nail
what essentially is you're saying is
you're not even willing to listen to the
planning regulation and then you could
put yourself in jeopardy Lenovo that's
all so just be mindful when you're going
to the community events as well as
everyone heard last Friday the Ombudsman
issued its long-waited report for the
region in the hiring of the regional CEO
and his contract extension so this was a
very thorough report and I'm only
bringing it to counsels attention
because obviously the public is talking
about this it seems to be one of the the
most talked about subjects over the last
three days and as a member of this
council will be looking at is some of
the recommendations that came out of
there we'll look at our policies as well
just make sure that if we can tighten up
any of our policies it's always
important when you have an ombudsman
report coming out it's not just it's not
just native to what would be the the
region but if they if local
municipalities can learn from any of the
processes in place that would be
important as well so we'll be asking
staff to look at his recommendations and
see if we have to update any of our
policies that's why I bring it up here
as well and with that I'll look to the
clerk and we can go on with the agenda
three mr. mayor this evenings agenda the
changes one of two reasons to go
in-camera has been actually deferred so
it's a proposed or pending acquisition
or disposition of land so it's Realty
file 87 35 so that will not be in closed
session this evening council agenda item
11
- motion regarding one-month
appointments for the deputy mayor has
been revised so that that would state to
start in 2021 okay so the full revised
motion will be on the screen shortly the
following items have been added to
councils SugarSync folder prior to this
evening's meeting a memorandum from
staff Ontario electricity rebate
confidential memorandum from the clerk
regarding citizen appointments on the
following firefighters memorial task
force and that's it Thank You Bonnie
is there any amendments to the councilor
bouncing Thank You mr. mayor I'm asking
if we can go to eleven point two eleven
point two before we deal with three
point five in general committee and I'm
not sure that require a vote on counts
to make that change you got me agenda
okay so the request is 11.2 to be moved
prior to the discussion on the
appointment of the deputy mayor
so council us to vote on this all in
favor opposed pregnant no it's not on
this one not yet not yet but if you were
thinking about the conflict it's not on
this one okay so that has been moved
counselor once and you have a delegation
to add please okay Jane Hanlon has been
added as a speaking all in favor of the
addition of the speaker speaking to the
tree canopy that the the forestry issue
okay carried any other changes okay kind
of a mover and a seconder for the agenda
councillor Sorrento councillor Kushner
all in favor
carried any conflicts of interest
tonight and you can declare when an
issue comes up no conflicts a currently
adoption in the minutes councillor
Harris you're up for a regular meeting
self seconded by Councillor Garcia that
council adopt the minutes of the
meetings of Council held on Monday
November 18th 2019 any comments on the
minutes okay seeing none all in favor
Carrie next move by myself second by
councillor Garcia the council adopted
minutes of the general committee meeting
held on Monday November 18
2019 okay any comments in these minutes
seeing none all in favor Carrie
okay well now resolved in the general
committee and looking for motion to
remove consent reports councillor
Phillips motion to move consent agenda
moved by myself the council approve the
consent agenda same except those items
brought forward for discussion forthwith
okay I'll look to the clerk the CDs
consent agenda 2.1 Planning and Building
Services code of conduct for building
officials policy update 2.2 planning and
building services application to remove
holding designation from zoning address
271 Merritt Street 2.3 financial
management services director 2020
proposed operating budget 2.4 financial
management service
budget standing committee report meeting
of October 28th 2.5 financial management
services budget Standing Committee
report meeting of November 13 2019 and
2.6 financial management services budget
Standing Committee report meeting of
November 20th 2019 as well 2.8 legal and
Clerk Services office of the city clerk
counsel correspondence Custer Dodge can
I just ask one quick question 2.2 does
that refer back to one of the items that
you'd withdraw number through tonight I
looked at planning so there was a
withdraw or no finance withdrawal of a
in-camera
yeah 2.2 are you talking about the
consent agenda counselor sorry yes I am
okay so I just pulled and then it was it
was withdrawn it was also it's not it
and it's no it's parking consent now
okay yes Kelsey Garcia yes
councillor Harris yes Master Kushner
councillor Littleton yeah councillor
Miller yes sir Phillips yes yes reporter
yeah now sir Cisco yes councillor
Sorento yes counselor Townsend yes
councillor Williamson and mayor CENTAC
yes carried unanimously
so do we have some Brock students at the
back Niagara College students at the
back okay yeah you'll be coming up
forward to present shortly just want to
welcome you here and for the other folks
here what we just did was there's a
number of items that go on consent means that council has reviewed
those files they see nothing in them
that they want to ask questions for so
they get passed as a block and so we
just went through six items that then
they're passed as a bundle
okay so councils reconvened public
meeting pursuant to the Planning Act
there is none we have a special
presentation by en Y so Ernst and Young
and if I could have the presenters come
forward and speak yeah sorry
our CEO is going to speak to this first
and then
invite the speakers to come on just as a
little bit of introduction before the
speakers arrive as council is aware we
received grant funding from the province
to perform an audit and accountability
audit I think sorry about it redundant
but this was to help us to be find
opportunities to be more efficient to
modernize service delivery and at the
same time protecting frontline jobs so
the consultant that was successful to
our RFP was Ian Y and they have worked
diligently from September to November
very short time period meeting with all
of our directors are and their direct
reports we scoped as your where we
scoped the audit principally to be
concerned with our new municipal works
department planning building services
the fe s and C RCS predominately looking
at large mobile workforces and ways in
which can we can be more efficient and
ways in which that whole reorganizing
our organization of our corporation can
be more effective not surprising they
found that looking at those
opportunities that some of the
opportunities are also applicable to the
whole corporation so as they take us
through just a very high-level summary
of the report you will hear basically a
number of transfer transformational
operational opportunities that stage
staff will be working on in the next
foreseeable future so we have Mohamed
bhajami sargi clothes and Fahim cutter
Nia okay
welcome welcome to City Council
so just identify yourself for the public
again here so we have an unofficial
record oh wow I love this this is great
my name is Mohammad bomani and this is
faheen Cotter Dena and I'm an associate
partner at Ernst & Young's government
public sector practice Fahim is the
senior manager in the practice and we're
here to give you a little bit of a
background on the work that we have done
I was just getting a cough drop so I
would be paying attention
so thank you very much for the
opportunity to come here and and and
have this discussion with you today I
know you've all had a chance to take a
look at the at the final report that we
submitted what I'm going to do over the
next few minutes is just give you a
brief overview on some of the components
of it and then we'll we'll open it up to
any any questions that you have it's
thinking thinking so I'm just going to
take you to some specific slides that
we're gonna be talking towards perfect
so just as bit of an of an overview the
audit and accountability fund was
launched by the Ontario government and
2019 to give me Anissa pallet II as an
opportunity to have to do third-party
reviews to identify opportunities for
greater efficiency for modernization
I'm getting there I promise here we go
almost there we go still going the wrong
way
I'll keep talking till to look for
opportunities for four modernizations
and for efficiencies so we we I joined
the city in September to begin our review it it
was really meant to be it includes a
high-level analysis of the city as a
whole but as the CEO had mentioned that
the focus was on expenditures operations
and services of four departments and
that is planning and building services
municipal works engineering facilities
and environmental services and community
recreation and cultural services what we
found as we went through is that a
number of the opportunities that we
found go really across the entire
corporation and so we'll talk a little
bit about that in a moment our approach
was to gather as much data as we could
financial data any types of reports any
previous audits so on we conducted a
whole series of stakeholder interviews
multiple sessions with different parts
of the organization and we looked at
some leading practices that are done
around the country in other
municipalities work that we at ey have
done we have a lot of time and
experience in the municipal sector to
see what those opportunities are and
what we've been able to do is put those
opportunities into succinct business
cases they've been categorized if they
can be quantified we we've done that and
we'll talk about that in a moment and
then we validated it with members of the
senior leadership team and that has
resulted in the report that you have
today so there is obviously if you've
seen the report it's dense there's a lot
of information and data we're not going
to go through every single slide that we eat that we had in here but
there are a couple of things that I
wanted to draw your attention to in
terms of what we found if we look at
revenue and expenditures across the city
as a whole tax revenues have grown by a
compounded annual growth rate of about
3.6 percent between 2014 and 2019
expenditures have grown at 3.1 percent
so while it is good that the growth of
your revenues are essentially exceeding
the growth of your expenditures both are
in fact exceeding your population growth
rate and so that will at some point not
be sustainable over the longer term
the low growth rate is largely a result
of a continued focus by the city of st.
