Owen Sound Board - River District Meeting Transcript — May 14, 2025

00:05:41 Speaker 02: Welcome to our May 14th River District Board of Management meeting.

00:05:48 Speaker 02: Call the meeting to order, and I'll ask for additional business if I could.

00:05:54 Speaker 02: Yes.

00:05:58 Speaker 02: Okay.

00:05:59 Speaker 02: Yes, I have additional business.

00:06:01 Speaker 02: I guess I talk about that later.

00:06:02 Speaker 02: Apparently, I do have to tell you what it is.

00:06:04 Speaker 02: Okay.

00:06:06 Speaker 03: Oh, the general nature of it is I went around to the businesses in my block and.

00:06:12 Speaker 03: I have feedback to report.

00:06:17 Speaker 04: I have some additional business regarding the invitations that are sitting in front of you.

00:06:32 Speaker 04: You need that.

00:06:34 Speaker 04: Declarations of interest.

00:06:35 Speaker 04: Anyone?

00:06:37 Speaker 04: Seeing none.

00:06:39 Speaker 02: Confirmation of minutes for the minutes of the River District Board of Management meeting held on March 12th.

00:06:45 Speaker 02: Anyone care to make a motion?

00:06:52 Speaker 02: Thank you, Chair.

00:06:53 Speaker 02: I would move the minutes as they are presented within the agenda.

00:06:58 Speaker 02: All in favour?

00:07:01 Speaker 02: Anyone against?

00:07:02 Speaker 02: Carried.

00:07:06 Speaker 02: Deputations at this time.

00:07:07 Speaker 02: I'd like to end.

00:07:07 Speaker 02: This time, I'd like to invite Inspector Bishop to come to the podium.

00:07:14 Speaker 02: Thank you.

00:07:19 Speaker 02: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:07:20 Speaker 02: Thanks for having me.

00:07:22 Speaker 02: Would you like your update first, or would you like your update last?

00:07:29 Speaker 05: The update is going to be fairly quickly, so maybe I'll just run through that very quickly for you.

00:07:38 Speaker 05: March and April of this year, 92 hours of foot patrol in the core in the River District area.

00:07:44 Speaker 05: In March and up to 114 in April.

00:07:49 Speaker 05: The one event that our community service officer wanted to touch on was last weekend.

00:07:55 Speaker 05: They were in the River District on the fourth Saturday, the fourth for the fifth annual Wheel and Ride event.

00:08:02 Speaker 05: They partnered with the River District, obviously Guanis and Sydney Optimist, to.

00:08:04 Speaker 05: And Sidnom Optimist to promote street and bike safety.

00:08:07 Speaker 05: In addition to outfitting children and youth with refurbished bikes, Senex Cycle provided their expertise in fixing bikes and preparing bikes to be road safe.

00:08:16 Speaker 05: Very well attended.

00:08:17 Speaker 05: Once again, this was the fifth running of it.

00:08:19 Speaker 05: So great community partnership.

00:08:21 Speaker 05: So that's your update for this month.

00:08:24 Speaker 05: As you were, Mr. Chair, I did ask for maybe just a few extra minutes just to talk to the group here with respect to.

00:08:34 Speaker 05: Some of the issues that we continue to experience here in the River District, the police have noticed that we've had, and this is going on over the years.

00:08:45 Speaker 05: But we are continuing to have more and more complaints coming in, not only from businesses but from the public, with relation to social disorder connected to drugs, homelessness, those sorts of things.

00:08:56 Speaker 05: It's no surprise to anybody here.

00:08:59 Speaker 05: Those numbers continue to go up, and as the police, we bear the brunt of it because when people have those issues, they call us.

00:09:07 Speaker 05: I wanted to speak a little bit about some of the frustrations that we have around that, just in relation to our ability to provide enforcement and to provide solutions for that.

00:09:17 Speaker 05: In no way should any of my words be taken as any sort of opposition to the compassionate approach, harm reduction, and those sorts of things.

00:09:26 Speaker 05: We we absolutely support that.

00:09:28 Speaker 05: The chief is.

00:09:29 Speaker 05: The chief has been out publicly in the last couple of months, speaking about basically a revisit to the approach that we're going to be taking for this.

00:09:38 Speaker 05: And what I wanted to touch on just briefly is just to give you a bit of an explanation.

00:09:42 Speaker 05: So, drug law here in Canada is called a federal offence.

00:09:48 Speaker 05: So, there's a separate group called the Public Prosecution Service of Canada who prosecute all federal matters.

00:09:56 Speaker 05: The criminal code stuff remains up at the courthouse.

00:09:58 Speaker 05: That's the Courthouse—that's the Attorney General that looks after that.

00:10:02 Speaker 05: Drugs and a bunch of other terrorism, fraud, things like that that fall under federal offences reside with a much smaller group called the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

00:10:13 Speaker 05: In August of 2020, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada put a directive out to all of their prosecutors with respect to straight possession charges for drugs.

00:10:25 Speaker 05: The net effect of that was to I'm not going to say legalize drugs, but for a straight possession charge, it's very, very difficult.

00:10:36 Speaker 05: In fact, it's pretty much taken most of those charges off the map for us.

00:10:41 Speaker 05: It's a three-page practice directive.

00:10:43 Speaker 05: You can look it up on the internet if you want to see what it says.

00:10:45 Speaker 05: But there are avenues in there that they do allow for that is supposed to be taken into consideration by the prosecutors when they're considering drug possession charges.

00:10:56 Speaker 05: One of those, essentially, what it says is the approach set out in this guideline directs prosecutors to focus upon the most serious cases raising public safety concerns for prosecution,

00:11:09 Speaker 05: to otherwise pursue suitable alternative measures and diversion from the criminal justice system for simple possession cases.

00:11:18 Speaker 05: Criminal prosecution for those cases should generally be reserved for the most serious manifestations of the offence,

00:11:24 Speaker 05: and a couple of those that they highlight are conduct that poses a risk to the safety or well-being of children or young persons,

00:11:31 Speaker 05: including simple possession committed in the vicinity of places frequented by children or young persons.

00:11:36 Speaker 05: And another that says conduct that poses a heightened risk to a community's efforts to address consumption of controlled substances, in accordance with its own community approaches.

00:11:45 Speaker 05: For the most part, police services have stepped away from laying charges because, even in the early days of this coming out,

00:11:54 Speaker 05: the net result that we were seeing was none of them were ever getting to court.

00:11:57 Speaker 05: They were all, even though we were laying them, they were being being pulled.

00:12:02 Speaker 05: As much as we appreciate all of the efforts that are going on on the harm reduction side and the SOS programmemememe and those sorts of things,

00:12:09 Speaker 05: we're also aware that that's been going on for a while and the problem's not getting any better.

00:12:14 Speaker 05: One of the four pillars of the Canada drug strategy is enforcement, that goes along with harm reduction and some of those other things.

00:12:20 Speaker 05: But we moved away from that a little bit. and some of the chiefs, particularly in the cities that are getting harder hit than others,

00:12:28 Speaker 05: are starting to go back and trying to push back on PPSC, saying some of this needs to come back.

00:12:34 Speaker 05: And what we're not talking about is going around and charging every individual that has drugs.

00:12:38 Speaker 05: But some of our core officers have had dealings with people that have been warned ten and twelve times.

00:12:43 Speaker 05: You can't do that here, and the system is broken where there's nothing that allows it to be taken any further from that.

00:12:50 Speaker 05: So. we we've tried to take the approach of going back to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and saying your practice direction actually allows for some of this to happen.

00:13:00 Speaker 05: You know, we have some children's facilities and that sort of thing, and and and this is happening.

00:13:04 Speaker 05: And one thing that we learned was, particularly because they have a a piece in here that allows for local perspectives.

00:13:14 Speaker 05: So we have an agent in town.

00:13:16 Speaker 05: One of the lawyers actually acts as an agent for the Public Prosecutions.

00:13:19 Speaker 05: Service of Canada.

00:13:20 Speaker 05: She doesn't even get to look at all of these.

00:13:22 Speaker 05: Any any possession charge gets shipped off to Toronto, where they make a decision on it, which makes us say,

00:13:27 Speaker 05: how does how does it have a local perspective when it's somebody sitting in downtown Toronto pulling these things?

00:13:36 Speaker 05: Anyway,

00:13:36 Speaker 05: a number of the chiefs have said that it's time to really start going back and revisiting this and trying to get back to where at least in egregious cases we can have the ability to

00:13:45 Speaker 05: have a tool in the toolbox to be able to deal with it.

00:13:46 Speaker 05: Blocks to be able to deal with it, so the approach that we've taken it started out with the the chief drafted a community impact statement.

00:13:57 Speaker 05: Basically, I helped him put together something that had all of our stats with respect to the number of deaths that we've had, how we're elevated over some of the other areas in the province,

00:14:06 Speaker 05: how it's impacting a lot of our businesses.

00:14:09 Speaker 05: We met with our local public prosecution.

00:14:13 Speaker 05: She said, "Oh, that's great, but it really doesn't carry any weight because it's coming from." the chief and it's not coming from the people that are directly impacted.

00:14:20 Speaker 05: And she suggested maybe we go out and try and find others that would lend some weight to this.

00:14:25 Speaker 05: And essentially, that's why I'm here tonight, is to sort of make an appeal to.

00:14:31 Speaker 05: We've spoken to a bunch of your your businesses that have actually had us come around with their complaints to it.

00:14:36 Speaker 05: So some of this process is already started, but I wanted to take it to this group and say I don't know whether this is going to change the landscape for us,

00:14:44 Speaker 05: but. it's the next thing that we can try to start lending some weight, and we'll probably ask the city to do the same thing on the city's behalf.

00:14:52 Speaker 05: But for any of the businesses that feel they're directly impacted by this, particularly when it's repeat behaviour that's going on, that's where our frustrations are currently sitting.

00:15:03 Speaker 05: Even when we get into charges that are outside of the drug world, because we do have a lot of property damage and things like that, we're laying charges.

00:15:14 Speaker 05: People are constantly being released.

00:15:15 Speaker 05: We're not getting anybody held in custody anymore.

00:15:17 Speaker 05: So, I remember having a discussion a year or two ago with the city manager, calling up all upset because the flowers were tossed into the river.

00:15:25 Speaker 05: And I go, "Yeah, we we charge the guy, but it's the same guy that broke the window three days before and ripped the eaves trough off of the."

00:15:32 Speaker 05: He said, "Well, what's he doing out?"

00:15:33 Speaker 05: That's a good question.

00:15:34 Speaker 05: We've charged him every single time, and it's been a number of hours, and they're back out, and they'll be released on a recognizance, which has a bunch of terms.

00:15:40 Speaker 05: Agnes was as a bunch of terms, and we'll get them reaching the terms, and again put them in.

00:15:44 Speaker 05: And 15 minutes later, they're back out.

00:15:47 Speaker 05: So we're very frustrated because we're the ones that are always getting the calls, going do something about this, and we're trying.

00:15:54 Speaker 05: We need the tools back in order to do it.

00:15:56 Speaker 05: So this is just one of the approaches that we're trying to take to go back to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and say, "This still is against the law.

00:16:03 Speaker 05: It's not been legalized."

00:16:05 Speaker 05: This is your practice direction that allows for some of this to occur when some of these conditions are met.

00:16:11 Speaker 05: So in April, one of our corps officers has laid four charges now with respect, and I know at least one of them's been pulled already.

00:16:20 Speaker 05: I'm not sure where the other ones are going through.

00:16:23 Speaker 05: So we're kind of back in that boat again, but we're hoping to put together enough stuff to make somebody actually pay attention and say, "This is a big problem here."

00:16:31 Speaker 05: And the problem is different in different communities.

00:16:34 Speaker 05: I had put together something for a board report that actually, because we keep sort of loose stats around fatalities with respect to drug overdoses, and from what I was keeping,

00:16:48 Speaker 05: we're probably four times more likely here in Owen Sound to die of a drug overdose than you are in the greater part of Canada.

00:16:55 Speaker 05: Just with respect to stats, there are some areas that aggregate because of the health services that are available, so it brings people to access those health services and social services and that sort of thing.

00:17:07 Speaker 05: So you see elevated numbers in places like Peterborough, North Bay, Belleville that are in a similar situation to us, where it's just the way the health services have put the programmemememes together.