Catherine's on actively managing
expenditures while maintaining services
so what we found as we went through and
talked to everybody in the organization
and looked at the data is that you have
a relatively lean organization leaner
than many of the other ones that we've
had a chance to to to look at and the
approach that that the city has made to
expenditure management has been focused
on managing that incremental demand as
through existing resources and that has
really pushed the capacity of existing
resources just a couple of the other
things that I draw your attention to is
that while service levels performance
metrics and other forms of measurement
and information collection are common
across divisions they're not always
explicitly shared and they're not always
explicitly managed directly as
performance metrics and so the the need
for that transparency being tied to
citizen outcomes would be a leading
practice that the city should should
consider in a number of our interviews
we thought we saw that there were
challenges around some of the recruiting
and retaining of staff that that the
there's quite a component of the
workforce here that relies on mobility
to do its job and that that needs to be
to you know to an extent cultivated
because it has the ability to drive a
lot of productivity and the work that we
do okay I will say that I did see full full disclosure here we notice that
it says eight municipalities on that
previous slide we know it's 12 so we saw
it don't worry we'll fix that I'm sorry
I hope you're not for shadows for shame
I know for shame the subsequent slides
should go into some relative detail on each of the different areas we're not
going to necessarily go through that
right now today but they do want to talk
about the the opportunities that that we
have identified
so really even though the focus was on
PBS municipal works
EFE s and crcs there were a lot of areas
where we can see advantages for the
entire city to focus on and so we've put
these business cases or these
opportunities into into into two
components and here they are here
there's transformational opportunities
which broadly means there are
initiatives that cut across divisional
boundaries and will likely require a
centralized approach and will have
impacts beyond just the four in scope
departments they're not as likely to
immediately result in direct savings but
in the medium to long term they will
improve decision-making they will
provide better support to SLT and to
counsel and better demonstrating the
link between the services that you
deliver and the outcomes that you that
are experienced by by your citizens the
other ones at the bottom of the screen
there are operational opportunities now
these are the ones are largely for the
in scope divisions such as EF ES and so
on
these opportunities are contained to
those divisions that are more likely to
generate short medium term direct
savings cost avoidance released capacity
or increased productivity okay these are
all laid out in the in the report that
we that we have them again there's a lot
and there's quite dense so I'm not going
to necessarily go through them right now
but I'm happy to take the questions that
you will have I will just jump down here
so there's obviously an explanation of
each each one of these in terms of what
the current state the opportunity what
the benefits are
I did want to talk a little bit about
the engagement that we had with what the
SLT and the prioritization process so
something like this requires the buying
and the participation of all the senior
leaders within the organization and so
we had multiple touch points with with
SLT and that included very early on to
identify what opportunities they saw
what are the you know appropriate
criteria that we might be thinking about
when we're looking at different
opportunities we came back with those
options to have them validated by SLT
and then we went through a
prioritization exercise these are the four that made it to the top of
the prioritization for SLT in terms of
what was important to them that was to
look at IT modernization it was a focus
on evidence-based decision making it's
about making a modern workplace strategy
and on the more operational side was
modernizing or building permit and
inspections program and we had an
opportunity to also try and develop
essentially a modernization program for
the city and this is how SLT has decided
the prioritization and the
interdependencies between making these different opportunities actually
happen it was an absolute pleasure to
work with the team here I will say the
senior management team here and staff
were a hundred and fifty percent
cooperative and came forward with all
the data as required we were here a lot
we were in front of your team a lot they
were unbelievably accommodating and
really committed to having a good review
that can really show some demonstratable
results going forward and that's all I
have am happy to answer any questions
and thank you very much for your
presentation counselors rental yeah
Thank You mr. mayor three years you a
mr. bomani could you just tell the
public at home what efficiencies you've
found and in and any cost savings just
in general lay terms if you could sir
please sure so I'll say that the when we
talk about efficiencies there's multiple
ways to identify what efficiencies are
right there is the immediate savings of
actual cash there is the avoidance of
spending later on there is the actual
capture of capacity to be able to spend
time on other things and so a lot of the
efficiencies that we found would relate
as I said earlier on you're at capacity
you you you've really grown as a city
very lean Lee here here here within City
Hall so the opportunities is to find
better more efficient more productive
ways to do things to release that
capacity to focus it on on other things
and on the slide we have here we're
looking a little bit at some of those
opportunities these focus a little bit
more on the bottom seven so digital
service delivery trying to have more
services go online because they are
generally cheaper to to process than the
ones that are done face-to-face process
automation is especially for our back
office services is an emerging
opportunity at all municipalities Fahim
and I are doing this at three or other
many municipalities and that is a key
theme for all back offices is to stop to
the extent that we can doing those
transactional activities with with
individuals and allow them to focus on
those value-added things and have those
things go through an automation it's
looking at our infrastructure program of
trying to rationalize our facilities and
how we look at real property looking to
partnerships and you have some good
examples with the Meridian Center and
the Canada Games Park on how you do that
with other municipalities in the region
looking at your building permits and
inspections areas to try and make that a
little bit more efficient and more more
customer friendly and looking at the
citizens first operating model as well
did you find some cost savings as well I again not it not specifically in
terms of a dollar savings there are
things you can do to prevent those costs
from going up into the future and being
more efficient just one final question
mr. mayor you mentioned something about
you mentioned the percentages our
revenue is is larger than our our debt
and then you mentioned something about
being unsustainable are you talking
about revenue are you talking about the
incorporation what were you referring to
sheriff could be both sure so when I
mentioned that the the average annual
growth rate over the last five years of
your revenues is about 3.6 percent okay
right
the average annual growth rate of your
expenditures is 3.1 percent so it's good
that your revenues are growing at a
faster rate
than your expenditures however both of
those are to rate higher than your
populations actually growing and so at
some point that is going to give that's
going to create more and more pressure
on the services that you are creating so
can you just explain what that means I
like like is it gonna tie our hands to
raise revenue to raise taxes is there
gonna be a does that mean diminish
services what does that mean I think
what it means is that we need to build
and create the capacity to be more
productive so that we can handle that
pressure assuming that those
expenditures and that revenue growth
won't necessarily continue to keep in
line with your population growth okay
thank you thank you Council to quell
support thank you very much for your
presentation through you through the
mayor to you you talked about outcome
based budgeting and other municipalities
who do that and there's a suggestion
that we I guess moved towards that it's
something I'm in favor of can you
describe how a council could support the
corporation moving towards outcome based
budgeting what are the other things
you've noticed some municipalities that
work to get there versus traditional
based budgeting which I think we've been
doing for a long time
sure and I'll look to our expert on
outcomes based budgeting cream cutter
Deena they answer that so I think that's
a great question in the fact that that
somebody on council brought it up here's
a positive because the number one thing
I think that we found is it's buy-in
from council because what it's gonna
require is a presentation of a different
set of numbers enough budget documents
that will show you or try to show you
what you're getting in terms of services
rather than what you're getting in terms
of outputs so rather than thinking about
you know we have this many people
delivering X this many times you move to
a outcome based view of where you're
providing your citizens so you know
councils buying is is the single biggest
factor for whether this means to eat or
not yeah and then I would say the second
one is it requires a broad consultation
effort within the city ideally with
staff and with residents to start
talking about what is the kind of city
that we want and how are we gonna know
when we realized that what
measures that we're gonna take and then
that'll feed back to you know how what
you're tracking and how you're
presenting it back to council in the
public and my next question I know you
didn't get into specifics but it it
seems to me that there will need to be
some investment into IT in order to move
forward I know you probably don't have a
dollar figure but is this this is what
we should be planning for and expecting
we often don't think about IT they're
just they're kind of down in the corner
somewhere the people who fix our iPads
and we don't think too much about it
but is this something we need to think
about in terms of that the next year or
two yes I mean the short answer is a lot
of these things are gonna be really
tough to realize without thinking about
the investments that have to make in
technology a couple of things I will say
though is there's an opportunity to
think about how you can do that in
partnership with municipalities in the
region specifically when you think about
things like housing management platforms
and as some management plans because
that you can you know you can you might
not you might not work out but there's
an opportunity to talk to neighboring
municipalities about doing this in a
coordinated way to see if there's an
opportunity to drive down cost the other
thing that I would say about IT is and I
think I think you made the point well
you know it's more than just the people
that fix their iPads when they're not
working it's really increasingly it's
the backbone of the city and whether the
city can function properly so thinking
about it from a strategic point of view
and where the investments are going and
trying to do it in a coordinated fashion
across the city I think we'll all be key
um and all of that goes with you know
the necessity of upfront investment in
the next not even the next few years
just on an ongoing basis to keep to keep
up thank you very much
Thank You councillor port counts the
cushion yes I I have two questions in
your presentation you use the
evidence-based decision making where are
we not doing that well I think I think
the what we found was when we are trying
to determine
types of initiatives we're gonna come
forward with whether to be council areas
of transformation areas of investment is
that there what we heard from staff was
that there tends to be a very strong
focus on the financial component of that
and not necessarily on the benefit or
the return side and so it's really about
having the strong rigor and the
robustness of developing a plan that
clearly identifies the the opportunities
that we are trying to gain out of our
initiatives backed by actual evidence
meaning as much data as you have that
can show those previous trends and so on
and so forth any research that's there
to show the actual return that comes
back and that is an emerging issue that
we see at the provincial government at I
have another large municipality in
Canada where this is the exact same
issue that we're talking about there
it's a very common one of having really
robust thought process as to how we make
our decisions so you're suggesting we
look at value at it from the expenditure
and my concern is a lot of the
value-added that we look at is social in
addition to financial so how do we
quantify the social value for example in
the near future we'll be talking about
keeping a golf course open and our staff
is saying financially that does make
sense
which is correct but counsel looks at
the social return from that so how would
you reconcile the design so I think that
absolutely has has a role to play with
in this as well there's no perfect way
to say this is how you do evidence-based
decision-making I think as an SLT and as
counsel you need to come up with a bit
of a framework as to what what
constitutes good evidence that is
actually going to allow us to make that decision and what constitutes
return so yes sometimes it is quantified
sometimes it's not for just those exact
reasons it's not always a
black-and-white thing and so having a
good framework that says these are the
conditions by which we make our
decisions whether it be quantifiable or or qualitative are part of developing
that approach okay can you be more
specific in the case of a golf course
yeah how can we quantify the return to
our residence so the counselor in terms
of that's an issue that's going to be
coming in front of council in two weeks
and I don't think it's appropriate that
you're trying to wedge it into today's
discussion I think you can ask them
offline and ask them for a quantifiable
but trying to get them to say something
that you're positioning probably not
appropriate but mr. mayor I'm looking at
all types of investments how do we
quantify the social return
that's my question it's an example I
gave us the golf course
sure I think I think that there are lots
of different ways I would think that
there's an element of the the economic
impact that goes on beyond the golf
course itself is that the the extent to
which the city wants to be an employer
and provides seasonal jobs those are
types of things that you can quantify to
an extent but those are also things that
align to your strategy in what you want
to be as a city and those are the kinds
of things that I would think about
thinking about including from a social
component I think the important thing
about the evidence based decision making
is you want to have a consistent way of
looking at these things so they you can
make the trade-offs in a more informed
manner so in a case like this you know
if you're talking about the social
benefit of a golf course you want to put
some thought into how you measure that
and then how you would compare that to
the social benefit of whatever other
investments are in front of you as an
object then the next question I ask is
going back to the question that
councillor Sorrento asked you've
indicated that a revenues and
expenditures are growing faster than the
population increase and that's not
sustainable even though our revenues are
greater than the cost expenditure I
would have thought would be the reverse
if we didn't have the excess then that
wouldn't be sustainable and you're
saying the opposite
I think I think what we're trying to say
is that that is a unique scenario and is
unlikely to last forever and and so that growth needs to be considered in in
light of the growth of the of the actual
city so we're not saying that there's an
impending doom or anything but it's it's
a trend over the last five years and it
is unlikely to remain that way but you
would agree it's a good trend I think
you are you are less exposed to the risk
at this moment at this moment yeah thank
you
I think Kelso cushions so I'm just me
there you're gonna go around the
horseshoe so councillor Miller you ready
hand up and then we're gonna go keep
going until we're finished this
discussion councillor Miller you're up
thank you thanks for the presentation
report I I'm I'm really interested in
the the modern workplace strategy I
think you're bang on that's a challenge
for us with so many competitors and in
the marketplace for employees that
that's somewhere we could actually that