00:17:22 Speaker 05: So essentially that's what I wanted to talk to you about and see if there's some interest from your group in putting that out as an appeal from the police to assist in putting some of

00:17:32 Speaker 05: your thoughts together on paper that we can start assembling into something that we hope we can turn back into a usable tool for us,

00:17:39 Speaker 05: and start getting back to having the ability to do enforcement in certain cases—not as a replacement for all the other good work that's happening here,

00:17:46 Speaker 05: but as one of those things that you know is a last resort for us.

00:17:51 Speaker 05: So, any questions?

00:17:55 Speaker 05: Yes.

00:17:56 Speaker 05: Yep.

00:18:02 Speaker 05: Now we go.

00:18:03 Speaker 05: Yep.

00:18:04 Speaker 03: Are you thinking maybe from downtown businesses, like a petition, or are you thinking individual impact statements from specific businesses, kind of collated into one document?

00:18:18 Speaker 05: I think individual businesses would be most beneficial, especially if you've had direct experience.

00:18:24 Speaker 05: We've had some businesses that have closed.

00:18:27 Speaker 05: We've talked to one of the businesses downtown that deals with children, Alphabet.

00:18:31 Speaker 05: But they've lost forty percent of their business this year, and they believe that that's the reason why.

00:18:36 Speaker 05: All of those little stories are the pieces that I think are good in volume to be able to put it all together,

00:18:43 Speaker 05: along with the Chief's letter and our letter to say this is impacting our community and we need a solution for it.

00:18:50 Speaker 05: Yes, Pam.

00:18:54 Speaker 06: And certainly subject to what the inspector thinks and the direction of the board.

00:18:58 Speaker 06: But I wonder if the board is supportive of the direction that Inspector Bishop is seeking, if you would pass a resolution directing the chair to write a letter on behalf of the River District Board,

00:19:16 Speaker 06: and that would come as sort of representative of all the businesses; we then could share something through email or otherwise, sort of giving a bit of a background.

00:19:28 Speaker 06: Giving a bit of a backgrounder about what the Public Prosecution Service of Canada is and what this directive means, and encourage businesses to prepare a letter and send it to the Owen Sound Police Service,

00:19:40 Speaker 06: so that all of these things could be sort of aggregated together.

00:19:43 Speaker 06: But we could, subject to the direction of the board, work to prepare a letter from the chair that would sort of say, "Hey,

00:19:51 Speaker 06: you are the elected representatives of this business improvement area," and talk about the impact, and then also we can work to get some individual businesses who would sort of lend support for that same narrative.

00:20:09 Speaker 06: If that's something the board wants to do, well, I would say that there's a lot of support from businesses.

00:20:17 Speaker 02: Period, to have something to get some teeth into something, so that some of the laws are changed.

00:20:23 Speaker 02: Is it all federal though, or is it not provincial as well?

00:20:30 Speaker 02: Drug-related charges are federal.

00:20:31 Speaker 05: Anything that we would lay that would be mischief, property damage, those sorts of things, end up at our local courthouse.

00:20:36 Speaker 05: We're not having as much success getting you know a resolution to it because we'll have people that are out on ten, twelve, fourteen charges repeatedly.

00:20:49 Speaker 05: Just where I think in the old days, so there was a definite shift that happened during COVID.

00:20:55 Speaker 05: So when COVID kicked in, they started looking at all of our local detention facilities as congregate living, and that's a death sentence during COVID.

00:21:03 Speaker 05: So they really cut down on the number of people that were going in and relaxed the rules on people that were being held.

00:21:11 Speaker 05: Problem is, COVID's done; it's never come back.

00:21:14 Speaker 05: So we're still dealing with what we look at as sort of the COVID rules around everybody's getting released.

00:21:21 Speaker 05: There's overcrowding in correctional facilities and that sort of thing too, but in the old days, if you had somebody that was on their, you know, multiple charges,

00:21:31 Speaker 05: you'd at least be able to solve the problem for thirty or sixty days because they're going to be in for two months, and we're not going to have that problem.

00:21:37 Speaker 05: That's what we're lacking right now.

00:21:39 Speaker 05: It's a lot of our workload is brought on by a very small number of our population here, and it's because it's the repeat offences that we keep having.

00:21:50 Speaker 05: Again, I didn't want to make this sound like we're starting to, you know, demonize addiction issues or that sort of thing; we're absolutely not.

00:21:56 Speaker 05: But we're starting to see a groundswell everywhere where I think the pendulum's just coming back a little bit, and people are...

00:22:02 Speaker 05: I pulled a bunch of stories here that are all literally from April.

00:22:06 Speaker 05: Alberta is trying to implement a bill that has involuntary addiction treatment.

00:22:12 Speaker 05: Out in BC, they were running a pilot drug decriminalization project.

00:22:19 Speaker 05: It's been pulled.

00:22:20 Speaker 05: There are, you know, agreeing that it's not working.

00:22:24 Speaker 05: And you know, San Francisco, which is probably the hub of the liberal approach in the United States, they've just stopped doing free drug paraphernalia and that sort of thing, just because they're dealing with,

00:22:35 Speaker 05: you know, the issues and the fallout that are coming from it.

00:22:37 Speaker 05: So you're starting to see maybe some realization that a lot of these programmemememes aren't working as well as what they thought they were, and we're starting to see some readjustment of what that looks like.

00:22:47 Speaker 05: So we're still struggling ourselves to figure out what the right solution is, and so far it's not anything that we've tried so far.

00:22:53 Speaker 05: But here we are.

00:22:55 Speaker 02: So, how can we get some direction as to how we should approach something so we get some teeth into what's happening?

00:23:03 Speaker 02: And I'm—I'd be glad to, as you probably have seen from our agenda,

00:23:08 Speaker 02: I have written a letter on behalf of the board to our dear Chief for a programmemememe that he is wanting to see happen in our town.

00:23:18 Speaker 02: And that's maybe not enough.

00:23:21 Speaker 02: But if there's something that we could do as a board, yes.

00:23:27 Speaker 02: I'll make a motion that we respond.

00:23:29 Speaker 07: The chair respond on behalf of the board as per the inspector's request, and that further we prepare a communication for DIA members.

00:23:40 Speaker 07: I've certainly spoken to lots of them, and I've heard some horrific stories.

00:23:44 Speaker 07: And I think that we need people to share those stories to have the maximum impact.

00:23:49 Speaker 07: So, a communication to DIA members, perhaps with a deadline, so that it's not left open-ended, along with the information where it should be sent at the Owen Sound Police Service.

00:24:08 Speaker 07: Any other comments?

00:24:10 Speaker 07: Yes.

00:24:12 Speaker 03: Might I suggest that this might be a good use of the block leader thing, where if block leaders are given a document, we can actually go around and talk to individual businesses about it,

00:24:23 Speaker 03: and that may lend a little bit more of a sort of personal, you know, directive and maybe more impactful.

00:24:35 Speaker 03: Yes, Denise.

00:24:40 Speaker 03: Do you know if any other communities are doing similar sorts of advocacy work, so other community policing forces?

00:24:51 Speaker 05: I don't know where they're at in their advocacy work, but there is a number of other communities that are trying to go back to the approach of having enforceable drug laws for problematic drug use.

00:25:04 Speaker 05: Where they're at in terms of, I don't know if our approach with trying to leverage the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to readjust how they're screening their charges is unique or not.

00:25:17 Speaker 05: We're willing to lead the charge.

00:25:19 Speaker 05: We just need the ammunition to be able to go.

00:25:21 Speaker 05: We've tried the first round.

00:25:22 Speaker 05: They said just hearing from the Chief isn't enough.

00:25:24 Speaker 05: So now we're going out to the community, going, "Do you share our viewpoint and can you help?"

00:25:30 Speaker 05: So I'm not sure that this will work, but it's we're going to keep trying until...

00:25:40 Speaker 02: Well, I think what I'm hearing is that if you lay charges, that after the charges are laid, there's nothing taking place to actually put some teeth into the fact that you've laid charges.

00:25:53 Speaker 02: So why would you lay charges in the first place?

00:25:56 Speaker 02: And I guess from my side, I know of several instances where you have arrested someone and they've been creating a real havoc in a store, for instance, and you've carried them away with handcuffs on.

00:26:12 Speaker 02: Three hours later, they're back in the same store, creating the same havoc because nothing.

00:26:17 Speaker 02: They didn't.

00:26:18 Speaker 02: The person who did this didn't perceive that it was even.

00:26:22 Speaker 02: Who cares?

00:26:22 Speaker 02: I don't need to listen to you.

00:26:24 Speaker 02: And I consider that a waste of your time for having, first of all, tried to alleviate the issue, and then to turn around and have this person back on the street.

00:26:39 Speaker 02: Where do we go to get something to happen and get some teeth into it?

00:26:48 Speaker 05: If we're going to go along with the idea of putting something out through block captains, I can happily type up a formalized request that I can send through to whoever, and that can,

00:26:58 Speaker 05: if you'll assist in distributing that out to the businesses, that would be appreciated.

00:27:06 Speaker 05: Tim, this was just you.

00:27:10 Speaker 08: You mentioned it being looked at as increased severity in proximity to children, and so I'm just curious: is it happening in public parks and things like that?

00:27:20 Speaker 08: Is that not considered as on its own proximity to children?

00:27:26 Speaker 08: It should be.

00:27:27 Speaker 08: We laid one.

00:27:28 Speaker 05: The one that just got pulled was on the doorstep of a children's facility, but they pulled it because there was no evidence that there wasn't a child within arm's reach sort of thing.

00:27:37 Speaker 05: So, yeah, the challenge for us is we're laying the charge, and somebody in Toronto is reviewing it, and just it's gone.

00:27:49 Speaker 05: So we're doing all the work, and there's a staffing piece that comes in.

00:27:55 Speaker 05: The officer's got to do all the reports and all of that sort of thing that goes along with it,

00:27:59 Speaker 05: which increases that level of frustration where we're doing all of that work only to have it be tossed down the road, which is where we got to some time ago,

00:28:08 Speaker 05: where the services just stopped doing it because it's just not—it doesn't make sense.

00:28:15 Speaker 05: We're trying our approach, armed with their own document in their own direction,

00:28:19 Speaker 05: saying please just follow your own rules and maybe give this a little bit more scrutiny according to your own rules and let some of these go through because you know for some of them this

00:28:31 Speaker 05: is also an avenue to potential treatment,

00:28:33 Speaker 05: sort of thing, because one of those outcomes that can come from this is, you know, mandated treatment that comes through the court process.

00:28:40 Speaker 05: We don't have a drug treatment court here yet.

00:28:43 Speaker 05: We're hoping at some point down the road that that's going to happen.

00:28:47 Speaker 05: But when that does happen, the only way to get into drug treatment court is through a charge.

00:28:52 Speaker 05: So it's a little bit of a catch-22.

00:29:01 Speaker 05: Yes, ma'am.

00:29:02 Speaker 05: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:29:03 Speaker 09: So, as I understand the motion, it has two parts.

00:29:06 Speaker 09: One is the board requesting that you prepare a letter, and we'll help you with that on behalf of the board and the membership.

00:29:14 Speaker 09: And then, through the block captains, that we would get out to the businesses and encourage them to send correspondence,

00:29:22 Speaker 09: and we'll work with the inspector to get the timeline for that and where it should go, and some key information that would be helpful to have in it.

00:29:30 Speaker 10: So, Denny, just wondering if it should be more specific as to what kind of activities we're talking about,

00:29:41 Speaker 10: because I just my concern is you're going to get a lot of reports about loitering and things like that.

00:29:49 Speaker 05: The concern mainly is open public drug use.

00:29:53 Speaker 05: Somebody sitting on your storefront injecting drugs on the sidewalk—that kind of thing.

00:30:01 Speaker 05: Particularly if you know that you're having people that are not wanting to come down there as a result of that, they're afraid.

00:30:07 Speaker 05: That sort.

00:30:08 Speaker 05: It's the impact that this is having.

00:30:10 Speaker 05: If it is to your business, if you're able to articulate that, and we're able to put enough together to go, this is having a major impact on us,

00:30:17 Speaker 05: and we need to be able to have the tools to react in conjunction with all of the other programmemememes that are still happening here in the city.

00:30:24 Speaker 02: So, to be so direct, but I do believe that a number of the programmemememes that are out there are not working, and they're certainly not working for us as business owners.

00:30:37 Speaker 02: When in fact, every day you see an issue on Main Street, and as you said, and I'm not trying to shoot the messenger here,

00:30:45 Speaker 02: so much as suggest that if what you are doing ends up not being in the best interest of the public or you're trying to do us in the best interest of the public,

00:30:57 Speaker 02: and it's just not being effective, then we as citizen business owners and every citizen in Owen Sound should be concerned about the direction things have taken.

00:31:11 Speaker 02: So, do we need a motion?

00:31:16 Speaker 02: There's a motion.

00:31:17 Speaker 02: Any other questions?

00:31:20 Speaker 02: Seeing none.

00:31:22 Speaker 02: Are we in agreement with going forward with this?

00:31:27 Speaker 02: All in favour.

00:31:28 Speaker 02: There we go.

00:31:30 Speaker 02: If anyone's again, I'm going to shoot them, and I don't mean the way it sounds.

00:31:36 Speaker 02: But when I hear about fourteen-year-olds in Toronto carrying Glocks that are capable of shooting five or six bullets, and they're saying, you hear a fourteen or fifteen-year-old kid saying,

00:31:50 Speaker 02: "That's just the way it is." now.

00:31:52 Speaker 02: It's unfortunate.

00:31:54 Speaker 02: Anyway, anything else, sir?

00:31:58 Speaker 05: No, just thank you for your time, and we are doing our best with what we have.

00:32:03 Speaker 05: So, we do appreciate what you do.

00:32:07 Speaker 05: Thank you.

00:32:09 Speaker 05: Thank you.

00:32:16 Speaker 05: If I may, if I could just ask for a motion to accept the verbal report.

00:32:17 Speaker 05: Could we have a motion to accept the verbal report for the monthly update from the police?

00:32:20 Speaker 05: Yes.

00:32:20 Speaker 05: Could we have a motion to accept the verbal report?

00:32:24 Speaker 05: Yes.

00:32:26 Speaker 05: All in favour?

00:32:27 Speaker 05: Carried.

00:32:29 Speaker 05: Thank you, sir.

00:32:31 Speaker 05: All right.

00:32:34 Speaker 02: Five B: Deputation from City Clerk regarding short-term rental licensing.

00:32:40 Speaker 02: Welcome, Kate.

00:32:48 Speaker 02: To you, Chair Parsons.

00:32:50 Speaker 11: There are a couple of new faces, so I will just introduce myself.

00:32:53 Speaker 11: I'm Briana Bloomfield, the City Clerk.

00:32:57 Speaker 11: And on December 4th, 2023, City Council approved a bylaw to licence, regulate, and govern the operation of short-term rentals, also known as STRs, in the City of Owen Sound.

00:33:09 Speaker 11: The STR bylaw came into effect on March 1st, 2024.

00:33:13 Speaker 11: A staff report was presented to the Service Review Committee on April 9th, 2025, to review the first year of the STR Licensing Programmemememe and bring forward recommendations for consideration.

00:33:25 Speaker 11: When the minutes of the Service Review Committee came forward to Council for approval,

00:33:29 Speaker 11: Council postponed the discussion and requested that the River District Board be provided an opportunity to comment before a final decision is made by Council.

00:33:38 Speaker 11: The staff report was included in the River District agenda, and I'm going to make a short presentation on the first year of the STR licensing programmemememe,

00:33:47 Speaker 11: and then open the floor for feedback from the board.

00:33:55 Speaker 11: In the first year of the programmemememe, from March 1, 2024, to February 28, 2025, there were 24 STR licences issued, totaling $12,000 in gross revenue.

00:34:05 Speaker 11: From March 1 to December 31, the city received $11,200 in municipal accommodation tax from STR operators.

00:34:15 Speaker 11: This slide breaks down the number of occupants, location, and type for the twenty-four STRs that were licenced in the first year of the programmemememe.

00:34:23 Speaker 11: As you will see, there were eight STRs that had eight occupants, six STRs had six occupants, eight STRs had four occupants, and one STR and one bed and breakfast also had two occupants.

00:34:37 Speaker 11: There were nine STRs located on the west side of town, and fifteen STRs on the east side, which included one located in the River District.

00:34:46 Speaker 11: For type, we had one bed and breakfast, six having separate living area for guests, and seventeen having shared living area with guests.

00:34:57 Speaker 11: There were no nuisance-type complaints submitted in the first year of the programmemememe, and all complaints relating to operating without a licence were complied with.

00:35:09 Speaker 11: The report which was attached to this meeting agenda outlines the feedback shared with the STR Licensing Coordinator over the last year and the results of the one-year review survey.

00:35:19 Speaker 11: There were 181 responses to the one-year review survey compared to 583 responses to the implementation survey in 2023.

00:35:28 Speaker 11: I'm now going to highlight some of the survey results.

00:35:32 Speaker 11: So, the majority of respondents are full-time Owen Sound residents.

00:35:36 Speaker 11: Just over half of respondents are aware of an STR in their neighbourhood.

00:35:40 Speaker 11: The majority of respondents either did not do anything about disruptions or contacted the property owner.

00:35:48 Speaker 11: A small number of respondents felt the licensing programmemememe reduced nuisance concerns, and the majority were unsure whether it has helped.

00:35:56 Speaker 11: There was a split vote on whether there should be an exemption to the principal residence requirement for the River District and waterfront areas.

00:36:06 Speaker 11: The majority of respondents believe STR should continue to be regulated/licenced and on sound.

00:36:11 Speaker 11: A split vote was received on whether the rental cap should be increased.

00:36:15 Speaker 11: A majority of respondents are satisfied with the eight-person maximum, and the majority of respondents are satisfied with the current licensing fee.

00:36:24 Speaker 11: The first recommendation in the staff report is to continue the STR licensing programmemememe.

00:36:31 Speaker 11: Some of the reasons listed include that it has been successfully implemented, protects the availability and affordability of housing stock, balances economic benefits with the compatibility of neighbourhoods, protects the character, amenities,

00:36:45 Speaker 11: and quality of the community, ensures safe accommodations for visitors, permits the operation of licenced STRs, and provides equity amongst overnight accommodation options as tax is collected on all accommodations.

00:37:00 Speaker 11: This recommendation was supported by committee.

00:37:04 Speaker 11: Recommendation number two of the report relates to a couple of wording changes for clarification purposes.

00:37:10 Speaker 11: The first is to remove "in and resort" to align with the zoning bylaw, and the second is to specify that the occupancy maximum includes operators if they are present during a rental.

00:37:20 Speaker 11: This recommendation was also supported by committee.

00:37:24 Speaker 11: The third recommendation in the staff report is to post human trafficking information in the STR and provide information to all operators.

00:37:32 Speaker 11: The service review committee supported this recommendation with a slight change, which is that the information sheet will only be displayed while the STR is being rented.

00:37:45 Speaker 11: The fourth recommendation in the report is to increase the rental cap from 180 days to 240 days.

00:37:52 Speaker 11: When the rental cap was first discussed by council, it brought about much debate.

00:37:56 Speaker 11: As part of the one-year review, staff recommended that the rental cap be reviewed, and the service review committee supported the increase from one hundred and eighty days to two hundred and forty days.

00:38:07 Speaker 11: The purpose of a rental cap is to balance nuisance concerns with financial considerations for both the STR operator and the city.

00:38:14 Speaker 11: In the first year of their programmemememe, there were no nuisance complaints submitted to bylaw enforcement or police services.

00:38:21 Speaker 11: Increasing the rental cap may remove a barrier for new STRs.

00:38:25 Speaker 11: STRs offer an additional accommodation option for both local workers and visitors who contribute to the local economy; STRs allow residents to supplement their income while also increasing the net revenue for the city.

00:38:38 Speaker 11: STRs must be located in an operator's principal residence, which means they aren't taking away from the availability of long-term rentals.

00:38:47 Speaker 11: Feedback from STR operators and the survey indicated support for increasing the one hundred and eighty-day rental cap.

00:38:55 Speaker 11: Recommendation number five is to maintain the current occupancy maximum.

00:38:59 Speaker 11: The current occupancy maximum is two people per bedroom plus two people in common areas to a maximum of eight people.

00:39:06 Speaker 11: Based on the feedback received through the survey and the limited number of STRs looking for an increase to the occupancy maximum, staff recommended that the occupancy maximum remain at eight.

00:39:17 Speaker 11: The service review committee supported this recommendation.

00:39:20 Speaker 11: However, at council, one member noted they intend to raise the discussion of increasing the maximum from eight people to ten.

00:39:30 Speaker 11: The sixth recommendation is to maintain the current licence fee, which is five hundred dollars.

00:39:34 Speaker 11: The fee covers the staff time to process the application, complete inspections, respond to inquiries, and monitor website platforms for noncompliance.

00:39:42 Speaker 11: This was supported by the service review committee.

00:39:46 Speaker 11: Recommendation number seven is to remove the principal residence and rental cap requirements in the C1 and MC zones.

00:39:53 Speaker 11: A map of these zones is attached to the report and is essentially commercial areas in the River District.

00:39:59 Speaker 11: Of the recommendations in the staff report, this is one that directly impacts the River District Board and its members.

00:40:07 Speaker 11: Benefits of removing these requirements include that it meets the intent of the official plan and zoning bylaw, has the potential for additional accommodation options, STRs, revenue, and economic benefits.

00:40:18 Speaker 11: Also, there was no clear opposition from the survey results.

00:40:22 Speaker 11: Drawbacks of removing these requirements are that there is no guarantee the STR is being operated by someone local.

00:40:28 Speaker 11: Long-term rentals may be removed from the market in these zones, and there is the potential for landlord issues and complaints due to a mix of residential uses.

00:40:37 Speaker 11: The staff report notes that city staff were made aware of two STRs in the River District that could not continue to operate because of the principal residence requirement.

00:40:47 Speaker 11: The benefits of removing the principal residence and rental cap requirements in the C1 and MC zones outweigh the drawbacks, which is why staff recommended removal from the STR bylaw.

00:40:57 Speaker 11: At the service review committee, it was a tie vote as to whether these requirements should be removed, and your feedback may help council with decision making.

00:41:08 Speaker 11: Recommendation number eight is to add a seven hundred and fifty licensing fee for STRs in the C1 and MC zones, but only if recommendation number seven is approved.

00:41:18 Speaker 11: A higher licensing fee is being suggested because these STRs would be operating solely for commercial purposes.

00:41:24 Speaker 11: They would not be required to live there.

00:41:26 Speaker 11: They can operate multiple STRs, and they can rent the property all year long.

00:41:31 Speaker 11: Because recommendation number seven wasn't approved by committee, recommendation eight was not required.

00:41:39 Speaker 11: Now that I've provided an overview of the first year of the STR licensing programmemememe, I'm looking for feedback from the board,

00:41:46 Speaker 11: particularly as it relates to the potential removal of the principal residence and rental cap requirements in the C1 and MC zones.

00:41:54 Speaker 11: I recommend that the board pass a motion to direct the recording secretary to send a memo to council for the May 26 council meeting, noting the feedback provided at tonight's River District meeting.

00:42:06 Speaker 11: And with that, I will turn it back to you, Chair Parsons.

00:42:10 Speaker 11: Any questions or comments?

00:42:15 Speaker 11: Yes, Councilman Dodd.

00:42:16 Speaker 11: Councillor Dodd.

00:42:19 Speaker 11: Thank you, Chair.

00:42:19 Speaker 12: And so, it was my recommendation to have this sent to the River District solely based off that section C1.

00:42:28 Speaker 12: Basically, encompasses about eighty percent of the River District.

00:42:35 Speaker 12: So, being that this was inclusive of a decision that Council may make, Council thought it was imperative that the River District provide a view.

00:42:46 Speaker 12: Provide a viewpoint.

00:42:47 Speaker 12: Whatever council chooses is going to ultimately have an impact on your businesses and of what you're doing and of how you're running in the River District.

00:42:54 Speaker 12: So that was the reason why it was requested to come here.

00:42:58 Speaker 12: So pro against or that is irrelevant.

00:43:02 Speaker 12: It was more so about getting feedback from your own positions, what your thoughts are, so that way council could have information in the service review committee.

00:43:14 Speaker 12: Just to step back a little bit, the service review committee consisted of four members, and they're all members of council.

00:43:21 Speaker 12: So there wasn't public perspective, public comment provided, on some of these initial recommendations.

00:43:26 Speaker 12: Again, hence, with this decision, we wanted to bring it back to this committee, so that way you could provide public comment and provide council with your perspective before council made a decision on that recommendation.

00:43:41 Speaker 12: So just so everyone has an understanding of why they came here.

00:43:45 Speaker 12: It's just for to give counsel a more understanding of what you see.