maybe were a bit behind that we could
get ahead when when you look at another
municipalities or other organizations
you've worked at is that primarily
strategic or are we talking about
tangible more tangible changes to how
workplaces are set up you know the type
of desk-bound in the report and things
like that or how much of a balance
between those things is spending and how
much is sort of a change in thinking
please we have not rares so it's it's a
combination of the two all right so I
would say part of it is you know getting
a clear view of how you stack up
compared to regional competitors because
the people you're looking to hire are
not gonna be working you know beyond an
hour's drive from here so you really
need to think about a recompile it
people we should considering we are the
biggest municipalities and then in terms
of the more I think you called it the
strategic side I think that is a big
part right because I'm increasingly
people are looking for meaning in their
work and the
one thing that municipalities you know
the governments have going for them is
there's a lot of meaning in the work
that gets done here so being able to
position that more effectively and
communicate that more clearly is part of
that strategy thank you and just could
you I suppose
give maybe a couple quick examples of
what some of those strategy
implementations that have been
successful elsewhere in terms of
modernizing the workplace um so the the
provincial government has started to
move towards it's a flexible work
environment right so what they do is
people hire people based on their skill
and then deploy them throughout the
organization depending on what a given
division needs and what that does is
it's almost like a consulting model that
gives that gives your employees a bit of
it's it's both a bit of flexibility for
the organisation you can stop up in
departments as needed but it's an
opportunity for the staff to get exposed
to different areas of the organisation
to learn and to grow personally so
that's one that we've seen more and more
municipalities moving towards and trying
to deploy that okay thank you Thank You
councillor Miller caster Phillips Thank
You mr. mayor
it is an excellent report
congratulations for that it almost seems
like a second strategic plan and that
concerns me
I don't know as you're aware we just
completed our strategic plan it's
unfortunate this didn't come before
strategic plans so we could have melded
the two together and hopefully doubt if
that will happen actually it wasn't the
report that it was melded together if
they want to speak on how they
integrated their a strategic land into
this that was me that was my next
question
Thank You mr. rego great minds think
alike next slide if you're on Caitlin X
can you indicate how you've melded this
with our strategic way I need to think
back sorry
while you find this line this is how we
play I guess I didn't get to that page
the one question I have is you've
indicated that our staffing numbers for
the size of the corporation are quite
lean in numbers you've indicated what
needs to be done now we have to find out
how it's going to be done these our
staff are working their fingers to the
bone just to make the corporation run
efficiently now this this is it to me a
huge huge endeavor are you making
suggestions as to how you've indicated
what are you indicating or giving us
suggestions as to how to implement this
or are you seeing or suggesting that
they do it on their own or are we gonna
need consultants to come aboard and gain
- to help us and implement this sure so
it'll be a combination of all those
things but I will say that we have
provided the SLT with a report so what
you have here is a report what we
provided to them is far more detailed
with a lot more of the specific steps
that would have to be done to actually
implement those so there is guidance
that is there as to what those steps
need to be we work with SLT as we had up
there earlier as to how what the
sequencing of those are because some
support some of the others so they as a
team have come together and developed
what that plan would look like in some
sort of modernization program going
forward and that that does happen over a
certain amount of time there's you know
there was 14 things we had listed there
we can't launch 14 things tomorrow
they they have to build on each other
and that's going to be for SLT - and I
think to work on and to bring forward to
you on how they want to do that okay
thank you
yes sir Phillips around the Horseshoe
anyone
so Kelsey Garcia I don't come Thank You
mr. mayor through you to the presenter
is following up on what councilor
Phillips said about you said that the
organization was relatively lean you
were talking in terms of numbers but did
you look at the organization itself in
terms of efficiency when you mentioned
the different departments that those
departments make sense to you in terms
of how they're separated or allocated or
is that something you looked at at all
so there is detailed findings that are
in the report and that you might have
read on some of the findings on each of
the specific four departments that we
looked at because those were the four
that we focused on so there are are some
findings on on what that might look like
and we spent a little bit more time with
municipal works specifically you just
repeat the first part of your question
there actually to the second part oh the
lean leanness so the analysis was more
focused on the fact that your headcount
has barely grown at all over the last
five years it's no more than two FTEs
per per year however you continue to
grow your revenues and your expenditures
and the amount of service that you are
providing so what so what we were saying
is that they are operating in a way
that's more and more lean that that they
are being pushed to their capacity
because of the amount of growth in the
actual activity for the staffing that
they have right but the fact that we are
lean in terms of the numbers doesn't
means that these people are being
utilized the most efficient ways are
correct well we're saying that there's
ways to be more efficient and those are
the opportunities that we have I'd you
know identified so there is still manual
transactional activities that staff have
to do in different parts of the city
we're suggesting you need to look at
automation you'll need to look at
technology to be able to have them do
less of that manual more transactional
things and spend more time on the
value-added things that actually add
value to your citizens mr. mayor that
those more detailed recommendations are
included in what you have submitted to
staff correct okay thank you
and the other questions of the
presenters okay I would just like to say
on behalf of the city of st. cabinet's
thank you for the work that you've done
and in terms of just the overall
organizational effectiveness from your
opinion working with other
municipalities is that something that
would be driven by the SLT team or is
that something where the sort of council
would be the one that would be directing
that I think it definitely has to be a
combination of the two I think I think
SLT I think they gathered around a table
a number of times and said this is
really important to us right we've
identified these transformational things
and and they're their big ones are
really important ones and so we know
that we need to change how we do
business in these different areas and
here are some operation orders and we
are going to talk about how to
prioritize that which means there's a
take you know an element of
accountability that they're taking to
make sure that happens but they need to
work with Council to make sure that that
happens and so are you familiar with
organizational effectiveness reviews and
what have you done those previously I
have yes so this is is this something
that is very comparable to an
organizational effectiveness review what
we've done here I look because the focus
was only on certain components of the
organization and not the entire
organization it we've tried to identify
areas that were pain points in those
areas in scope and through our
interviews and the engagement that we
had we realized those words were larger
we did not look at the organization as
an absolute hole which is what you would
want to do if you did a full on
organizational effectiveness review
probably want to get to the detail of
doing activity analysis and so on and so
forth we did not have this go for the
time to be able to get into that okay I
know it could have a motion to receive
the presentation councillors councillor
mailer accounts reporter all in favor
carried councillor Porter you have a
motion
I hope stops okay with this it was just
to refer this Republic's staff time give
stop time to review this in the first
quarter and then bring it forward for
discussion of the budget committee in
second quarter of 2020 that's a referral
thank you very much for your
presentation
that's a referral so it goes back to
council for two to staff for a report to
come back in second quarter 2020 all in
favor of that carry thank you Thank You
Council report into general committee
and council you remain seated for the
dis items up for discussion we have
community recreation culture services
business planning of strategic services
tree planting program and I'll look to
at least norton first to come forward
and provide some summary comments prior
to a presentation by Niagara College
students welcome Elyse
it's on okay good evening mr. mayor
members of council staff and members of
the public my name is Elise Orton and I
work for the community recreation and
culture services department here with
the city of st. Catharines this evening
I and we are here to present to you an
educational video on the urban tree
canopy and tree stewardship that was
produced as a result of a partnership
with Niagara College third year film
production students who I have with me
here tonight
staff intend to use this video on social
media of the city's website and as a
tool for a future educational outreach
program on the urban tree canopy and any
other appropriate Avenue for it to be
shared this video along with a tree
giveaway program is part of an
initiative to educate and assist
residents with planting trees on private
property and helping to really start the
conversation that trees and the healthy
tree canopy provide us so many benefits
today but also especially for our future
generations this is to further help us
reach our target canopy goal of 30
percent by the year 2030 I would like to
introduce to you a few of the students
responsible for producing this video
this evening we have Courtney ko Couric
Steven Osmond and Jacob Graham absent
from the group is Juliana Mancini and
Victoria Weaver staff actually had to
pitch our idea to these students against
several other organizations and they
have chosen to work with us the project
began essentially on their first day of
classes and ends this evening with the
presentation of their hard work to staff
and city council through many meetings
emails and edits we'd like to present to
you their final product
we've is there seen let's all go to the
lobby
Tyra's it's loading that's fine if you
wanna it's called fill in the the dead
space commands come on Elise let's talk
about trees Oh we'll go to film Thank
You mr. Mehra through you so as Elise
said this is a partnership that we've
struck with Niagara College Council
directed us to find better ways of doing
what we do and how we do things and one
of the things that we decided on as a
team was to look for a way to create
something that we could share for future
generations at zero or no Kazi row or
low cost and so at least in the team
found the way struck this partnership
and so we're really proud to show this
to you today the plan moving forward is
to bring this to schools as at least
described and it's really the next step
in the education piece of the tree
management framework so we hope you
you'll like him okay
it's still loading so we need another
commercial viewing right now but there's
also a 30-second clip that we can roll
on social media and our Instagram
account and whatnot and use that way
okay so to the students why did you
choose to do this project if you want to
come up to the mic time to shine let's
go well for me I worked so you worked as
the silliest student as a student for
the yeah cool yeah look I think we've we
got to take off not yet okay so one of
yo come on tell us why you wanted to be
inspired by this come on up now you got
to come up and further the mic to do
this okay fair enough
so okay at least did you read the book
the meaning of trees okay okay this is
fine so you have anything on here I
can't even tell you jokes got nothing my voice is gone today
okay so while they're calling this up we
could do the the motion that's moved up
by councillor Townsend so we'll have
that motion by councillor Townsend and
that's to have the councillor Townsend
if you want to just say what you're
gonna say mayor I wanted to make an
amendment to the motion 11.2 I just got
to pull it up here quickly sorry one
sight
in the motion it it does ask for council
to consider appointing councillors on a
one-month basis I'm hoping that we can
consider I know from what I understand I
think there are three or four
individuals that I put their name forth
for deputy mayor for I think out of all
fairness I think I would I would like to
put the motion for it to have all four
of them split the one-year term up for
starting in 2020 just out of all
fairness to give everyone an opportunity
to take the seed in the role of deputy
mayor I think that it's the most fair
way to do it and I'm hoping council will support that change so it's an
amendment saved by the music but it's
something good to come up on the screen
there we go okay cut stick hold that
thought
[Music]
trees are just as important as the roads
we drive on the sidewalks we work on and
the houses we live in we need trees more
than they need us but now more than ever
the responsibility falls on you and Lily
sortin i'm the city's development
horticultural technician been with the
city of st. Catharines i've been with
the city for about ten years
and eight in this capacity about three
years so I think the issue is that
there's a education aspect of it making
people realize that they do have a
responsibility to plant trees on private
property and then not just plant them
but also care for them so we can add to
the canopy we try to offer things like
the tree giveaway or intentive programs
that assist residents with getting trees
planted on private property and really
it's just getting everybody on board
even from a young age and getting
everybody to want to plant trees
so when we had the emerald ash borer we
lost a ton of our canopy which really
set us back so there's the issues that
we have with invasive pests and diseases
but there's also the issues of just
being urban trees so issues like drought
pollution salt from the roads in the
winter time so our urban canopy does
face a variety of issues so caring for
them especially newly planted trees is
so crucial to their overall health and
survival the city does have a goal with
tree planting every year we are trying
to reach 30% tree canopy by the year
2030 in order to do that we need to be
planting approximately a thousand trees
per year on our own property but we also
need to rely on residents to plant about
a thousand or more trees on private
property as well so another important
piece to this is that within that 80% of
the canopy does sit on private property
20% sits on public land so while we can
plant as many trees as we need to on the
public portion the private property
residents is who we need to reach to
really get that canopy to the target
goal so a healthy canopy it reduces
stormwater runoff so when we have a
really heavy rain it's going to slow the
rain fall down which slows it into
entering our sewer systems and then also
the root system
of the trees will soak up a lot of the
water so it alleviates the stress honors
our roads and our sidewalks and our
sewers it helps to cool our streets and
cool our homes so Oh in the summertime
they tree can the tree canopy will have
a cooling effect and reduce hydro coughs
in your all more in your building and in
the winter it'll actually act as a
windbreak so it'll reduce heating costs
as well
the most important time to plant a tree
was 20 years ago
the second best time is now
[Music]
at least well done to the team great job
[Applause]
so just in conclusion I'd like to thank
Courtney Stephen and Jacob as well as
the rest of the group that was unable to
make it this evening as well as their
professor bill Boland who really helped
us guide us through this process this
was a zero cost program project as mr.
Christy mentioned other than staff time
there were no other budget implications
and for them there are two versions of
this video there's the 30-second version
as well so thank you for allowing us to
present this this evening well done well
done do you have any questions of the
okay let's try and keep the questions to
a reduced amount
I'll go counts the Phillips first and
then counselors Renton Thank You mr.