00:43:51 Speaker 12: Tim, yeah, I think from a top line, I would think it's a great idea.

00:43:59 Speaker 08: I'm curious if any, if there's any anecdotal or real data on what the occupancy rates was for the existing STAs or short term STRs.

00:44:15 Speaker 11: I'm a little confused by what you mean by existing statistics.

00:44:21 Speaker 08: So the past year was there is there any data that's floated around around how frequently these STRs were occupied?

00:44:30 Speaker 08: Are we at max capacity and should push more through?

00:44:38 Speaker 11: Through you, Chair Parsons, are you talking about nightly rentals or the number of STRs?

00:44:45 Speaker 11: Because originally we thought that there would be approximately 65 STRs when we first endeavored with this project, but we've only received 24 STRs.

00:44:55 Speaker 11: So certainly we were expecting there to be a lot more.

00:45:04 Speaker 11: Through you, Chair Parsons, I can't report on that at this time.

00:45:09 Speaker 11: It is something we are monitoring.

00:45:11 Speaker 11: They are required when they submit their application yearly to submit that information.

00:45:17 Speaker 11: So some of them are just going through that renewal process now, as it just started in March.

00:45:21 Speaker 11: So at this time, I can't provide that information.

00:45:29 Speaker 11: Yes, Richard.

00:45:31 Speaker 11: I guess I have a couple of comments about this.

00:45:34 Speaker 07: You know, I think back to the time I spent on City Council and the amount that we heard about the lack of rental housing in Owen Sound,

00:45:44 Speaker 07: and the work we put into trying to attract builders to Owen Sound to build more rental housing.

00:45:49 Speaker 07: I would be very concerned moving forward with this at this point, because of the potential for the loss of rental housing.

00:45:57 Speaker 07: Downtown apartments tend to house a lot of the more vulnerable people in the community, and that's a concern to me.

00:46:04 Speaker 07: We know that there are more units coming into the market over the next hopefully five years, and I mean that might be a better time to revisit this idea.

00:46:15 Speaker 07: The other issue that springs to mind, just based on Inspector Bishop's presentation to us tonight,

00:46:21 Speaker 07: is the potential for conflict with visitors in Owen Sound staying in the downtown core when we're struggling with the kind of problems we are downtown.

00:46:30 Speaker 07: I'm all for trying to bring more people downtown, but I think we have other issues we need to deal with before we start advancing this.

00:46:41 Speaker 07: Just my feedback, and I think that this is again another example of an issue where I'd be really interested in hearing what some of the members of the DIA or the River District, sorry,

00:46:53 Speaker 07: I'm old, the River District think about the idea of opening up short-term rentals in the downtown.

00:47:00 Speaker 07: I think it is a broader issue, and I'm not sure that we here sitting as a board should be providing feedback until we've actually gone out again, maybe as block captains,

00:47:11 Speaker 07: and talked to people to find out what their sense is of opening up short-term rentals in the downtown.

00:47:18 Speaker 07: So that's my two cents worth.

00:47:23 Speaker 07: Anyone else?

00:47:23 Speaker 07: Yes.

00:47:28 Speaker 07: I believe in it.

00:47:31 Speaker 07: I would agree with you.

00:47:32 Speaker 13: I think that it is really important that we are thinking about our more vulnerable population in the downtown area.

00:47:40 Speaker 13: I don't see short-term rentals being much of a concern in terms of having visitors to Owen Sound.

00:47:52 Speaker 13: I think we are approaching that time of year where we're going to see a lot of tourism and, of course,

00:47:58 Speaker 13: people who are travelling from out of the area and who are staying in a location where you know they might be looking to go camping for a few days.

00:48:05 Speaker 13: Those sorts of things.

00:48:06 Speaker 13: They may be looking for a location to spend a night here or there.

00:48:10 Speaker 13: In the same way that they may be looking for hotels.

00:48:13 Speaker 13: And I know that there are a couple short-term rentals downtown that, from my understanding, have done very well.

00:48:20 Speaker 13: So I think that is a great option for some people, especially when it comes to you know a small family who maybe is not going to be looking directly for a hotel.

00:48:31 Speaker 13: Maybe they're looking for a place where they do have a kitchen and a bit more privacy.

00:48:35 Speaker 13: But from your report, I believe you mentioned that there weren't a number of issues reported from the short-term rentals.

00:48:46 Speaker 13: That's correct, right?

00:48:51 Speaker 13: Through you, Chair Parsons, that is correct.

00:48:52 Speaker 13: We had no nuisance complaints in the past year.

00:48:55 Speaker 13: Okay, yeah, because I think that an STR licence is a fantastic way to allow people to partner with the community, encourage people to be in our downtown area.

00:49:08 Speaker 13: We definitely don't want to create an environment where people feel like they can't come downtown.

00:49:13 Speaker 13: We want to do the opposite.

00:49:13 Speaker 13: We want to really have people engaging with our community, and if that includes having people coming to visit, I think that's wonderful.

00:49:20 Speaker 13: I also think it's important that we are being mindful of the people who do live downtown and who do need to be able to maintain a residence, but there's definitely, I think,

00:49:31 Speaker 13: a place to talk about the balance of all of that and to encourage people to continue to enjoy our downtown core.

00:49:43 Speaker 03: Yes, I no longer run a retail business, but when I did, and in places that I've traveled, it's certainly something that I actually actively look for.

00:49:59 Speaker 03: Are short-term rentals right in the heart of things, right downtown?

00:50:02 Speaker 03: And I frequent any of the independent businesses that are surrounding that.

00:50:08 Speaker 03: So I think if that is the goal in mind, I think a lot of the retail and service-based businesses would benefit greatly from having a greater influx of people.

00:50:18 Speaker 03: But also, of course, you know, lend itself well to putting us more on the map in terms of being a tourist destination because now we have fun places to stay.

00:50:31 Speaker 02: Richard, you had a comment though in relation to property owners not being in the city.

00:50:41 Speaker 02: I have concerns about that, and I know that in Georgian Bluffs they had an issue with that because what it led to is people buying properties then in order to set them up as STRs.

00:50:56 Speaker 02: So I have the same concerns for our downtown and the possibility of outsiders, if you would, looking to purchase property for that purpose.

00:51:09 Speaker 02: So thank you, Chair.

00:51:19 Speaker 12: And so these are all the great comments that we required to hear as members of Council to know how to move forward.

00:51:26 Speaker 12: Maybe just to step back, just to have a general understanding of what the current STR policy is.

00:51:32 Speaker 12: When you're in a residential zone, you can have STRs, but they do have to be owner-occupied.

00:51:39 Speaker 12: They have to be your primary residence.

00:51:42 Speaker 12: You still need to maintain a bedroom in that home.

00:51:46 Speaker 12: It's not like I'm a primary residence, but I'm living at my cottage.

00:51:50 Speaker 12: You still need to maintain your room, and that's hence the reason why on the residential side we had capped the residence maximum to eight persons.

00:52:00 Speaker 12: We're saying if you had your own space, your own room occupied, on a four-bedroom house, two people per room, or even a three-bedroom house, and yeah, whatever, you'd still be getting underneath that eight-person number,

00:52:12 Speaker 12: and that was to try to help curb some of the disruptive nuisances that we were heard from and experienced in residential areas of someone being an out-of-town resident that was renting it out and it

00:52:25 Speaker 12: was a party house and people were having a great time,

00:52:28 Speaker 12: but it was disrupting their neighbours in the summer months.

00:52:32 Speaker 12: So that's why on a residential side, it has to be owner-occupied, has to be your primary residence on that side, and that's why there's a maximum occupancy there.

00:52:43 Speaker 12: With this, I believe staff are intending to say when you're a building owner or you're running your retail storefront, the unit above you may not obviously be your primary residents.

00:52:59 Speaker 12: So what this would be saying is removing that principal residents clause, obviously, and saying that can be now up to that building owner to justify whether it's going to be one or another.

00:53:11 Speaker 12: I think it would be really challenging in that sense to regulate.

00:53:15 Speaker 12: It's one thing to do it on a residential side to regulate whether it's your primary or not, and generally that's what Georgian Bluffs has done.

00:53:22 Speaker 12: In a downtown business, when that business is owned by One Two Three Four Ontario Limited,

00:53:29 Speaker 12: it'd be extremely challenging to regulate or figure out whether or not that was a local owner or someone from outside the area.

00:53:37 Speaker 12: And I just think that that component obviously is why it's a drawback because it'd be extremely challenging to try to dictate and or try to regulate that being owned locally.

00:53:50 Speaker 12: So, so I guess what from this discussion again, you know, I've heard from or sorry, not not I.

00:53:58 Speaker 12: We have heard from Richard about something that should be discussed further with block captains in our own areas to get a general sense of what they require or is there something that someone here has

00:54:12 Speaker 12: brainstorming ideas,

00:54:13 Speaker 12: or is this something that you'd say you want to?

00:54:17 Speaker 12: I don't know what Briana would allow us to take time to think about it.

00:54:20 Speaker 12: But what are the next steps?

00:54:24 Speaker 12: Should it be something that a corporation is only allowed to have a set number of?

00:54:30 Speaker 12: Let's say Travis.

00:54:31 Speaker 12: I'm not going to do this because it'll be a conflict of interest.

00:54:33 Speaker 12: Let's say I'm going to pick on Allison.

00:54:35 Speaker 12: Allison has a corporation and she owns a couple different residential or a couple different mixed-use or commercial buildings.

00:54:44 Speaker 12: Is she only allowed to register?

00:54:45 Speaker 12: Because they also have to be registered.

00:54:47 Speaker 12: Could she only register so many units as an STR option, so it doesn't impact the long-term rentals?

00:54:54 Speaker 12: That's obviously a big concern for it.

00:54:57 Speaker 12: And the reason I think staff had presented this, and I don't mean if I'm stepping on your toes by any means, is kind of what you had noted as well, right?

00:55:05 Speaker 12: When you go to different cities, sometimes it's not the person doesn't want to stay at the house where I'm living.

00:55:14 Speaker 12: I'm in your—I'm in my bedroom, and you guys have your whole family there, and I'm just hanging out eating nachos in my bed.

00:55:20 Speaker 12: You're probably going to say I don't want to hang out with that guy.

00:55:24 Speaker 12: So it would be something that could potentially be an option for kind of like I'm sure what the vast majority of individuals do when they go to other places is say hey,

00:55:36 Speaker 12: I kind of like my own space or something like that, and that's kind of what this would allow for.

00:55:39 Speaker 12: It would be a little bit of a different ruling than what's happening in our residential rules.

00:55:45 Speaker 12: But again, the council wants to hear what your perspective is as elected members of the River District.

00:55:56 Speaker 12: And if you say, Travis, we're not, haven't—you know, we need more time to think about it.

00:56:02 Speaker 12: I'm sure we could come up with something to have a further discussion, or include more members of the membership.

00:56:10 Speaker 12: But that's just me rambling.

00:56:14 Speaker 12: Yes.

00:56:17 Speaker 12: Thank you.

00:56:18 Speaker 13: I'm just wondering if I totally agree with some of the concerns with having people who are not from the area as the primary owners of the house.

00:56:32 Speaker 13: Is—is there a possibility, maybe, that there would be two separate licences, like one for like a local licence and one for people who aren't local,

00:56:43 Speaker 13: and those maybe would have more specific rules and maybe could help to curb some of the issues that we would have if they were not local.

00:56:58 Speaker 13: Kate, some comment.

00:57:02 Speaker 11: Through Chair Parsons, I do feel that our STR bylaw is currently quite comprehensive with many regulations, so I don't think we need a separate bylaw.

00:57:13 Speaker 11: I think in this instance, we're just mostly looking to find out if you want to open it up to let other people, people who it isn't their principal residence, operate in the River District.

00:57:29 Speaker 11: But we could, as Councillor Dodd mentioned, if he wanted to put a maximum on how many they could operate, that would certainly be something we could include in the bylaw.

00:57:37 Speaker 11: Or if there were certain regulations, we could put them in that bylaw that we currently have.

00:57:44 Speaker 06: Pam, I just wonder, through you, Chair, if the clerk would describe for the committee, because this is kind of new, the rules in the current regulatory bylaw that speak to hey,

00:57:58 Speaker 06: that you have to be available if there's a complaint with respect to your STR.

00:58:02 Speaker 06: There's nothing like that, so nobody has to be in town and responsive.

00:58:07 Speaker 06: But the number of complaints was really pretty low.

00:58:12 Speaker 11: Through Chair Parsons, we do have a requirement that if you receive a certain amount of fines within a set time, then we could revoke that licence.

00:58:23 Speaker 11: There's different ways that we can revoke that licence if there is an issue.

00:58:25 Speaker 11: That licence, if there are issues, I believe it was three within six months and four within a year, or something to that effect.

00:58:36 Speaker 11: Okay.

00:58:37 Speaker 11: Any other comments?

00:58:38 Speaker 11: Yes, Travis.

00:58:40 Speaker 11: Sorry, Briana, and just one more thing.

00:58:42 Speaker 12: If you could just—you made mention to it earlier, and I missed it.

00:58:47 Speaker 12: Prior to legislating, prior to the regulations coming in place for STRs, we know that STRs were operating willy-nilly anywhere in the city, which would include C-1 and MC zones.

00:59:02 Speaker 12: By C-1, I mean commercial; MC is mixed-commercial zones.

00:59:06 Speaker 12: Do we have any information or notice from a screenshot, anything from Airbnb, VRBO, or whatever prior to regulations of how many STRs were potentially operating in the River District or the Downtown Core?

00:59:26 Speaker 11: Through Chair Parsons, we did do a review before we implemented this, and it was 65 STRs.

00:59:36 Speaker 11: But I can't say whether it was how many were in the River District.

00:59:41 Speaker 11: But when these regulations were coming forward, we did hear from two downtown property owners that had to close their STR, which I felt was fairly low,

00:59:55 Speaker 11: considering we did have 65 that seemed to be operating in the whole of Owen Sound.

01:00:03 Speaker 11: So we just heard from the two in the River District that weren't able to operate.

01:00:09 Speaker 11: So it seems to make me feel that they aren't going to be running for a licence.

01:00:17 Speaker 11: The fact that we only had two complaining about the fact that they weren't going to be able to operate,

01:00:23 Speaker 11: so I don't know that there will be a lot of people coming in to operate an STR.

01:00:28 Speaker 11: But again, we don't have—we don't know for sure.

01:00:34 Speaker 02: Question: If somebody were operating an STR illegally, what is the procedure for someone reporting that and having that stopped?

01:00:50 Speaker 11: Through you, Chair Parsons, you can lodge a complaint through our bylaw enforcement portal, which is available on our website, and we will certainly contact them.

01:00:58 Speaker 11: And we monitor websites to make sure that people are not popping up that are advertising without a licence as well.

01:01:08 Speaker 11: Thank you.

01:01:09 Speaker 02: So, at the present time, are we prepared to go forward with a recommendation, or Travis, would you?

01:01:18 Speaker 02: Like?

01:01:19 Speaker 12: I will be the first one to tell you I will not make a recommendation either way for this board, only because I have to go to council, and I would much rather hear a memo.

01:01:32 Speaker 12: That's what we're asking.

01:01:33 Speaker 12: That's what staff are asking for is just basically a perspective or from this board.

01:01:39 Speaker 12: Ultimately, the end recommendation always lies with council on this decision.

01:01:43 Speaker 12: But this was just to have feedback provided to council from this board, so I would honestly say that Travis Dodd's opinion at this side probably is meaningless at this moment in this decision.

01:01:59 Speaker 12: The rest of you are more important than me.

01:02:03 Speaker 12: It's about hearing your voices as elected officials for the River District.

01:02:06 Speaker 02: I'd like to hear some comments, either for or against, from our board.

01:02:11 Speaker 02: I'd like to also speak on behalf of some of the apartment owners in my block, who would be totally against an STR in our block,

01:02:23 Speaker 02: and their comment was that it behooves them to say that they don't have a voice,

01:02:31 Speaker 02: and so I'm not sure where to take that other than to say that they like the fact that it's relatively quiet, and there have been some current.

01:02:41 Speaker 02: There have been some concerns, even from the next block, from us, that it was loud enough that they could hear in our block, and by the time somebody does something about it, it's too late.

01:02:53 Speaker 02: So, anyway, Denis.

01:02:58 Speaker 02: So I wouldn't be supportive.

01:03:01 Speaker 10: Just for my concern is the impact on existing rental housing and what it could mean for rental housing, and so that's.

01:03:14 Speaker 13: I think that it would be something as we mentioned a little earlier.

01:03:19 Speaker 13: I think it's something that we should actually have a conversation with some of the residents downtown, business owners, and get kind of an overview.

01:03:28 Speaker 13: I think I think we're probably in roughly the same place about it, but I do think that it might be something worth having a little look into,

01:03:41 Speaker 13: and coming back and having a conversation about it after.

01:03:44 Speaker 13: Yeah, I think it's reasonable to cover all of our bases and really get a feel for how the community in the River District feels about those sorts of things.

01:03:58 Speaker 13: And when I'm with some of these invitations that we are going to be distributing,

01:04:06 Speaker 13: it might be a really great opportunity for people to just have some conversations with some of our downtown locals and be able to report back,

01:04:15 Speaker 13: so we can really make sure that we have a good overview of how people are feeling about this.

01:04:23 Speaker 07: Richard, is there any urgency, Brianna, in doing this?

01:04:30 Speaker 07: I see you've suggested that council will be talking about it May 26, but is this something that if this board decides we want to get further feedback from the membership, is that possible?

01:04:46 Speaker 11: Through you, Chair Parsons, to Member Thomas, that is certainly possible.

01:04:50 Speaker 11: I was just trying to keep the process moving, thinking if you did provide comments, I could send it to the next meeting.

01:04:55 Speaker 11: But we certainly can bring it forward after you've had some more time to consider.

01:05:02 Speaker 11: I guess I would be looking for a little bit of direction on sort of how that comes back to the board, whether just procedurally, because this is a deputation this evening.

01:05:17 Speaker 11: I guess we could postpone this until a subsequent meeting.

01:05:24 Speaker 03: Jen, yeah, I think it's a pretty reasonable thing to ask the people who would be most impacted.

01:05:35 Speaker 03: Certainly, at first blush, I think it is kind of a great idea.

01:05:41 Speaker 03: But again, I would definitely defer to some like a majority of the business owners here.

01:05:49 Speaker 03: Yes, Kate.

01:05:51 Speaker 11: I would just like to note that there was a survey that went out, and we did have a communication campaign.

01:05:57 Speaker 11: So members of the community were invited to comment through that avenue.

01:06:01 Speaker 11: But certainly, you could provide more consultation.

01:06:07 Speaker 08: Jim, I think I understand the argument against removing rental supply from the housing market.

01:06:16 Speaker 08: However, I think at this point in time in our community, the economic benefit that would come from this, I think, outweighs it in terms of the utilitarian best for everyone, best for the community.

01:06:29 Speaker 08: I think bringing money into our community is one of the best things that we can do in Owen Sound.

01:06:34 Speaker 08: And when travellers come, when they stay, they might grocery shop a little bit, but they are primarily eating at our restaurants and drinking at our cafes.

01:06:43 Speaker 08: And I think that I'm almost of the opinion that we should prioritize these in the River District.

01:06:51 Speaker 08: Thanks, Tim.

01:06:53 Speaker 02: So, would anyone like to make a motion to support the cause at this point, or?

01:06:58 Speaker 02: At this point, are we?

01:07:08 Speaker 02: Kate, a motion should be made by the board and recorded by the secretary to send a monthly account hold with the feedback.

01:07:17 Speaker 02: Now we've you've got feedback, but it's not really giving you any direction as to where we stand, other than it's divided somewhat.

01:07:25 Speaker 02: Yes, Kate.

01:07:28 Speaker 11: Through Chair Parsons, we could provide comment to Council, basically saying this: that there are, you know, again, it's a sort of a split decision throughout the committee.

01:07:37 Speaker 11: They had concerns about rental housing and nuisance to the River District, but also were supported the idea of, you know, the economic benefits of having additional visitors in the area.

01:07:52 Speaker 11: Councillor Dodd, I don't know if you have comments on whether that would be helpful to council or not, or the alternative is to postpone this until the next meeting,

01:08:05 Speaker 11: where you can have a bit more time to consult with your members.

01:08:12 Speaker 11: Dean, what do you think?

01:08:15 Speaker 10: I would love to postpone it and be able to talk to the members while we're handing these out.

01:08:33 Speaker 02: Motion that on the floor to postpone, and could I see have a hands there in favour of that motion?

01:08:42 Speaker 02: Kate, there's your answer.

01:08:43 Speaker 02: I'm sorry that it's not more positive or or.

01:08:46 Speaker 02: Thank you.

01:08:55 Speaker 02: Do we need a motion to receive the report as presented?

01:08:58 Speaker 02: No, we're good.

01:09:03 Speaker 02: Any questions from the floor?

01:09:07 Speaker 02: Can you introduce yourself and say, "Hello, everyone.

01:09:17 Speaker 02: My name is Christy Andre, and I work for the United Way of Bruce Grey.

01:09:20 Speaker 02: I am their fundraiser slash community fundraiser slash communication person, marketing person,

01:09:25 Speaker 14: and I am here to ask if you would consider a letter of support from ten different River District organisations who believe in a physical kiosk that it's more accessible than just sharing information online.

01:09:40 Speaker 14: So people who could use that kiosk that doesn't go online for that information.

01:09:48 Speaker 14: I'll give it a quick example, and I'll let you know the organisations that are backing this.

01:09:53 Speaker 14: Yesterday was the seniors' fair at the Bayshore, and we attended as a vendor.

01:09:59 Speaker 14: And speaking to seniors in this area, there are many of them.

01:10:03 Speaker 14: I'm sure you guys are all aware.

01:10:04 Speaker 14: A lot of them are not online, and they get their information from seeing community boards at grocery stores and in the River District.

01:10:13 Speaker 14: So I know I utilise any free marketing in my role as I can, and I think that it would be a disservice to eliminate that as a whole.

01:10:28 Speaker 14: Yeah, I'm from the United Way.

01:10:29 Speaker 14: I have a signature from the Roxy, from Reach, the Harmony Centre, Alzheimer's Society of Great Bruce, the Library, YMCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Safe and Sound, and the Chamber.

01:10:42 Speaker 14: So I have a copy of this letter.

01:10:43 Speaker 14: If anyone wants it, I would be happy to give it out.

01:10:49 Speaker 14: Yes, Richard.

01:10:53 Speaker 07: When you say accessible kiosk, you're talking about a poster board of some sort in the central.

01:10:57 Speaker 07: Now, do you know we have a report coming up on that later in the meeting?

01:11:01 Speaker 07: You may have known that.

01:11:04 Speaker 07: Okay, great.

01:11:06 Speaker 07: Well, I'll save my comments and questions for the report when we get to that discussion, if that's okay.

01:11:12 Speaker 07: But I'm very supportive because I am online, but I do look at the poster boards anyway.

01:11:22 Speaker 07: Any other comments?

01:11:24 Speaker 07: Questions?

01:11:27 Speaker 14: I do have a physical letter.

01:11:30 Speaker 14: I can also email it, and the clerk does have a copy of it as well, so she can send it out.

01:11:40 Speaker 14: Thank you.

01:11:47 Speaker 15: Correspondence received for which direction is required?

01:11:50 Speaker 15: Any?

01:11:52 Speaker 15: No. Reports of city staff: verbal report from the Owen Sound Police Services we've dealt with, and an 8B report CR two five zero six five Director of Community Services, and the Deputy Clerk,

01:12:08 Speaker 15: Re Municipal Act Process Expand River District Boundaries.

01:12:11 Speaker 15: Are you up, Pam?

01:12:19 Speaker 15: Hi, I think I'll just stand so you can see.

01:12:22 Speaker 15: So, thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair.

01:12:24 Speaker 16: This report outlines the Municipal Act process for expanding the River District boundaries and provides a proposed approach for preliminary consultation.

01:12:32 Speaker 16: Most importantly, we'll be seeking direction from the board on how you would like to proceed.

01:12:49 Speaker 16: So, by way of background, I would like to note just that an improvement area is a defined geographic area where businesses and property owners collabourate to enhance economic development through efforts like beautification, promotion, events,

01:13:01 Speaker 16: and placemaking.

01:13:02 Speaker 16: The Owen Sound Downtown Improvement Area, now known as the River District, was established in 1973.

01:13:11 Speaker 16: The River District Action Plan was approved in 2020 by the Board and Council.

01:13:15 Speaker 16: The plan focuses on four key pillars, including branding, management, experience development, and promotion.