Merritt a question I just want to
indicate and congratulate Elise and her
staff I can remember when councilor
Elliot and I were on the urban forestry
master plan committee and at that time
our canopy was around 17 or 18 percent
and during that time since then we've
gone through the ash borer catastrophe
where we've knocked down thousands of
trees and now our canopy has gone from
18% prior to the ash borer and we're
probably down it up to what are we now
23 I think it was so congratulations to
our forestry staff they've done a really good job I'm hearing a lot of
positives from our residents about the
free tree giveaway we need to do that
again and to the Negra college students
she did a great job thank you well said
counselors rental you mr. mayor to miss
Norton how many trees do we give away a
year and how many do we apply it on
public property we give away
approximately a thousand and we also
plant approximately a thousand that's
just for our regular tree planting
program that doesn't account even for
volunteer groups or our friends up
groups
it's great thank you any chance to
stretch oh then a motion to receive
counselor Phillips counselor Garcia
all in favor carried thank you very much
and great work seeing Niagara College
put this production together their
outstanding post-secondary institution
in a community congratulations and look
forward to seeing you all grow in your
careers
take care
yes Miss Jane Hanlon you come forward
you're the second speaker on this
delegated list
welcome to Sandlin thank you thank you
for allowing me to address you tonight
so it follows up on the on the tree
canopy and well we have great attention
to adaptation mitigation is being left
behind it
many of you will know I haven't been to
Council to address you since I think
about 2011 in fact the last time I did a
critique on this particular management
plan I've had a unique opportunity to
immerse myself in all things relating to
climate including urban forestry and I
also have been a member of the Ontario
urban urban forest committee the climate
research for 13 years I have focused on
climate research half averaging half of
every day
that climate research has been the heat
and drought tolerances of trees their
natural migration rates how far they
would spread from one year to the next
of their own accord and comparing that
to climate scenarios the UN a-- has
asked us recently to triple efforts we
are nearing nine tipping points nine
those tipping points will accelerate the
crisis we have a buffer of less than
five years to bring our carbon to Net
Zero I know the federal government is
talking about 2050 and I know we're
talking about beyond but that's just
talk so the focus in five years means
that it's this particular council that
needs to make the difference now the
corporate climate adaptation plan is
essential but it's the declaration of
climate emergency that is providing hope
to the young people the the group
meeting for the green New Deal Niagara
is also on tonight hence them not being
here adapting can divert us from solving
the climate crisis and it can also SAP
budgets adapting without mitigation is
something that we can't afford to get
wrong it's not sustainable it just sets
up the next generation for not being
able to adapt and so here we are
following the 2011 plan with data
provided from 2010 and tweaking it and
finding budget free items low-hanging
fruit
absolutely great let's do it but I have
some suggestions that I hope will be
taken under consideration to increase
the sustainability of our forest canopy
there are 15 of them and I'll be quick I
hope it fits in that five minutes I got
315 here so I do not have 26 copies
to hand out we need to double the target
we need to reduce the time line at least
in half that 20-year target set in 2011
to not be there until 2030 and then we
need to wait 40 years for those trees to
grow it's not going to work we need to
increase partnerships to include
community groups and then sustain
strategic alliances to include the same
the community groups are there to take
advantage of to get the trees in the
ground but they're not there for
continuing support we need to install
committees with term limits so that we
can have young vibrant people who want
to get the job done thanks very much to
the people who on the on the committees
God'll um they've been great we have to
move on for affordability we need to
reduce tree calliper now I know there
was no cheese I'm at 450 and I'm just
gonna read them out to you there we go
you have to work out why so utilizing
volunteer plantings reduce space
required between trees a healthy forest
isn't specimen trees we need to include
shrubs wherever possible they improve
soil reduce compaction protect the roots
we need to set in motion a new tree
management plan but don't wait for
completion of it to begin here we need
to coordinate with grey infrastructure
roads and utilities for tree priority
not equals not equal billing we need
less priority on tree inventory its ups
the budget and the stuff we need to
increase priority of trees in the ground
we need to utilize bare root plantings a
bare root blitz for three weeks annually
it's a quarter of the cost per tree and
we have volunteers who would be happy to
knock on doors to find locations to get
those trees in we need to increase
species selection yet again including
fast-growing species biodiversity
requires this and we need faster shade
we need to increase water coarse buffer
zones remove requirement for parking
lots to be paved
seems off-topic that's totally not we
need to include 30% Dutch white clover
seed we're planting grass
we need to keep bringing a tree bylaw
forward until we actually get it through
and we need to treat this focus in this
request on the urban forest canopy as
though future generations are counting
on you and that's it 543 thank you very
much if I may ask if you have an
electronic version of that or a
photocopy of it that I'll be happy to
take a picture of at the center to my
favorite counselor well they'll he have
to satisfy it has a question yes you
have a question that's exactly what I
was gonna ask see sir Wilson's
okay just you're suggesting that we're
not going far enough we're not acting oh
god no okay not even close
I just you talked about adaptation and
mitigation I just wonder if you could
vote for us adaptation is enabling the
city and to the responsibility of the
city like sewers sidewalks roads some
heat relief some shade but the next
generations are counting on living here
we're not covering that part that's not
adapting we they won't be able to adapt
unless we can mitigate thank you
so the mitigation was in our strategic
plan around climate change we do have
mitigation planning that's in place as
well okay any other questions of the
presenter no sir reporter thank you yes
if we're going to be putting grass
anywhere near trees it ought to have
something to feed it for the first
several years it's you know 30 percent
seed coverage won't be so much that it
looks unsightly but it will feed okay
thank you motion to receive presentation
council Garcia councillor dodge all in
favor carried thank you okay so now I
could have a motion for this 3.1 it's on
the screen behind me who wants to make
this motion councillor Cisco SEC another
counselor Littleton question council
million I'd just like a make an
amendment that hopefully friendly that
staff consider miss hanlin's 15
recommendations we could actually I mean
it's a friendly amendment but I'm if we
could add on to that and that staff take
those recommendations and present
budgetary impacts to the to the budget
committee in the new year I recognize
that it's a long list I'm not expecting
it in the first quarter but if it can be
a part of a budget presentation in the
new year in 2020 so it's not okay okay
councillor Wilson and thank you this
dovetails into the climate change
emergency and climate change issues in
general is when are we gonna get a
report back on progress that we're
making is there and hopefully hopefully
we're tightening timelines on this is
this gonna be an annual so I I don't
know if you look at the agenda but we do
have a presentation on the climate
change adaptation coordinate I know I
know but just on tree planting Irena get
an annual report on how we're progress
for making on this area in this
area sorry I would say let's wait for
the the coordinators discussion on this
on climate cuz that that's her her job
is climate change adaptation so let's
wait for that at that point thank you so
call a question through you mr. mayor
Councillor Phillips
councillor Miller yes yes reporter yeah
councillor Littleton yes councillor
Kushner councillor Cisco yes councillor
Harris councillor Garcia yes bouncer
dodge yeah
councillor Sorrento yes councillor
Townsend yes councillor Williamson yes
and marry Sansa yes carried unanimously
okay now we have engineering facilities
environmental services and miss Olivia
Gulf will be coming forward cross right
climate change adaptation coordinator to
present on this with the
that's the first time presentation so
welcome to City Council and again just
identify yourself for the public and
you're off to the races
okay so good evening mr. mayor
councillors city st. Catharines staff
my name is Olivia Groff and I am your
climate change adaptation coordinator so
it's nice to finally I got a chance to
come out here so it's just so the agenda
here tonight I'm going to be doing a
little bit an overview of the corporate
initiatives I've taken place to date a
small background on climate change
examples of climate change and the
extreme weather events we've been facing
here in st. Catharines and globally as
well as a little bit on the development
of the adaptation plan itself so as an
overview of the corporate initiatives
that have taken place there has been a
new strategic plan on that specifically
meant mentions climate change which is
great to see st. Catharines declared a
climate emergency on April 29th and st.
Catharines was actually 29th in
declaring a climate emergency and there
have been approximately 470 cities have
declared a climate emergency to date the
first was actually in January by
Vancouver so in line with making sure
that we're on track and we have things
in mind the main contributor to climate
change or an increase in greenhouse
gases and the conversion of forest to
agriculture which is why greenhouse gas
reduction targets are so important so
back in 2017
the council actually endorsed a
community target and they fall quite
closely in line with the corporate
targets that were recently approved by
council in October and this really stem
from the energy conservation demand
management plan and to date there has
been a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas
intensity with the target being of 2030
which lines similar to the community
target a 40% reduction a partnership
that was entered with the city of st.
Catherine's along with six other
municipalities is nagger adopts which is
formed with Brock University there was
entered a Memorandum of Understanding in
August and there was just a negra DAPs
launch event that happened last week as
well so that was really kick starting
everything these are the partnerships
that are
and the goal of this project is really
to make an auto paint walk us kind of
basically through building an adaptation
plan through planning and implementation
there is a Community Survey that is up
on the city st. Catharines website where
we're trying to get as many community
participants to fill it out as much as
possible and there is an incentive of a
three hundred dollar prize draw just in
time hopefully for some Christmas
shopping so the big kind of big
definitions for climate changes
mitigation and adaptation so mitigation
really is all about reducing the
emissions that contribute to climate
change so things such as LED upgrades
that city center formed was a mitigation
action trying to reduce our reliance on
electric are trying to rely more on
electric vehicles and less on gas is
another mitigation action adaptation
actions are really about minimizing or
preventing the negative impacts of
climate change so those can be things
such as rain barrels on the tree
giveaways those will fall in line with
the adaptation actions as well and
making sure that citizens are aware that
we want the water to go where we want it
to go so cleaning ditches and catch
basins is very important some global
events that we have seen in this past
year there was hurricane durian that
happened to happened in September so not
only from the devastation that it causes
from the viewpoint of infrastructure
there's also mental health impacts as
well or the psychological impacts and
then it hit a little bit closer to home
in Nova Scotia and we saw a lot of
infrastructure not only hard
infrastructure but green infrastructure
damaged as well and so from all this we
can see it does hit the pocketbook so
the economic impact and there was a
20-19 report which identifies Canada's
physical infrastructure as one of the
country's top climate change risks so in
the absence of adaptation and not
preparing for the future climate change
will cost Canaan taxpayers between 21
and 43 billion annually by 2050
however research
shows that for every dollar invested in
pre-disaster adaptation activities up to
six dollars can be saved and
post-disaster recovery spending and
that's by a pretty recent report which
is just in October so to move towards
kind of how how we're experiencing
things in st. Catharines st. Catharines
and agra has experienced 52 extreme
weather warnings in the past two years
and that's in counting over the past
weekend we had freezing rain we are
seeing a rise in heat warnings issued
for the for the Nagar region and st.
Catharines sink Athens was swamped with
basement flooding which we saw this past
summer as well as cleanup from windstorm
so the windstorm that we had even on
Halloween night that was another recent
storm event so taking all this into
effect developing the adaptation plan is
really where this is all going to come
together so an internal climate
adaptation team has already been formed
and it's a inter departmental team
working across the various departments
of the city st. Catharines and the role
will be to assess the impacts refine and
adopt a corporate adaptation plan and
council approval will take plates place
once a draft plan is actually complete
another component to this actual plan is
the communication and outreach component
to it as well so the goal being to
increase climate literacy internally
with staff across all departments in the
community so we're doing this both
through internal city staff outlets as
well as external to the public so we do
have with the nacre adapts partnership
that I talked about a little bit earlier
there has been a community engagement
opportunity so this was a set up at the
st. Catharines farmer market a couple
Thursday's ago will be there again next
Thursday and this is where we had a
booth set up about water conservation we
had the computer set up where people
could fill out the survey right then on
the spot or take it home to fill out on
their own time and then adds of November
22nd we've had three hundred and three
surveys complete for st. Catharines the
goal through Negra docks was to have a
hundred people participate
in the survey so we're already above
that which is great so the next step for
adaptation adaptation is an easy thing
an update adaptation is going to cost so
the more we can prepare for it now
the better we will be in the end so
working through the next steps will be
further work on the climate impacts
develop a climate policy which we will
seek council approval the survey results
for Niagara taps will be coming out in
the new year as well as will continue
public feedback and comments as well as
the adaptation plan itself will seek
council approval so in conclusion we
have targets in place a climate
adaptation plan is in motion and we have
community support which we have seen and
entering the nearest new year with some
great momentum for 2020 and making sure
that we're ready for the steps ahead ok
thank you very much for a very thorough
presentation and a great job on your
first presentation to council so Olivia
you'll be taking a seat or you want us
to stay up here ok you don't want to be
in the hot seat councillor Kersey have a
question Thank You mr. mayor can we ask
questions sitting down over there so
just you mentioned I think that there
were 52 extreme events in the past two
years and I was just wondering how does
that compare to previous history do you
know that wasn't actually something that
I looked into that will be something
that I definitely can look into I'm not
sure how that impacts just from climate
change we've noticed that things are
becoming more frequent and more severe
so that takes into account wind storms
freezing rain and all that but not
specifically yeah Thank You Sergio mr.
mayor I would think that that is
probably quite dramatic compared to what
we've had in the past the second
question was one of the communication
objectives is the communicate
to the public have you got any thoughts
as to how to do that because that's a
big challenge we have from for
everything we do because you know years
ago as I always say we had the paper
everybody read it read it now it's a
question of website versus tax bill or
how do we let the public know about
something like this so the survey itself
has been a really good outlet on that's
not operated through the st. Catharines
nagger adopts is collecting all the
information they're going to assemble it
for us which is the great thing about
the partnership and we're going to just
be trying to get out to like these
community events that were going to the
farmers market is providing a really
good opportunity for us to engage with
the public the climate strikes again
I've been going to those to kind of hear
what what's been said and on the ground
so there's just well we'll keep we'll
keep working through all the different
areas that we possibly can councillor
Garcia just a Miller
actually council Garcia asked my
question all right counselor
Williamson you had your hand up and kill
civilians thank you just back to my
question timelines we unanimously
approve this climate change declaration
last April an hour
it's the end of the year what when are
we gonna get reports back and I just
wanted to get lay out I mean I like what
I'm seeing to be quite honest I'm
impressed I just wonder what the timing
is going to be like yeah so for the
climate change policy we're really
hoping to get that in place for the
first quarter and then for the
adaptation plan itself we're hoping for
the third quarter so by basically next
fall we'll have a draft plan for
Council's approval and we'll see some
pragmatic actions like it'll really
depend on the actual plan itself what it
comes out with so what those actions are
I can't comment on that right now but
hopefully it'll be a good one so give
you a regular fixture here yeah thank
you that's actually a good point coastal
waves in his
sure that we have the allocation so that
we'd have staff that are focused on this
we can't just declare kind of an
emergency and not have it on the corner
of the staffs desk and us wishing that
something gets done so that's a great
point good point
councillor Phillips Thank You mr.
America in your organization you
indicated you have seven municipalities
presently as members where's the rest of
Meg
have they been approached and not are
they on their own or what's the story
with that um so for the so I'm not
representing Brock University with a
negra adopts but really how that all
stemmed was from securing a grant to
hire climate change coordinator
specifically some of those
municipalities I guess didn't go after
the funding or they didn't have the the
anks to go for a climate change
coordinator there are two different
streams so there are municipalities that
are going after a mitigation stream and
their arm you know spies are doing the
adaptation stream which the city st.
Catharines is so there are a couple
municipalities they're just doing a
little bit it's a little a different
plan essentially so they're on there
they're doing something but they're on
their own
yep and you've done a lot of work within
the municipality of st. Catharines how
often does your group nagger adapt meet
and and you discuss issues that are
common with with those municipalities
yep I think it's probably on average but
every other so the coordinators it sells
we're meeting actually every months
not through Nagar adapts but we're all
getting together to kind of figure out
where we are on our plans and to discuss
this issue as well as for the negra DAP
so it's probably on average every other
month thank you
and what's what's good about the
position is that olivia is working
directly with mark green as well so
those of you around council know mark
greenness is very is very involved in a
lot of the climate change mitigation and
what we're working on here at the city
and so she's working directly with
market because she works for the city
under i anthony if you want to jump in
there yeah so Olivia works for
ifvs through barks group she we secured
funding to be able to obtain a
adaptation coordinator to help us put
together our plan the Niagra adapts
group is actually a memorandum of Understanding that the
city entered into with seven other
municipalities and brock to provide some
technical support to assist us in
developing the climate adaptation plan
okay see no other further questions of a
counselor reporter kind of a big
question I'm I'm just wondering if
there's enough I don't know when our
official plan is due how many years away
are we from a new official directive
planning through the mayor to the
counselor the city's official plan is a
twenty five-year plan the last time we
did a brand-new official plan was 2010
and we update it every five years or so
we're currently undergoing our current
municipal comprehensive review and
that's been scoped to deal with the land
needs assessment so the employment land
needs assessment the commercial land
needs assessment and the residential
land needs assessment and that is being
presented to council in q1 2020 okay I'm
just curious if there's any possibility
to address climate change or if you've
seen other municipalities address
climate mitigation and adaptation issues
and their official plan is that in any
of the conferences you've been to
through the mayor to the councillor I
think typically what we see are greater
initiatives around climate change like
what we've just heard from our climate
change coordinator and that they're done
corporately because they include not
just growth related aspects but
operational related aspects as well so I
think in this circumstance it might make
sense to let some of that work play out
and then tie it into our planning
policies that the next opportunity for a
review Jane Thank You councillor Porter
any further questions okay and prior to
the vote and kalsa Williamson and I
think a direction would be if it's open
for you is that at the budget meeting if
staff can highlight some of the 2020
climate mitigations cuz I I think it's
in the budget and what we're pushing for
but we're not highlighting it so if we
can bring that out during budget night
some of the climate change initiatives
are climate mitigation strategies that
we have it's good to point out that
we're actually budgeting for some of
this stuff as well okay
counselor wants to move to motion three
mr. mayor councillor Sorrento yes
councillor Townsend yes councillor
Williamson yes councillor Cisco yes
councillor Porter yes councillor Philips
yes
councillor Miller yes councillor
Littleton yes councillor kushner yes
Chancellor Harris councillor Garcia yes
councillor dodge yes and Mayor CENTAC
yes carried unanimously
okay so we move on to three point 3
which is councillor three point three
which is the well and canals Parkway
well and wilfred laurier crest at
Crescent and I'll look to Anthony
Martucci Oh for some comments through
you mr. mayor the report before you
tonight is in response to counsels
motion to review the intersection
traffic control with theme of assisting
pedestrians crossing long canals Parkway
from Wilfred Laurier crusted to the
pathway you will see in the report that
staff undertook an assessment of the
various types of recognised traffic
control which range in both costs and
complexity complexity of installation
the process involved undertaking to
eight-hour
in vehicle volume counts the results
identified that pedestrian and vehicle
volumes on Welford Laurier were
extremely low in comparison to that of
the volumes experienced on well on
canals parkway these traffic volumes
were reviewed in applied to various
industry standards and council approved
warrants for each of the traffic control
types the results of the assessment
indicated that none of the
justifications are warrants were
satisfied except for the pedestrian pxo
however due to operational safety
concerns staff are not recommending any
of the traffic control measures it
should also be noted that based on
current funding levels for traffic
signals staff are only able to address
one intersection per year and those
funds are reserved to address existing
signals that are at end of life are in
poor condition and lack accessible
accessibility in with respect to the
always thought even though the cost for
implementing the solution is relatively
low in comparison to the other means of
traffic control staff are not
recommending this type of traffic
control as the warrants approved by
council are not satisfied staff have
concerns that the extreme imbalance in
traffic volumes could lead to poor
driver habits on well and canals Parkway
where signage is ignored and could
result in greater safety concerns okay
thank you mr. Marr to chill so council
will attend you have a motion on the
floor
that's right moved by myself seconded by
councillor Miller that where's the
pedestrians from the residential
neighborhood on the west side of
Wellington else Parkway wishing to cross
well and canals Parkway to or from the
pathway must do so at an uncontrolled
location and where is the installation
of a pedestrian crossover is not
appropriate due to operational and
safety limitations therefore be it
resolved that staff be directed to
install and always stop at the
intersection of well and canals Parkway
and wilfred laurier crescent to provide
a controlled crossing for pedestrians at
this location
John just picked me to speak to it now
you can either choose to speak to an
hour speak to at last what would you
choose to do you only speak once I'm
speaking last
councillor Cisco hey mr. mayor I forgive
me maybe this is a ridiculous question
but are we able to install and always
stop on well in canals Parkway I thought
that was Seaway control mr. Marku Cho
know that that is a that is a city right away okay so we are capable of
doing this correct
I feel like we've had conversations in
the past about changes too low in canals
Parkway that indicated the opposite
specifically when we were dealing with
the new development to the north of
wilfrid laurier Crescent and the desire
some of the residents to have an outlet
from the new roads that were going in
there they wanted to outlet on the wall
in canals Park man at the time I thought
the reason that was given to us was that
we couldn't do that because it was
Seaway controlled mr. white choo-choo
that is not the understanding that that
I currently have but I could look it
into that further and and provide you
with that information was it the
previous kind of like last council that
was the last term of council it was
brought by I believe both ward
councillors were looking for that and it
was it was not about the opportunity it
was the danger on the corner so they did
a study on the turn and the volume of
speed and cars going through it would
create a blind spot so the cars would be
traveling at too quick of a distance to
then stop that's why staff had
recommended against that so it wasn't
about not being able to it was the
danger of that corner it was too close
to the bend
I remember that discussion but we we can
pull the report up and send it it's a
council Phillips and I were both under
that impression that was the reason why
I asked initially because it felt like
that was the reason that was given but
okay if we're able to do it then I
appreciate that counselor tells him
Thank You mr. mayor quick question and
are we able to is sorry it says always
stop I'm visualizing obviously a stop
sign but is there like a red flashing
light what type of I guess my concern
would be anyone going through a stop
sign are we able to add any type of
flashing red light below the stop sign
just to make it visible for people
driving just aware to chill
our typical always stops do not have
flashing Reds that that is something
that we could investigate to bring more
attention to the intersection however it
would add to the costs for the
installation one always thought you'd
have to break power and two to the
location to be able to provide those
services there and my other question
would be to the Reds are the residents
in favor of this obviously there's been
conversations with residents I guess to
the ward councillors comes a little too
near moving the motion but if I speak
now you can I sell you're just answering
the question
yes it's a great concern there's people
cannot get from the community that they
live in plus the additional houses that
are going to be built in their townhouse
community another couple hundred people
cannot get across while in canals
Parkway in a safe manner councillor
Miller do you want to add to that or no
okay if not that I'm gonna go back to
the question okay Kelsey Johnson I am I
would like to add a friendly amendment I
guess my concern here is just the
visibility of being able to see the stop
sign I know it is a Parkway is quite
busy
I would hope you'll be a friendly
amendment to add some type of in context
there is a stop sign at the end of Scott
Street and that's in your ward and that
doesn't have a flashing red light on it
and people are they stopped there it's
the same exact same as this one so I
understand what you're saying it could
be a temporary signage that says stop
sign being installed and you'd be aware
new stop sign but long-term I don't
think it needs one okay so we can have
like a notice of like new stop sign
that's something we can at least have
mr. Marku cheero notice of stop sign
coming and then having some kind of
awareness program to use you mr. mayor
yes we could provide public notice of
the new installation of a stop sign at
the intersection okay okay now I would
be okay with that
thank you you're right Ithaca who had
her hands up councillor Miller then go
to councillor Williamson just sort of I
guess answered councillor Thompson's
question and I span on it we did we've
heard about this frequently in regularly
since since the campaign last year and I
think Kelsey Wilson is probably a
I think expert by now and maybe if she
wants to switch career she could
probably get into that by the amount of
work she does around traffic in our ward
which seems to be a significant problem
and I think this has a chance I know
stop signs aren't great for speed
mitigation but we'll do a little bit and
hopefully we'll stop some of the
excessive truck traffic so I think this
always stop might not be a perfect
solution but it addresses a number of
concerns on the street so I think and
it's it's not costly and we always have
the opportunity to review these new stop
locations as we move forward so I think
this is a good compromise solution for a
number of issues on one canals Parkway
you Kelson Miller councillor Williamson
Thank You mr. Merrick - mr. Martin show
is is your staff comfortable with having
this attorneys are also always tough
this location through you mr. mayor
staffs recommendation is is for not
installing and always stop given the
options that were presented a pedestrian
crossover and always stop staffer more
comfortable with it always stopped and
putting a pedestrian crossover at this
location in terms is it warranted based
on the statistics do you miss your Mara
no it is not warranted based on the
warrants that were approved by council
Thank You councillor sweat mr. mayor
through you to director Marty Jo really
in the horns of dilemma on this one
because I usually like to support the
staff recommendation should it be the
will of council to have the three-way
stop signs installed is there the
possibility of this being even more
unsafe for motorists and and perhaps if
you will actually being a little bit
more dangerous or a little bit more
unsafe because I understand that on
these through strict thorough with
streets main roads arterial roads the
idea is to keep the traffic flow moving
and if we were to have install a stop
sign there
good could it possibly be more unsafe
through you mr. mayor staffs concerns
are that due to the imbalance in in
traffic so 6% of the traffic at that
intersection is coming from wilfred
laurier in 94 percent of the traffic is
actually on well on canals parkway so
our concern is that as as drivers starts
to realize that when they come up to a
stop sign there there's no reason to
stop because there's no pedestrians or
vehicles that they'll though there's the
possibility that they'll gain bad habits
of disobeying the stop sign altogether
and driving through which could cause
more significant safety concerns at the
intersection than doesn't currently
exist mr. mayor I just I'm gonna add
this very quickly and then I'm not gonna
say anything else so just make my
remarks in any ward we have a lot of
major arterial roads streets and I've
received a lot of complaints about
safety crossing Vine Street bunting Road
Grantham you can make an argument that
almost on every street secondary main
arterial road it is dangerous to cross
so I think I think I've got to go with
the staff recommendation on this one mr.