01:13:21 Speaker 16: So, the reason that we're talking about this today is because under the experience development portion of that plan,

01:13:27 Speaker 16: there was an action item that was to explore expanding boundaries to include the west side of the river and the harbor to integrate key properties into the River District system.

01:13:38 Speaker 16: So, why expand?

01:13:38 Speaker 16: So why expansion?

01:13:39 Speaker 16: Expansion was proposed in that plan to enhance marketing reach, improve programmemememing potential, support broader economic development, and include properties that align naturally with the River District's brand identity.

01:13:52 Speaker 16: The Municipal Act gives council the authority to amend the boundaries of an improvement area.

01:13:57 Speaker 16: This slide includes a very high-level overview of the prescribed process that the city must follow before passing a bylaw to amend the boundaries.

01:14:03 Speaker 16: A more comprehensive overview is included in the report.

01:14:07 Speaker 16: The key takeaways.

01:14:07 Speaker 16: The key takeaway here is that council is the final approval authority in any decision about boundary expansion.

01:14:14 Speaker 16: And so, while at the end of this process that we're proposing, the board might seek to make a recommendation.

01:14:19 Speaker 16: Ultimately, that lies with council,

01:14:21 Speaker 16: and then council has to follow this prescribed process to ensure that the appropriate number of owners and tenants in the River District and in the proposed area would be on board.

01:14:36 Speaker 16: So, before the board considers making a request to council, staff are suggesting that there is an informal consultation phase to gather feedback.

01:14:44 Speaker 16: So, we would be looking at online engagement, in-person sessions, and communications to see how current River District stakeholders, property owners, and businesses in potential expansion areas, and the general public feel about the idea.

01:14:59 Speaker 16: Following that consultation, staff would return with a summary report of the preliminary feedback.

01:15:03 Speaker 16: The feedback would speak to areas under consideration as potential inclusion areas, financial implications, benefits, and challenges, and recommendations on how or whether to proceed.

01:15:18 Speaker 16: So, next steps, if the board directs us as such, would be to begin outreach and engagement, collect and analyse the feedback, and return with the comprehensive report I spoke to earlier.

01:15:30 Speaker 16: At this point, we would look for your feedback and any questions, and then ultimately the recommendation would be that you provide us with some direction on if you'd like to proceed with that consultation.

01:15:42 Speaker 16: Questions, comments?

01:15:49 Speaker 16: Don't all speak at once, Tim.

01:15:52 Speaker 08: I guess from a business perspective, when you're doing everything right and doing everything well, is when you look to expand, and so I pose the question to us:

01:16:04 Speaker 08: Do we feel like we are doing everything well enough that we can expand our territory and bring that value to another region on the map,

01:16:12 Speaker 08: or should we take more time and hone in our processes before trying to replicate it?

01:16:23 Speaker 08: Thanks, Tim.

01:16:24 Speaker 08: Anyone else?

01:16:28 Speaker 08: I have yes, Richard.

01:16:28 Speaker 08: I have a yes, Richard.

01:16:30 Speaker 08: No, no, I'm gonna.

01:16:32 Speaker 08: Okay, well, I guess you know.

01:16:34 Speaker 07: I read the report, and at first I thought, well, there doesn't really seem to be justification anywhere here in this report to expand the River District.

01:16:44 Speaker 07: I know there've been discussions over the years many times, but really, all we're being asked to do is to formalize the process to look at it.

01:16:55 Speaker 07: We're not making any decisions yet.

01:16:57 Speaker 07: We're not, you know, we're not inviting everybody in and expanding it to include the entire valley.

01:17:04 Speaker 07: But we're just going to look at, you know, what it looks like.

01:17:08 Speaker 07: I mean, it's entirely possible that any discussion of expansion could be rejected by the businesses and organisations in the extra area.

01:17:18 Speaker 07: So, I mean, I sort of went from sort of being opposed to this and thinking, oh no, hey, wait a minute, and then just thinking we're just looking at.

01:17:25 Speaker 07: And just thinking, we're just looking at studying it and trying to find out whether there's an appetite out there for this to happen.

01:17:32 Speaker 07: And so, I'll be supportive.

01:17:33 Speaker 07: I understand what you're saying, Tim.

01:17:35 Speaker 07: I think that is that is an excellent point.

01:17:37 Speaker 07: But you know, at this point, we're not actually doing anything except asking the question.

01:17:42 Speaker 07: And so, I'd certainly support the recommendation if someone wants to make it.

01:17:48 Speaker 07: Or make the recommendation.

01:17:51 Speaker 07: Allison, could I suggest?

01:17:53 Speaker 07: Could you go back a slide?

01:17:56 Speaker 07: Begin outreach and engagement.

01:17:58 Speaker 07: Collect and analyse feedback.

01:18:00 Speaker 07: Return a comprehensive report including data.

01:18:03 Speaker 02: I think one of the most important things I see of this is who we are going to include in this, and is the repercussions of financials in relation to who we invite.

01:18:18 Speaker 02: Sometimes, when you look at this type of thing, the expansion may include either businesses or city venues that may not be including or gaining any revenue from it.

01:18:37 Speaker 02: And certainly, in the past, we have had a couple outside of our boundaries, if you would, who had asked if they could become members, and we had said no just because we didn't want to.

01:18:52 Speaker 02: We wanted to have control over what was happening.

01:18:55 Speaker 02: So, I do believe that if we, at least, look at the prospects,

01:19:02 Speaker 02: then a decision could be made better if we were to proceed with asking for a report from those that are in attendance at PEM.

01:19:16 Speaker 02: Would you like to make a comment, please?

01:19:19 Speaker 02: Sure, and thank you.

01:19:20 Speaker 09: Sure, and thanks to Nicole or to Allison for her work on this.

01:19:27 Speaker 09: The why really goes back to that River District Action Plan, and it was a three-year plan, and we sort of waited on this because we were thinking maybe a better time.

01:19:38 Speaker 09: To Tim's point, so you know, it's something that's been in our minds too.

01:19:41 Speaker 09: A better time would be when we're done Downtown River Precinct 3 and 4.

01:19:47 Speaker 09: Right now, those projects aren't funded.

01:19:49 Speaker 09: So, and I don't know when that is.

01:19:52 Speaker 09: So, our commitment really through that action plan is to bring forward those initiatives.

01:19:56 Speaker 09: So, and that's what we were trying to do in terms of bringing this report forward, at least to put it on the table and have exactly the discussion that's happening.

01:20:07 Speaker 09: In terms of the who we would consult with, Allison and I have talked just a little bit about well, if you know, we didn't want to presuppose the outcome of the decision tonight.

01:20:18 Speaker 09: So we haven't put a lot of time and effort into what would the public outreach and engagement look like.

01:20:24 Speaker 09: But I think if we use a survey tool, we'll be able to distinguish: Are you a downtown or a River District business resident, owner of a building, or if you're in another area,

01:20:36 Speaker 09: or just someone who really enjoys coming to the area to shop or to walk.

01:20:42 Speaker 09: So we would try to make sure that we would be able to give you that feedback based on what angle people are coming from,

01:20:52 Speaker 09: but we imagine it being sort of in that broader group and having both sort of an online engagement as well as some open houses where people might be able to draw squiggles on a map.

01:21:07 Speaker 10: Denise, I'd be happy to move a motion to begin that outreach and engagement.

01:21:13 Speaker 10: I think that this is a great opportunity to at least see what the appetite is out there.

01:21:23 Speaker 15: That is a motion, and can I ask who would be in favour?

01:21:30 Speaker 15: One, two?

01:21:33 Speaker 15: I'd say it's carried.

01:21:34 Speaker 15: Thank you.

01:21:51 Speaker 15: Report CS 25048 from our River District regarding poster kiosk evaluation and replacement.

01:21:59 Speaker 04: Good evening, and through you, Mr. Chair.

01:22:01 Speaker 04: The purpose of this report is to provide options regarding the poster kiosk for either replacement or discontinuation.

01:22:08 Speaker 04: During the Big Dig upgrades in the early two thousands, a metal kiosk was installed mid-block on the 800 block to share events, details, and community updates.

01:22:20 Speaker 04: Staff have regularly used it to post information mostly related to the River District and events.

01:22:25 Speaker 04: During a recent site inspection, the Manager of Parks and Open Spaces reviewed the condition of the kiosk and found that it had reached the end of its useful life.

01:22:32 Speaker 04: To ensure public safety and mine, the structure has been removed.

01:22:37 Speaker 04: Refurbishment is not possible.

01:22:40 Speaker 04: The kiosk has been a popular feature for residents and visitors alike, and its removal was immediately noticed.

01:22:47 Speaker 04: Staff have included an attachment that shows a few examples of possible replacement designs and cost.

01:22:52 Speaker 04: It must be noted that any replacement kiosk would have to be durable enough to withstand extreme and changing weather conditions.

01:22:59 Speaker 04: Staff recommend that the River District Board of Management allocate up to $15,000 from reserves to purchase and install a new poster kiosk if they choose to have it replaced.

01:23:10 Speaker 04: The recommendation is that, in consideration of staff report CS 25048 respecting poster kiosk evaluation and replacement, the River District Board of Management provide direction to staff on the replacement of the poster kiosk,

01:23:25 Speaker 04: and if direction is given to proceed, establish an upper budget limit to be taken from reserves.

01:23:34 Speaker 04: Thank you.

01:23:35 Speaker 04: Any questions, comments, Denise?

01:23:35 Speaker 04: Who would be able to post on this?

01:23:41 Speaker 10: Like, is it protected, or who would be able to use it?

01:23:47 Speaker 04: So the parametres that have been established around the poster kiosk itself is that the event must be taking place publicly in the River District, or by a River District business.

01:24:00 Speaker 04: So, for example, a couple of community groups will have a charity thing at the bowling alley because they're a River District business; they would put up a poster in that space.

01:24:11 Speaker 04: What this controls is, I mean, the space itself has been used very well, and having all of those posters up requires some sort of framework for the ability to do that.

01:24:24 Speaker 04: Otherwise, it's absolute chaos.

01:24:25 Speaker 04: And in addition to that, for the protection of that, there is glass, or now not glass,

01:24:32 Speaker 04: but some sort of clear material used for the protection of those posters and to control what is going up.

01:24:43 Speaker 04: Yes, Danny.

01:24:44 Speaker 10: Would it just be for events, or for example, if there was an opioid alert or things like that, that could also go in there?

01:24:53 Speaker 04: I think that could be taken from direction from the board.

01:24:57 Speaker 04: It's something to consider.

01:25:00 Speaker 04: This does tend to be a very frequently visited space by visitors to the River District, and so that would have to be under consideration as well.

01:25:15 Speaker 08: Tim, when I saw this in the agenda, I just did a quick search online, and it doesn't.

01:25:19 Speaker 08: And I don't know all of the costs of this, but something similar to a bus shelter digital kiosk,

01:25:27 Speaker 08: so where we can actually digitize this whole process and messages can be in there for a set amount of time and on a rotating basis.

01:25:35 Speaker 08: Is that something that could be considered?

01:25:37 Speaker 08: And there might even be the potential for a revenue-driving side of that, where businesses could purchase some ad space within that.

01:25:48 Speaker 08: That is something that we could consider.

01:25:51 Speaker 04: The amount given or approved from the board to access from reserves would have to be considerably higher to look at those kinds of things and the possibility for damage becomes a lot higher,

01:26:07 Speaker 04: I will just counter.

01:26:08 Speaker 04: I did a quick search.

01:26:09 Speaker 08: They don't seem to be that expensive, but they do need to be sourced and have a longer lead time.

01:26:14 Speaker 08: And I'm not advocating that this is the right answer.

01:26:16 Speaker 08: I'm just seeing if it's something that should be considered.

01:26:20 Speaker 08: These digital boards are things that exist within bus shelters all over in all weather conditions.

01:26:25 Speaker 08: So, I would expect there are answers to durability.

01:26:30 Speaker 08: However, I am no expert in this.

01:26:34 Speaker 02: I just like to say most times a digital board though is one message.

01:26:39 Speaker 02: When it comes to what happens on our board, there are all kinds of messages from United Way, from Red Cross, from you name it.

01:26:50 Speaker 02: And if you were holding an event, I do believe that you could talk with Vivica and for the most part you'd post it, would you not?

01:26:59 Speaker 02: So, it's a little less informal than just a digital board, but it's more versatile too in some respects.

01:27:10 Speaker 02: Yes, Olivia.