mayor I'm you know I'm going to defer to
the staff on this one because I think
the concerns are not only for wilfred
laurier but throughout the entire city
so thank you mr. mayor my my thoughts are
exactly the same I thought we had
delegated authority to staff for stop
signs all up to the sale
we did it the reason why it's here is
because it's been lifted I because
they're councilor Lord we did and if
it's contested by either the community
or councilor then it has to come to us
that's why it's in front of so any
councilor can bring up the staff denial
yeah okay and the other question I had I
thought there environmental reasons for
delegating it to staff that every time
we have these stop signs there's an
environmental cost to it could staff
respond through you mr. mayor if we if
IKEA may be a little more clarification
on what you mean by environmental
concerns through mr. mayor
I don't believe that that's something
that that I've dealt with at least since
taking on the role but it's definitely
something we could further look further
into you don't ya say Thank You mr.
mayor
I thought previously that our staff did
express that as a concern I look forward
to the new directors approach thing
Council Harris through you mr. mayor to
the director of Transportation when
you're answering councilor Sorrento's
questions you're mentioning a boat you
know it might encourage bad behavior and
stuff is that not something that the
police should actually be enforcing so
perhaps part of this motion when we put
in a stop saying we could actually
request the NRP to monitor it for the
first little bit through you mr. mayor
you're corrected disobeying stop signs
would become an enforcement issue
however the staff would still get
complaints with regards to traffic
issues at the intersection but we could
definitely reach out the NRP
and notify them of the always thought
that was installed at the intersection
maybe as an amendment
this not only like notifying the
residents that that's going to be
installed leading up to the stop spine
but also to notify the NRP and perhaps
they can monitor at first does that make
sense through you mr. mayor yes we could
reach out to you okay I guess my other
question is the staff have we had okay
this isn't a really a new issue I seem
to recall previous councils talked about
this a lot can you give us like just a
little bit of a background like I
believe Jenny Stevens brought it up
quite a bit and we fought for these type
of things over and over again and staff
continually deny it can you just comment
on it through you mr. mayor when we get
these types of requests we'd only go out
the intersection to do a traffic
analysis to determine the amount of
traffic that's in the intersection to
see whether or not it meets the
guidelines that were approved for the
installation of stop signs that's
generally the driving factor but behind
the decisions that staff are
recommending
can I through the mayor to the director
engineer when you establish these
guidelines and when you go out and
monitor it do you actually select
certain times I guess I'm going back to
a few years ago councilor cushion I
encountered when we wanted to get rid of
a crossing guard on Glendale even though
it was a crossing guard for a school and
I guess when staff went out there they
noticed that there weren't that many
cars but they weren't actually
monitoring it during the summer so I'm
just wondering do you guys go out during
certain times like peak times certain
times through you mr. mayor yes we we
typically use best practices at doing
analysis of traffic intersections for
this one we went once during the week
for an eight-hour session and we also go
a once during the weekend on fair
weather days where
we would expect increased traffic flow
on the street in order to carry out
these analysis okay just one more
question I'm just wondering how much
weight do we actually put on like I
guess we have all this criteria but how
much weight do we actually put on the
councillors opinion because they're the
ones that actually filled all the calls
is there any sort of weighting that goes
to that through you mr. mayor no the
recommendations from staff are based
solely on best practices for traffic
okay perfect thank you
councillor guys Thank You mr. mayor
for clarity what the councillors are
asking for is a safe way for them to
cross from wilfred laurier across the
parkway to get on to the get to the path
I'm a long wall and canals Parkway
that's correct so what's happening is
people from Mackenzie King we love real
Fred Laurier where's my other Street
nning there's Howland there's a new
street coming in McNaughton and Alex
grant place all of those people so they
can cross safely correct thank you when
I'm reading through the report maybe I
missed it but when you're showing the
traffic counts it's showing the traffic
count and it says that a requirement is
an average of 90 vehicles an hour for
720 and you're showing the traffic count
for wilfrid laurier Crescent but you
don't show anything for the well canals
Parkway so I'm just don't know whether
I'm missing it somewhere in this report
or if you can give me those numbers for
that
three mr. mayor we we do have the the
counts for well canals Mark Waid they
aren't included in the report and
actually a must apologize I don't have
them with me today but they the counts
that we we show for Wilfred Gauri are
it's to demonstrate that it doesn't meet
the minimum of thresholds that are
required on wilfred laurier in order for
us to install those types of traffic
patrols okay but just what I'm
understanding from the councillor is
it's not wilfred laurier that they're
more concerned about crossing it's and i
think there would be a stop sign there
already what they're more concerned
about is crossing the canal Parkway and
you're not showing any of the counts for
that to you mr. mayor I could provide
some further accounts that we did so it
in the eight-hour count that we did for
the intersection there were
approximately 334 vehicles on wilfred
laurier in comparison to well canals
Parkway where there were approximately
5700 vehicles that went down the street
there was also only 29 pedestrian
crossings at that street okay so there
was 5700 cars that went by in an hour is
that what you're is that per day I mean
the drinking the eight-hour count okay I
would think that maybe that might be the
reason that there's such a low count of
pedestrians they're probably afraid to
go across that Street thank you okay
council Phillips Thank You councillor
done the concern I have is based on the
what I hear for the residents who live
in the Scott Street area I've had
complaints numerous times about the fact
that drivers regard those stop
scientists optional with their word
they're rolling the stop signs or
they're going through all the time and
that actually it was creating a
dangerous situation for them because
they thought it was gonna be safe
crossing because there was a stop sign
there and you know the car kept going
and that's what I'm having a real hard
time with this one as
councillor Sorento because I don't want
to create a situation where they think
they can cross and all of a sudden
you're with that number of cars
somebody's going to miss a stop sign
I could see perhaps putting a painted lines going across to end with
signs indicating pedestrians crossing or
something like that but a stop sign
does not definitely guarantee safety
honest on a busy and I'm up and down
that that wrote a lot and cars are not
traveling at necessarily the assigned
speeds I would be I'm really really
concerned about putting that and as far
as asking the NRP to be there I've
requested the NRP to be a Scott Street
numerous times maybe they were but
they're not going to be there every day
planted at at a crosswalk on the
overwhelming Canal Parkway get councilor
films okay before councillor Littleton
speaks the wiseguys did put a councillor
Miller councillor Porter okay thanks I
did I just want clarification this is
only for pedestrians it's the residents
don't have trouble turning left or right
for in their cars on here it's just for
because I'm looking at well in canto
mats Parkway which isn't really
pedestrian friendly it's like a
thoroughfare so they're there the
streets not designed for it's
essentially designed for speed there's
nothing else here that would kind of
cause you or want you to slow down so I am echoing councillor Sorrento's
concerns I am concerned about putting an
all-way stop I know I I would be in
favor of something else pedestrian
crossing with some kind of signage but
that way the pedestrians know there's no guarantee of a stop so they
the pedestrians would have to be extra
cautious and not assuming that the cars
going to stop for them so I would I
would sort of be in favor of that I know
I'm not going to support the stop signs
I just just because I don't think it's
the safest option right now
just a point of clarification just
quickly so I know earlier we we had said
that at the end of Scott Street that
there are no lights but they do have the
flashing red lights and looking at this
intersection I am concerned that there
it is a big intersection and I do think
mr. mayor would need some type of lights
to draw attention to any drivers on the
road so we'll have the staff look into
it
okay so councillor Wilton before
councillor Littleton speaks we did open
a new park there last year and it was
the wise guys park they generously
donated a significant amount of money
it's about 15 feet away from that
intersection I think it'd be
irresponsible for us not to put up a
four-way stop because if any kids decide
that they want to go in that direction
and then they haven't been obviously
maybe go trained that's very close to
that and I think we should be doing
everything we can to slow traffic if we
talk about vision zero which is putting
the pedestrian and the cyclist first we
got to get people to slow down more and
we got to get people to realize that
these are also subdivisions that are
being created and there is a very good
well used park 15 feet away from all
that 1,500 cars driving up and down so
it's incumbent upon us to create a safe
space for that Park as well if not we
shouldn't have put the park there in the
first place
councillor a little tenure thank you
next time I'm speaking first okay so I
want to address some of the things that
have been brought up because I did not
bring this willy-nilly I met with staff
twice before this has come before you
and we've had conversations that's why
the language is the way it is in the in
the recommendation staff has said the installation the pedestrian
crossover which is similar to the one
that's on Vine Street is not appropriate
I'll tell you why people are going to
come across that they're gonna come down
the street this is what staff was saying
they may not see it the things are
flashing everybody as soon as you hit
that they're gonna go right with a stop
we know as pedestrians do we do wait to
see if people are actually going to stop
when you push a button like the one
outside the pack you push and you go
it's not the same pedestrian behavior so
that's why that is is is mentioned like
that
a couple of things that need to be
really I think we need to talk about it
just logically when we're talking about
people are gonna roll through stops
they're gonna do it everywhere folks
everywhere at every stop sign this is
making this intersection just to echo
what the mayor said more safe it's
making it safer right now what you have
is a situation as councillor Porter
alluded to you have a straight way there
are no sidewalks on the side of these so
if someone's thinking well why can't
they just walk up to the little one
where you push the button outside of
Rockwood you there's nowhere for them to
walk as the mayor said we've built a
park here on the west side actually on
the other side of Wellington else
Parkway is another is another playground
on the other side where the museum is so
you have all these people that are here
that you have this straightaway the stop
sign also creates a speed reduction you
have all the signs coming up people will
learn that they have to stop just like
they have to stop at Scott just like
they have to stop further down well in
canals it becomes a behavior and it will
slow that speed down right now
everybody's foot is at 60 to 65 it's a
50 zone that's anecdotal all the time
so that I don't buy that that people are
going to blow through it it's going to
make it less safe than it is now
right now your option is to look both
ways and run as fast as you can across
there and everybody's going like I just
told you between 60 and 70 if we do have
the stop sign then it does it yes
there's a possibility that someone's
going to blow through a stop sign just
like they're going to do it at every
other part of the city so I want
everybody to think about that the
director is talking about Beck's best
practices when they're talking about
that it doesn't meet their standard for
the always stop 100% it doesn't because
of the discrepancy as he's mentioned in
the to the two streets wilfred laurier
only has three hundred and whatever it
is over the eight-hour period well in
Canal Park we as you just heard has six
thousand vehicles we need to make this
intersection safer we have we are
creating walkable cities on the you look
at the picture here right on the other
side of this is a
frail that people can get on they can
bike there they can walk they can take
their families they can take their
strollers and then the museum is right
there like I just told you that is
creating a walkable city where there
isn't currently a sidewalk to go down
well in canals parkway so I want you to
all think about that the question about
turning left yes it is a little bit
difficult but that wasn't the number one
driver for me asking for the staff
report so I really hope that you'll you
will you will allow for this to go
through we can always look at it again
in six months I don't know why no one's
listening what why we can look at it
again in six months if it'll make you
feel better we could we examine it I'm
happy to do that but not doing anything
at this point in time where we know when
we say why did would why were we talking
about it eight years ago or why would
now we have all these new houses in here
and we have a whole other bunch of
townhouses that are going to bring
100-200 more residents in in the next
say whatever five years it's incumbent
uncommon excuse me upon us to do it now
I'm asking for your support thanks so
much thank you how's your little team
okay I'll call a question through you
mr. mayor
councillor Littleton yes Elster kushnir
councillor Harris councillor Garcia yes
councillor Dodge yes
councillor Miller yes councillor
Phillips no councillor Porter no
councillor Cisco yes
councillor Sorrento
councillor Townsend yes councillor
Williamson no in there sends it yes and
that's carried okay folks we head on
into financial management three point
four and Christine Douglas director of
financial management you have some
opening remarks thank you your worship
under the Municipal Act council adoption
of the budget is required Council
approved the city's 2020 capital budget
at its meeting of October 7th 2019 with
the exception of two items these two
items are being discussed this evening
the one was the city's website upgrade
project and the second is a Transit
Commission capital portion of the 2020
fleet budget both of these items have
been included in the draft 2020 capital
budget that was presented to Council on
October the 7th of this year at that
meeting counsel referred these items to
staff for additional information the
budget Standing Committee reviewed the
additional information related to these
two capital items council has been
provided with the links to the budget
Standing Committee reports memos and
correspondence items and these two items
are now returning to council this
evening for your consideration as part
of the city's 2020 capital budget okay
councillors went to the other question
that's mr. mayor then there's anybody
else going to speak no from staff no
we're good
alright just a few questions mr. mayor
through you to any one of our staff so
I've received a few phone calls and some
of the residents are looking at the
total amount of money that's four
hundred thousand dollars so you know in
today's world of technology where there
are a lot of free apps and a lot of
stuff that's for free can you just
explain for the public as to why our up
side limit is four hundred thousand
dollars any one of our staff okay I'll
put over to Maggie through you mr. mayor
so when we were looking at the website
we recognize that there's a base amount
that you'd have to consider so that base
amount was developed by having
conversations
with our current provider looking at
other municipalities who've been
updating their websites as well as
conversations with our IT staff so when
we're talking about 400,000 the 200,000
allows us to get an update of
essentially what we have now and to
further explain that what we have now is
a website that doesn't allow a lot of
online functionality so there are a lot
of additional services that we'd like to
add to improve customer service we'd
also like to the opportunity to
integrate with city software because
right now our website doesn't really
speak to the city software so that
creates problems and processes so that's
where we kind of have developed that
upper limit of the 400,000 mr. Barun
these are the reasons as to why it's
going to cost so much money
yes okay thank you mr. mayor to anyone
of our staff how old is our current
website right through you mr. mayor our
current website is about 15 years old
and we haven't made any further
investments in our website in 2014 we
did an additional eight thousand dollars
worth of work on our website to make it
accessible at the time so we'd call that
version 1.0 so then clearly so then
clearly our website is incredibly dated
if you can just like some technical
questions mr. mayor to our director of
IT mr. director gardener can you tell us
what back office programs are and the
accessibility components of this new
website and perhaps you know what their
cost is or through You mr. mayor
first of all there is a accessibility
regulations the current website does not
meet those regulations so we want to
obviously develop a new website that
will meet them secondly there are a
number of as Ernest a young reported
earlier we're we need an IT system
modernization plan right now we have no
integration to our amanda systems or our
class system that has parks and
recreations there is a
number of systems we would like to
integrate into the web to allow citizens
to do online transactions instead of
having to report in to the City Hall and
one final question mr. mayor - to any
one of our staff so if it is the will of
this council to approve this new new
infrastructure system if you will will
this allow us to build on it moving
forward
Thank You Kelsey Garcia thank you Thank
You mr. mayor
through you to the staff I have similar
concern to council Sorrento I'm I'm just
concerned about the costs like based on
what I hear elsewhere that updating a
website cost I totally agree that our
website is horrible in terms of
navigation it's very difficult to
navigate
but 400,000 is a lot of money so I'd
like to put our new director on the spot
and ask them even though he just joined
us is this does this seem reasonable to
you 400,000 for this because it seems
like a lot to me I'll first go to
director of financial management then
we'll jump over to the CIO CIO office
thank you through your worship I think
for some context for counsel with
regards to the original website that was
designed and developed in 2005 that
total cost was at a cost of 250 thousand
dollars to the municipality so therefore
looking at a cost of four hundred
thousand dollars this year - to review
our website for accessibility and to in
to to create some improvements with
regards to the website I would say in in
my opinion I think that upper limit of
$400,000 is a reasonable costing so mr.
Gardner you want to anything to that the
integration it will be up to 400,000 it
depends on how many systems we want to
integrate we will study that as part of
this whole project so that number may
come in lower or it may come in
depending on what we want to deliver to
the citizens Thank You Jessica CFO thank
you mr. mayor through you to staff with
all due respect to the director
Financial Management I don't think
comparing it to what it costs before is
necessarily a good rationale because
maybe we grossly overpaid before but
anyway is this going to be based on
actual quotes or do we have any actual
quotes at this time that's that's why
it's an upset limit they'll have to go
to RFP the cancel source so they have to
go up or go yes they do okay so that
will come back to counsel doesn't come
back to counsel if it's under four
hundred thousand no no okay that's why
we're setting the up set limit okay okay
counsel Miller yeah I just wanted to
touch on that having worked in building
websites and digital marketing then the
$400,000 I think can be taught to most
businesses locally is a reasonable
number for the amount the sheer size of
this website and the amount of things we
do with it and want it to be able to do
and I don't think it's really incumbent
on this council with no offense any of
my colleagues to really nitpick that
number at that point that's the number
we're getting from staff I think it's
been under a lot of scrutiny it's been
in the press and things like that and
they haven't backed off a bunch on that
number so I think we have to trust that is the number I just have a
question about how this will happen if
approved that RFP that we send out what
is the timeline that we're looking at in
terms of having this okay Maggie at this
point we're still in the really early
stages we just have a meeting with the
staff team members to kind of set out
the project schedule so we haven't
really set any specific timelines yet
with that because there's also a number
of other IT projects happening at the
same time we are a little bit tight on
time as far as trying to be able to get
those activities all done around the
same time okay thank you and I guess
through you the mayor I have a feeling I
know the answer this question but we
have a number of wonderful IT and
website design companies locally here in
Niagara it's it's sort of a burgeoning
industry here is there any way to our
RFP process to give consideration to
those companies that are creating jobs
and and things like that in Niagara
Christine
through you your worship with regards to
local local vendors that can supply this
product I would recommend that they
register on our bids and tenders website
and then they would get notified when
these RFP documents get issued were not
permitted under our procurement by law
to for a local preference thank you for
that and I'd be remiss not to mention
this I am the youngest member of Council
and I think it really it really is
important as we move the city forward to ensure that we are online that our
presence is easy to navigate and we are
able to accomplish the goals of the city
Thank You councillor Miller
okay singing councillor reporter thanks
very much I'm gonna support this I look
forward to a new website I do think it's
a tad a than it's in line with where
we're going and as the auditors from
earnest in Yahoo pointed out we where
our staff is lean and we they can't
build it themselves that those are some
of the comments that I receive like
can't can't can't there's existing staff
build a website themselves they don't I
don't think they have the capacity there
we've heard from the previous director
I've I T that you know there's always
managing IT risks all the time there's
always viruses coming in and there's there's new projects and there's
a lot that they have to keep going with
kind of a bare-bones stuff so we do have
to hire externally for this project I'm
just wondering if there will be citizen
engagement through this process like
focus groups like is that being built
into okay Maggie project part of the
process will include public consultation
so what we intend to do is have meetings
with senior staff as well as the
accessibility committee and the public
so we've already started an online
survey essentially communication survey
which does ask some questions specific
to our website so we are getting some
information in on that aspect but once
we start the actual process of doing
essentially an audit of what we have now
that will include quite a bit of public
consultation thanks very much thanks
counselor Porter
so you know their further questions
we'll call it can I ask that we voted
them separately mr. mayor of course you
can okay so we'll vote first on the
website up to the clerk 3 mr. mayor
Councillor you just guess councillor
dodge councillor Garcia no councillor
Harris councillor Kushner yes
councillor Littleton yes councillor
Miller yes councillor Phillips yes
councillor Porter yeah councillor Cisco
yes councillor Sorrento a hearty yes
councillor Townsend yes councillor
Williamson yes and mayor sent sickness
and that's carried okay so the second
part of the motion councillor Cisco yes
councillor Porter yes
councillor Phillips councillor Miller
yes councillor Littleton yes councillor
Kushner councillor Harris councillor
Garcia yes
councillor Dodge yes councillor Sorento
yes
heartily councillor Townsend yes
councillor Williamson yes and Mayor
Senza yes carried unanimously
all right three point five looking
forward to a new website by the way
what's going on maybe you can ask Greg
for some councillor Miller for some
guidance it's he's probably on website
4.1 or something now that he's the
youngest
okay sorry point of order this is your
yep Council Townsend so after that long
commercial it's over to you all right
surprise surprise you can probably guess
in reference to 11.2 I'm asking council
to appoint those the four that I put
their names forth to have them split the
year term doing three-month Atkins sect
three months consecutively as deputy
mayor and I'm hoping council will
support that I think it's in all
fairness we have four outstanding
candidates that have put their name
forth and I think that in all fairness
they would each do a very good job
representing as deputy mayor gates right
there
so councillor Townsend you'll be moving
that motion and you'll be asking for in
a minute meant an amendment so
essentially what you're asking for is
for 2020 to be equal appointments for
the those that are interested and then
for 2021 it's by month correct okay by
month in 2021 so we don't go through
this again it's just everyone's assigned
a month and if you don't want it you can
pass it on to someone else
councillor Cisco mr. Mara I was just
gonna ask that with respect to the
clause they're about equal appointments
that some sort of policy come forward
from staff I know for some of us given
our work schedules there are some months
of the year that may be applicable but
other ones that wouldn't so staff could
put together some policy based on the
best practices that will come back I'd
be great come back for 2021 councillor
Garcia would take those directions of
staff mr. mayor I'd just like to ask the
procedural question from the clerk we
got an email from the clerk a couple of
days ago pointing out that to pull item
from consent the procedural bylaw says
we have to do it by Friday I didn't see
any of these motions I don't think until
Saturday I don't know when they can look
to the clear what's the deadline for
emotions because I didn't so this will
just pass the clerk yeah motion was
submitted through you mr. Mehra this
motion was submitted it wasn't published
it published
Friday morning
the motion was the deadlines are
Wednesday at 3:30 we published Friday so
it was published in the courthouse give
it to ya sorry so you did get it by one
sec okay thank you through through you
mr. mayor if I may if we do this we need
to pass a motion to suspend your
procedural rules and that's where I
thought counselor Garcia was leading
because your procedural rule right now
says you point one deputy mayor annually
so we'll have to do a suspension of the
rules counselor Sisko motion to suspend
the rules all in favor okay can I can I
just say we're just gonna take a time
them and see AO
if you can just direct what you're
talking about oh my gosh what is the
five months in 2021 with 14 okay so it's
splitting the year of 2020 and then
monthly in 2021 thank you to the CEO
paying attention like it's good I
clearly I wasn't some it's a compliment
councillor Littleton yeah thanks can we
separate out the the I'm sorry to
everybody I'm gonna apologize but I'm declaring conflict on this this
changing the procedural to the whatever
we're just going to what I'm sorry I'm out on I'm out on that on a conflict
but I'd like to vote on the other part
of this motion thank you okay councillor
report my hoping this can be a friendly
amendment I prefer the idea of