01:27:14 Speaker 13: In terms of costly damage, I'm just wondering if we could potentially, if a digital option was somewhere that we would—that's something we'd be interested in looking into.

01:27:31 Speaker 13: Just even like raising it up higher so that it is maybe not like ground level and you know just open to potential hazards.

01:27:43 Speaker 13: But I did want to mention with digital boards,

01:27:46 Speaker 13: we have the option of allowing things to roll through the same way that you would see on a menu at a restaurant where everything is digital now.

01:27:57 Speaker 13: That would give us the option to have something, and then you know it's posted for a couple seconds, and or you know multiple little spots, and they continue to change.

01:28:04 Speaker 13: That would be an option as well.

01:28:06 Speaker 13: Of course, more costly, but definitely something I think that's a great idea.

01:28:11 Speaker 13: It's definitely something worth having a conversation about.

01:28:16 Speaker 13: Yes, Travis.

01:28:19 Speaker 13: Thank you, Chair.

01:28:25 Speaker 13: Right now, we're going through.

01:28:27 Speaker 12: I'll just give you a little bit of perspective on what the city is going through right now.

01:28:30 Speaker 12: The rec centre, for example, has a digital signage board.

01:28:34 Speaker 12: We built it when the rec centre was in five years later, it no longer worked.

01:28:38 Speaker 12: The technology faded out very quickly.

01:28:42 Speaker 12: It's very costly to replace.

01:28:44 Speaker 12: When you needed to update something, someone had to go in there and update it and do all those things.

01:28:48 Speaker 12: If there's a glitch or update, all of that pieces.

01:28:51 Speaker 12: All of a sudden, that thing turns off, and it doesn't matter if you paid three thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars.

01:28:56 Speaker 12: All of a sudden, it becomes a very expensive piece that's sitting there.

01:29:00 Speaker 12: So, the only concern I have is, if the goal is just to broadcast information and replacing kind of what we have currently, it's it.

01:29:11 Speaker 12: I would almost lean that way, only because of not knowing what the capital costs are going to come with that.

01:29:18 Speaker 12: Also, with that, I believe Pam might have a discussion about this as well.

01:29:22 Speaker 12: But there is a sign bylaw in downtown where you're not allowed to have flashy things.

01:29:28 Speaker 12: So I don't know if digital signs actually come into play.

01:29:32 Speaker 12: But there are restrictions within the River District to maintain the natural heritage or the heritage feel within the downtown.

01:29:39 Speaker 12: So Pam might say that I'm too far on that sign bylaw.

01:29:42 Speaker 12: But I believe there is something within it that wording within it.

01:29:46 Speaker 12: So, I'm in favour of continuing on the process of what we're doing.

01:29:51 Speaker 12: Clearly, we're hearing community groups say it works.

01:29:53 Speaker 12: People are actively looking at it.

01:29:55 Speaker 12: If it needs to be replaced, it needs to be replaced.

01:29:59 Speaker 12: The only concern I could have about any of that is if we do run into a digital issue where how long did that kiosk last for?

01:30:06 Speaker 12: Big Dig, like so 19 or 2000.

01:30:11 Speaker 12: It's been twenty-five years.

01:30:12 Speaker 12: So if we can get that kind of lifespan for five thousand dollars, the usage per dollar is pretty good.

01:30:19 Speaker 12: That concern is, you know, with those digital side of things.

01:30:24 Speaker 12: I'll just go back to that rec centre or what we're looking at for the Bayshore, for example.

01:30:28 Speaker 12: Those are costly items, and then when they become costly items, it becomes a little more challenging when you're sitting here and when you're pulling it out of a reserve fund to fund it.

01:30:35 Speaker 12: So those would just be my comments.

01:30:39 Speaker 07: Richard, I would certainly follow up on Travis's by saying that.

01:30:45 Speaker 07: I work with technology every day; I'm also an author who has books in print.

01:30:50 Speaker 07: And the greatest thing about a piece of paper is it is always accessible, no matter what is going on in the world.

01:30:57 Speaker 07: Someone can always read that piece of paper or look at that piece of paper.

01:31:01 Speaker 07: If the power goes out, guess what?

01:31:03 Speaker 07: You can read that piece of paper.

01:31:05 Speaker 07: I would certainly make a motion that the kiosk be replaced and the upset limit for the replacement project be set at fifteen thousand dollars to be taken from reserves.

01:31:19 Speaker 07: Any other comments?

01:31:21 Speaker 07: All in favour of the motion?

01:31:25 Speaker 07: Carried.

01:31:28 Speaker 02: I do believe that we could carry on with the next report.

01:31:34 Speaker 02: Now, as part of that, did you not have some recommendations for the kiosk?

01:31:39 Speaker 02: Is that not?

01:31:42 Speaker 04: In your line of work, yes, there was a document included that had a couple of examples comparable to what was there currently.

01:31:54 Speaker 04: There is everything from a wooden sign that I would not recommend, based on weather patterns and things like that, not as durable, to some neat-looking, different-sided ones that might give an opportunity for more space.

01:32:13 Speaker 15: Not have one at a little higher price than what you just saw there, or I thought.

01:32:21 Speaker 15: I mean, not that we have to make or make a decision tonight, but Richard, there was certainly.

01:32:34 Speaker 15: Well, we set a limit.

01:32:36 Speaker 15: Yeah, you did.

01:32:37 Speaker 15: There it is, and it's been agreed to.

01:32:40 Speaker 15: Yes.

01:32:48 Speaker 04: The only thing that I was going to include is all of those are base prices.

01:32:52 Speaker 04: So as we know how the whole world works, here's your base price.

01:32:54 Speaker 04: Looks great.

01:32:55 Speaker 04: Oh, you want glass?

01:32:56 Speaker 04: Oh, you want it to stand up on its own?

01:32:58 Speaker 04: You want these things?

01:32:59 Speaker 04: You want to walk?

01:33:01 Speaker 04: So it's going to exponentially grow.

01:33:03 Speaker 04: But we would work within that parametre that has been set.

01:33:06 Speaker 04: Has been said.

01:33:10 Speaker 04: Thank you.

01:33:27 Speaker 04: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

01:33:29 Speaker 06: Last fall, in September, as the board was starting to think about your 2025 budget.

01:33:34 Speaker 06: Twenty-five budget.

01:33:36 Speaker 06: We had brought forward a report that included some budget outlines, and we also had looked for some direction on two issues relating to one-time funding.

01:33:50 Speaker 06: One of those was the update to the River District Action Plan.

01:33:53 Speaker 06: So that plan for the new members, and Allison has reminded us of this tonight, but it included those actions across the four pillars: so branding, River District maintenance, experience development, and promotion.

01:34:08 Speaker 06: There's been a lot of progress on that plan.

01:34:11 Speaker 06: That it was intended to be done over three years, but it's time that that plan be refreshed.

01:34:20 Speaker 06: It's five years old, and the board had approved an allocation of up to thirty thousand dollars,

01:34:27 Speaker 06: and the next step for us was to bring forward a proposal or a scope of work from BC Hughes to undertake that review, as they had done the initial study.

01:34:38 Speaker 06: Unfortunately, BC Hughes has advised us that they're not available to do that work.

01:34:44 Speaker 06: And I just wanted to really give the board an update and let you know that we haven't lost sight of this initiative.

01:34:50 Speaker 06: And at the next board meeting, we'll bring forward a report with a few options for you to consider and get your direction on that.

01:35:01 Speaker 06: Thanks, Pam.

01:35:04 Speaker 06: Do you move to receive?

01:35:09 Speaker 06: All in yes, Richard.

01:35:12 Speaker 06: All in favour?

01:35:15 Speaker 06: Carried.

01:35:17 Speaker 06: Thank you.

01:35:19 Speaker 06: Verbal report.

01:35:22 Speaker 15: Allison, would you provide the details of what Kathy provided?

01:35:28 Speaker 15: Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair.

01:35:34 Speaker 17: As the board treasurer is not with us tonight, I will provide a brief update.

01:35:40 Speaker 17: So the total balance for all accounts presently is one hundred sixty-nine thousand four hundred twenty-one dollars and forty-three cents.

01:35:47 Speaker 17: And with that, I will request just a motion to receive that report for information purposes.

01:36:11 Speaker 17: Matters postponed.

01:36:13 Speaker 17: There are none that I'm aware of.

01:36:15 Speaker 02: Ten motions for which notice was previously given.

01:36:18 Speaker 02: I don't believe you have anything.

01:36:21 Speaker 02: Correspondence provided for information.

01:36:24 Speaker 02: Eleven A. Correspondence from the Board Chair regarding the Police Services CSP grant application; the letter was enclosed.

01:36:34 Speaker 02: We don't need to end on that, do we?

01:36:36 Speaker 02: No. Eleven B. Final approvals for the following business: I'll let you take over on that, Alice.

01:36:44 Speaker 02: Thank you, through the Chair.

01:36:46 Speaker 17: So, as you've mentioned, we did have correspondence from the Board Chair respecting a letter of support to the Owen Sound Police Service, and as well, business licences were issued to Muse Medical Aesthetics by Leah,

01:36:56 Speaker 17: a medical aesthetics business located at 345 Eighth Street East; Nagan by Zach Kesheg, a restaurant located at 277 Tenth Street East; Tripsy Adhoc Technologies Inc., a ride-sharing service located at 1051 Second Avenue East;

01:37:11 Speaker 17: and The Rocking Horse, a retail business, has relocated to 849 Second Avenue East.

01:37:16 Speaker 17: Block Captains, please be sure to introduce yourselves to the new businesses in your block.

01:37:20 Speaker 17: And with that, I'll ask for a motion to receive those two items for information purposes.

01:37:23 Speaker 17: Motion to receive, Tim.

01:37:28 Speaker 17: All in favour?

01:37:30 Speaker 17: Thank you.

01:37:31 Speaker 02: And just a short note on Eleven A: I was emailed on Friday, which was followed by a phone call from our Chief of Police, asking if I could provide a letter by Monday.

01:37:46 Speaker 02: He says, "I know it's short notice, but that's the deadline."

01:37:52 Speaker 02: And so consequently, I did write that letter and send it to a few of you, so that you'd know that I was.

01:38:01 Speaker 02: If if you were against me doing that, too bad; I was doing it, or else you could call up Chief and tell him we weren't in favour of it.

01:38:09 Speaker 02: But I thought it was appropriate to do that.

01:38:14 Speaker 02: Discussion of additional business.

01:38:17 Speaker 02: You're up, Jennifer.

01:38:23 Speaker 03: Okay, so as I've sort of assumed my new role as Block Captain, I went around and introduced myself to all the businesses and talked to everybody, and certainly opened up the flow of, you know,

01:38:37 Speaker 03: feedback.

01:38:38 Speaker 03: I told them I would, you know, report back on things that we talked about here, so that they have more of a direct link.

01:38:43 Speaker 03: Often, I'm sorry, Vivica, the emails are long, so not everybody has all the time to go through everything, so it's just kind of a fast track on how, you know,

01:38:54 Speaker 03: what is being talked about and what's going on.

01:38:56 Speaker 03: I mean, and now we have a few more things to discuss as per the Chief's suggestion, and I'm looking at the celebration flyers that we need to hand out.

01:39:07 Speaker 03: But what I wanted to report back on is some of the preliminary feedback that I did hear from some of the folks.

01:39:16 Speaker 03: The first was the potential of creating an online forum for sharing resources and supplies.

01:39:23 Speaker 03: You know, perhaps even shared advertising opportunities.

01:39:27 Speaker 03: So, I mean, the example was given that someone had changed point-of-sale machines; they no longer required these heat-transfer papers.

01:39:34 Speaker 03: They have multiple rolls of it.

01:39:37 Speaker 03: They're not using it.

01:39:38 Speaker 03: They're not going to go around each individual business and ask if someone's using it.

01:39:41 Speaker 03: So, if they had some forum for like, "Hey, anybody want these?

01:39:44 Speaker 03: Come grab them."

01:39:46 Speaker 03: Then that's something that can be done.

01:39:47 Speaker 03: I don't know what that looks like.

01:39:49 Speaker 03: Whether that's per block for the whole River District, it might be that gets a bit, you know, intense in terms of the dialogueueueue.

01:39:56 Speaker 03: But yeah, that was just a suggestion.

01:40:00 Speaker 03: Suggestion.

01:40:01 Speaker 03: The next was increasing the amount of public art in downtown spaces.

01:40:05 Speaker 03: Perhaps tapping into local artists and high school student art classes to sort of boost that.