continuing this on a quarterly basis
rather than monthly I just think
sometimes we wouldn't be able to get our
feet wet in the job I think it would be
too too confusing to do it on a monthly
basis and I think there are some people
who just don't won't ever want to do it
so I think quarterly
that's the opportunity over the rest of
the term to give people a chance and I
think it's easier to manage
I know I would accept that as friendly
yeah
so you're going quarterly moving for so
we have to go through this whole thing
again where people put up their hands
every month and are every for like
really I get this is where you want to
go with this come on folks welcome so
can I just on the way I guess the vision
would look like is next December those
who are interested would put their names
forth and it would be divided up if
they're save three or four counselors
okay here okay so and if you don't get
how it would work monthly then it's like
how would it be any different
there's twelve counselors so every
counselor would be assigned a month so
you wouldn't have to jockey for which
once you want to do it which ones you
don't want to do it and all that other
stuff associated with it i I just wonder
if either if there are counselors who
actually want to do it does everybody
want to be a deputy mayor this makes it
simple now so Harris you haven't spoken
would it not make sense just to do it
for this year and then implement like it
an actual strategy for 2021 with an
actual process is that not so just stick
with the original the original four
names or whatever or three names or two
names or whoever wants to do it okay
then I guess you can ask for it I don't
know like a sec because it seems like
we're gonna be able to agree with
anything well the simplest one is okay
counselor Miller you haven't spoken I
guess my struggle is if we're saying the
monthly point is the best plan which is
essentially what we're saying here why
wouldn't we just go to that right away
why would we wait a year and I
understand he's the for counselors put
their name for but they also put their
name for when the job was very different
than it's being described here I think
myself and I'm sure others would have
done it if we knew it we were signing up
for a two-month period at some point and
put our names fort so well I am I guess
I'm sympathetic to the for people who
wanted to put their names for the next
year that's also not even what we're
potentially voting on here so I guess I
would just ask that why wouldn't we just
start the monthly plan in January 2020
and not go through this whole hullabaloo
so if you if you didn't want to be
deputy you just pass it to another
counselor perfect that works change it
back to monthly and if so to clarify if
someone doesn't want to be deputy mayor
they can give their month up correct
it's because our bylaw stops December
first 20 right now should be 2019 three
mr. mayor
due to the election you were actually
nog you rated December one so that's
when the deputy mayor was first done
what we're hoping to do is begin January
one so we're asking this deputy mayor to
continue December until January 1 to get
it but it says a deputy mayor for 2020
so is there one man
the present deputy mayor which is
councillor Harris continue his duties
through December so that we begin the
process January somewhere on a regular
January to December 31 so that we could
do it one month at a time pointing out
is that it should be 2019 so sorry
counselor it should be 2019 and the
appointments begin January 2020 and it
should say three months consecutively
councillor Williamson I would suggest we
just worry about this year because
that's what how we've done appointments
in the past four deputy mayors just this
year let's do a quarterly for this year
and then we can figure out what we're
gonna do going forward for next time
okay
I would agree with you councillor
Williamson it's just that what's been
experienced over the last three weeks is
quite frustrating when council should be
paying attention to the stuff in front
of us and there's phone calls about I
want to be deputy mayor I want to be
deputy mayor if we can cut that off now
and just have a process that's true but
it makes it so more people may want to
do it again next year and it might just
be you might work out fairly okay
councillor Kushner yes
mr. Mara I can't agree to this we have
what I thought I was coming for an
election and we're decay ting that
responsibility if the position was not
important
I'd say fine but I think it is an
important position and I think there's a
learning curve and I would ask to a
former deputy mayor maybe - is there a
learning curve for the job
yes I think there is a learning curve
and I think it's a it's a responsibility
not to be taken lightly and I look at it
as the opportunity to represent counsel
and be almost the conduit for counsel to
the mayor and senior staff so there is a
learning curve curve that curve because
I think it curves it's longer than a
month I assume yes into councilor
Phillips I agree with with councillor
Harris yes there is a learning curve
I saw the role of deputy mayor in number
one because I'm retired I was able to
attend the senior management team
meetings on Wednesday and answer
questions and help develop agenda which
I found to be very important I don't
know if that I don't know if councillor
Harris was able to do that that's one to
me significant role secondly any
concerns from councillors that they
wanted taken to the mayor I was able to
do that or if he wanted me to take
something to specific councillors I was
able to do that and plus Saturdays are
busy because the mayor is always
double-booked
he's out everywhere opening businesses
and you usually get the call to do I'm
going to say to three businesses most
Saturdays so that's the role yes there
is a learning curve to be there for a
month I don't know it depends on on the
availability of the person who's who's
going to be deputy mayor and the
involvement he or she want to become
involved in it in context that the
region it is by month so and the region
you'd think the regional chair would
have a very important vice chair that
would do all the work of what a vice
chair would do but it's my month it's
taught by years so I think a bigger
corporation you'd think there would be a
vice chair but there's not counselor
just just add to what you said I spoke
with councillor height about it he's
been deputy
mayor on this council as well as running
the or being the the deputy mayor of the
month or Deputy Chair of the month of
the region and he says it does work up
there but then again there's things that
work up there that don't work down here
and rap Vicey Versey if I can continue
mr. mayor you indicated works for the
region well I would have some question
about how while it worked for the last
term of the region but my point is I
have not heard a good argument I've not
heard a good argument for why we would
be doing this with the exception that we
have for good people that are interested
and therefore that's the reason to make
them deputy mayor on a short basis if we
have four excellent people let this
council decide who is the most excellent
to the for thank you okay anybody else
when you speak councillor Porter if I
can respond to councillor Kushner's
comments I think it would be important
to have different people who have new
counselors experienced counselors you
get to spend additional time with senior
staff and with the mayor setting the
agenda and I think it just builds for a
better team so that's that's why I would
be in favor of of taking turns doing it
is is you get that opportunity to kind
of be on the inside a little bit and you
get a gaining greater appreciate a
greater appreciation of what's what
staff are doing else reporter Kelso
Ceretto Thank You mr. mayor it's not a
conflict for me to speak to this is it
I'm okay look okay so I'm Justin but the
greatest respect to my colleague and
I'll ask her later on I just don't
understand why councillor Littleton
declared a conflict and I'll ask her I
do agree with this and just to get to
the comment about the learning curve the
one thing that I heard that stands out
is that
selecting the the agendas most of us
have represented you mr. mayor and we
have represented council so I don't know
you know when you talk about a learning
curve how much more of a learning curve
there there is involved other than
picking up the items for the agenda we
read the agendas every other week or
when they come to us so I don't see that
as a tremendously onerous learning curve
if you will mr. mayor and I quite agree
with some of my colleagues that I think
that we should should rotate it
quarterly mr. mayor because it will
allow other people to represent your office so councillor
Miller councillor Porter is interested
in doing it and there are four of us
right now that would allow everybody a
fair opportunity and I think three
months I think three months is long
enough to do it and then if there is
another counselor who doesn't want to do
it and they say okay let's take this to
Council I'm going to withdraw my name so
someone who hasn't done it okay for this
term then go ahead and do it and I think
that that would be very democratic and
I'm sure that my colleague from Port
deluzy would appreciate that democratic
principle that's it thank you okay okay
so we we good here so councillor towns
motion is in front of you you've made
the motion you've heard from Council do
you want to remove the 2021 which is one
month for each councillor in 2021 and
come come back to this kind of wonderful
discussion that we just had in a year
from now leave it the way it is and
let's vote on it the way it is okay
thank you okay Thank You councillor
Townsend so call a question through you
mr. mayor through is this the motion
with the BIA as well on it the BIA one
is not a separate it's just a separate
so the motion before you councillor
Townsend yes
councillor Williamson yes
did she ask that when she did she did
didn't she
did she ask for that I'm sorry I just
heard her say she had a conflict
what does councillor Littleton have a
conflict on she's declaring a conflict
on the position of deputy mayor cuz it's
a it's a paid position in its entirety
though I wasn't sure if she was
separating out a portion of missing so
she could vote on a portion of it that's
what we're going to get okay that's the
case you should clarify that
split it counselor Wilson counselor
lamps and split split move on I don't
know if we'll have such a robust
discussion for the Downtown Association
but who would like to be a member of the
Downtown Association is there anyone we
would like to put your hand up because
currently we have a vacant space
councillor Sorrento mr. mayor I have to
defer for a year okay just just so you
know I end up then don't put your hand
up
you can't defer it okay for my position
for my nomination I'll do it next to all
the council yes okay so voting on the
first one so councillor Williamson you
said yes counselor Townsend you said yes
counselor Sorrento
so we're voting on the first part which
is that one okay Cory I wrote this I got
to get it up we're doing a quarter legal
okay
just where you'd be clear to come yes
clerk councillor Cisco councillor Porter
yeah councillor Phillips councillor
Miller yes
councillor Littleton conflict councillor
kushner councillor Harris
well I had my hand up no you guys kept
switching back and forth between
different things just strike his name
okay okay that's okay you can still vote
yeah okay yes
Cal sir Garcia no and counselor dodge
yeah
they are sensing yes and that's carried
the second one so highlight the second
one Kyra if you can which is the note no we're still on the first we're still
in that one but it was let the motion
was split so go back to the screen
and you got to highlight the second part
that we're voting on which is that it's
the for the next year so it's so all the
way up right there
so we're voting on if you got to
highlight that and the remainder okay
it's council clear okay
councillor dodge councillor Garcia No
councillor Harris yes councillor Kushner
councillor Littleton yes
councillor Miller yes councillor
Phillips councillor Porter yes
councillor Cisco councillor Sorento yes
councillor Townsend
yes councillor Williamson and Mayor
CENTAC yes and that's carried okay that
was a tough one folks congratulations to
this year's deputy mayors and look
forward to the calendar of deputy pairs
next year that'll be a nice one okay so
we got to do the Downtown Association
councillor Dodge sorry mr. mayor
so how is it gonna work for the monthly
thing like are we section is to report
back on how it's gonna be so I didn't
see that I'm sorry the staff direction
from councillor Cisco okay and then
Downtown Association councillor Kushner
you'd like to put your name for it okay
all in favor of council that's what
happens when you put your hand up mr.
mayor you have to be innovative since
nobody's interested and we have four
deputy mayors why not three why not have
one of them on the Downtown Association
because they have already
should I read my speech for deputy mayor
so I can get on the down
you hear it it's a very good speech I'm
very good at speaking just switch out
okay so who wants to put their name for
it
counselor enter you're gonna put your
name forward okay okay okay
counselors rant oh no see nobody else
all in favor of counselors ranch on
Downtown Association carried salt to the
highest bidder I don't think counselor
Alton even put your name forward did you
I thought I thought you were gonna read
a speech we're moving on so now where do
we go from here in Kim
so three point six that was already
referred that was already referred by
counselor Porter that's the audit and
accountability fund correct that's
already been referred to the budget
committee so now we go in-camera there's
a human resources matter fire services
personnel matter about an identified
noble individual including municipal
local board employee I have a mover in a
secondary to go in-camera counselor
which one is what the original agenda
item where we were gonna vote for deputy
manager to the old rules we had to make
some sort of motion to that from the
agenda so what is through you mr. mayor
there it was just a recommendation what
you did was a new motion was put so the
original was never put thanks for the
clarification
okay motion to a camera counselor
Phillip pardon later that's after we
come out of in-camera counselor dodge
all a favor
carried seeing camera