01:40:12 Speaker 03: Another was using some of the MAT tax funds for beautification efforts in the downtown, giving more thought to service-based businesses in downtown events.

01:40:24 Speaker 03: And I completely appreciate that as a service-based business.

01:40:29 Speaker 03: You know, the Christmas activities are often geared toward retail businesses, and the service-based businesses are feeling a little left out.

01:40:39 Speaker 03: So again, not really exactly sure what that looks like.

01:40:42 Speaker 03: I have had a chance to sort of put a bug in a few people's ears.

01:40:45 Speaker 03: They can even discuss among themselves, but have a broader discussion of maybe some cool activities piggybacking on what we're already doing, or in and of themselves.

01:40:56 Speaker 03: Offering more funding to businesses to offset cost of events; and then another was having the City staff review snow removal policies and maybe, I guess, when they're shoveling off corners of intersections,

01:41:14 Speaker 03: also what looks like to perhaps have those same City staff create cut-throughs at regular intervals downtown, so like business owners aren't, you know,

01:41:25 Speaker 03: having to shovel out when it's already mounded up and quite difficult to deal with.

01:41:31 Speaker 03: Yeah, I mean, my intention is to check in with my block between each meeting.

01:41:38 Speaker 03: I mean, it's pretty reasonable, I think, to assume that I can do that, you know, every two months, and we'll definitely be bringing forth their feedback at each meeting.

01:41:50 Speaker 03: Not sure if that is something that we want to make a regular agenda item.

01:41:56 Speaker 03: Yes, ma'am.

01:42:00 Speaker 09: Just thanks to Member Smith for those comments.

01:42:06 Speaker 09: Maybe Vivica and I can each take a few of them and provide some initial feedback,

01:42:11 Speaker 09: but we certainly appreciate that you've taken the time and the effort and energy to get around and engage with the people in your block.

01:42:21 Speaker 09: So, in terms of public art, the City does have a public art policy.

01:42:26 Speaker 09: There is a new mural going up in the River District.

01:42:29 Speaker 09: Vivica is working on also a wrap in the new DRP2 area, with sort of a mural and a mural in that area.

01:42:40 Speaker 09: Through the Art Gallery, we're going to be updating that public art policy around murals and things like that.

01:42:48 Speaker 09: So I wonder if that's kind of a good place to start.

01:42:51 Speaker 09: The Community Improvement Plan does have that Facade Grant, so that might be a way to fund that as an option.

01:43:03 Speaker 09: Snow removal policy.

01:43:04 Speaker 09: I know nothing, Council.

01:43:04 Speaker 09: I know nothing.

01:43:05 Speaker 09: Councillor Dodd enjoys talking more about than snow, but we are; there is a service review project, and it is looking at service levels and all things snow.

01:43:19 Speaker 09: There is right now a bylaw that does require businesses, I believe, and I wish the Clerk was still here to confirm, that requires businesses to create those cut-throughs.

01:43:30 Speaker 09: But we will be looking sort of comprehensively at snow removal.

01:43:36 Speaker 09: I think over to Vivica for the other items.

01:43:41 Speaker 04: Thank you, and thanks Jen so much for going around and speaking to the businesses and coming back with some feedback.

01:43:47 Speaker 04: It's really, really helpful.

01:43:49 Speaker 04: And through you, Mr. Chair.

01:43:51 Speaker 04: So there is a space in the newsletter that I created last year called "Your Space," with that exact intention: if you've got something cool you want to share with somebody, you've got something extra,

01:44:01 Speaker 04: share it.

01:44:02 Speaker 04: It was not well used, but I have brought it back in the hopes that maybe with the Block Captain speaking about it, like, "Hey, there is a place for you to share this."

01:44:14 Speaker 04: Send an email to staff; they'll get it in the newsletter.

01:44:18 Speaker 04: Maybe that we can use that as a way to leverage communication.

01:44:22 Speaker 04: And of course, I'm always open to other suggestions as well.

01:44:26 Speaker 04: It's really hard to find ways to engage every group in certain ways, so definitely open to suggestions.

01:44:35 Speaker 04: I do want a little bit of clarity in the advertising opportunities section of that question.

01:44:54 Speaker 03: Again, I don't actually have any sort of specific feedback to report.

01:45:01 Speaker 03: It was just, you know, sort of again the casual conversation.

01:45:08 Speaker 03: Probably in some cases there were some more lengthy discussions, but most of them were just quick sorts of introductions, more than anything.

01:45:19 Speaker 03: So yeah, I don't... yeah, no, I don't have anything.

01:45:24 Speaker 03: Thanks for that.

01:45:25 Speaker 04: So based on the question itself, I'm going to give an answer and kind of hope that kind of...

01:45:32 Speaker 04: So there is under the annual budget that was presented in January, there is an allocation of money to businesses to run business-led initiatives.

01:45:44 Speaker 04: Anything from a sale that they want to run together or some sort of promotion.

01:45:49 Speaker 04: There is a requirement for a minimum of five businesses, so that we're ensuring we're not, you know, just letting certain businesses do certain things, and it's about cooperation and collabouration.

01:45:58 Speaker 04: So that money does exist there.

01:46:00 Speaker 04: As of right now, it is two hundred dollars allocated until used, up to you know, five different initiatives throughout the year.

01:46:09 Speaker 04: For example, Art Walk is leveraging that to print their flyers and things like that.

01:46:14 Speaker 04: So it is a great opportunity.

01:46:16 Speaker 04: Love to get more people involved in that.

01:46:19 Speaker 04: So please let me know.

01:46:21 Speaker 04: Let me see this.

01:46:25 Speaker 04: I would love to hear more, and maybe this is a conversation we can take offline.

01:46:28 Speaker 04: Of what specifically, or how specifically you would like to get service-based businesses more involved.

01:46:36 Speaker 04: I mean, I try to make it a point to say that everybody is invited to participate in all of the events, but I am not a service-based business.

01:46:44 Speaker 04: So, if there is something we can do to either communicate it better or tweak it so that people feel more involved, certainly the holiday shopping passport.

01:46:53 Speaker 04: Everybody is invited to participate, and if they get a sticker for getting a massage, then you know, great, absolutely, you're invited.

01:47:01 Speaker 04: So I'm sorry if I haven't communicated that as much, and hopefully, working with the block captains, we can get those messages out a little bit better.

01:47:09 Speaker 04: Sorry.

01:47:13 Speaker 04: And the last thing was just a little bit more information around the funding to businesses to offset costs of events.

01:47:20 Speaker 03: And again, I guess that I think there was a particular push around the Halloween one.

01:47:27 Speaker 03: As I understand, that's kind of in its success has become a bit of an expense for businesses.

01:47:36 Speaker 03: But you know, I don't—I don't know that I'm sure that extends to other events.

01:47:42 Speaker 03: But that's kind of the big one.

01:47:44 Speaker 03: Yeah.

01:47:46 Speaker 02: So I think it's to that I would say: no, we're not going to buy their candy.

01:47:54 Speaker 02: Sorry, but yeah, Vivek.

01:47:59 Speaker 04: So after hearing that feedback last year, we did have a couple of sponsors come on to give us money that was used to purchase candy, and it didn't really work out as well.

01:48:09 Speaker 04: So this year we're working at finding a candy sponsor who would provide candy at a reduced rate with some sort of chip programmemememe or something.

01:48:18 Speaker 04: I'm still working on it.

01:48:18 Speaker 04: Programmemememe or something.

01:48:18 Speaker 04: I'm still working it out, so that you could go there, support their business by buying the candy from there, but also you know, not have to pay full price for the very expensive Halloween candy.

01:48:31 Speaker 04: If you know anybody who's looking to sponsor, please pass them along.

01:48:39 Speaker 04: Yes, Tim.

01:48:42 Speaker 08: Just a comment around the comment on a forum for business owners where we can communicate amongst ourselves.

01:48:50 Speaker 08: In another community I do work in, they have a closed Facebook group where you are vetted to make sure that you are a business owner.

01:48:59 Speaker 08: I think we all know how the discussion would start out in that group if everybody piled in at once.

01:49:04 Speaker 08: I think if a strategy was in place to keep it a positive and productive conversation, I think that could be an outlet where some of our best engagement comes from,

01:49:16 Speaker 08: just to keep the conversation flowing.

01:49:18 Speaker 08: People can talk about their challenges.

01:49:20 Speaker 08: They can work collabouratively, and I think that there is, especially people who work in different industries, even in the downtown core,

01:49:30 Speaker 08: there can be a disconnect from a community standpoint where we don't have as close of a relationship as we likely should.

01:49:37 Speaker 08: I'll also caveat this to say the community group that I'm in, that I'm referencing for business owners, is not wildly well used.

01:49:45 Speaker 08: However, everybody has different peaks and valleys to their business and different time to spend online.

01:49:50 Speaker 08: So it's a resource that could exist in the background for people, but not necessarily be pushed.

01:49:59 Speaker 03: Also to that, I know I did see the forum for discussion.

01:50:05 Speaker 03: But I mean, is that a make-work project for you?

01:50:07 Speaker 03: First of all, also how often do we receive those notices, so you know something like a Facebook group where it's:

01:50:18 Speaker 03: "I'm posting this," and you know ten minutes from now someone's seen it and is like, "Oh yeah, I need that," as opposed to you know again putting it onto your plate,

01:50:26 Speaker 03: which then gets distributed whenever we receive the newsletter, which again adds this lengthy process to something that can be a quick question.

01:50:39 Speaker 04: So I guess in response to that, it is—who would be doing the moderation of this potential Facebook group?

01:50:47 Speaker 04: Because from you know my workload, you know my work plan, all those kinds of things,

01:50:55 Speaker 04: to put something into the newsletter that's a few sentences and contact information would take significantly less time than moderating a Facebook group.

01:51:05 Speaker 04: Now, if this was something that was moderated by the board, that might be something to consider as well, but I'm always happy to leave that on the table and continue discussions around that,

01:51:14 Speaker 04: and try a couple of different things.

01:51:21 Speaker 08: If I can add to that, you can have settings where the question or the statement does not go live until it is approved by the moderator,

01:51:30 Speaker 08: and I think that would limit the amount of constantly having to moderate.

01:51:34 Speaker 08: And also,

01:51:37 Speaker 08: I just—my initial or my previous statement about how we know how the conversation would start off—is maybe that's a good thing for us to be kind of cathartic and have that blunt conversation all at

01:51:48 Speaker 08: once,

01:51:48 Speaker 08: and then move on towards the productive goals that we're all working towards anyway, collectively.

01:51:57 Speaker 08: Any other comments?

01:52:00 Speaker 08: Yes.

01:52:02 Speaker 13: I just wanted to say I do have a couple of things that I will mention to you.

01:52:06 Speaker 13: We'll mention to you off-line, as you mentioned.

01:52:10 Speaker 13: But I think that some of the service-based businesses, as myself as a service-based business, definitely have—I have some ideas around that.

01:52:22 Speaker 13: But I will say I think that in terms of what we've been doing around a lot of our holiday events, there has been some really, really great stuff,

01:52:34 Speaker 13: and I think that we are on a fantastic track with that kind of thing.

01:52:40 Speaker 13: So a couple little suggestions I think could create a really sort of like inclusive experience for other businesses that can maybe jump on board.

01:52:50 Speaker 13: So I think Jennifer also may have a few ideas as well to throw in as somebody who is kind of in the same boat.

01:53:00 Speaker 13: So maybe we could chat the three of us and kind of come up with some plans around that.

01:53:12 Speaker 13: Thank you.

01:53:12 Speaker 13: Anyone else?

01:53:16 Speaker 13: Okay.

01:53:17 Speaker 13: Next, did someone else have some business?

01:53:21 Speaker 13: Yes.

01:53:24 Speaker 04: So thank you through you, Mr. Chair.

01:53:26 Speaker 04: Just in front of the block captains that are here tonight, you'll see a stack of invitations for the DRP Two opening celebration, which is happening on June sixth,

01:53:35 Speaker 04: so what I would like to ask from the block captains is that you circulate these invitations to the businesses on your block prior, you know, as soon as possible.

01:53:49 Speaker 04: Really, Tim, you get off a little easy because I'm going to hand deliver a specific invitation to those who have been affected by the—you know—the back entrance and those kinds of things;

01:54:04 Speaker 04: it'll have a little bit more information about parking and the disruption.

01:54:09 Speaker 04: So you just have to do half the block.

01:54:10 Speaker 04: No, no, no, no. You can do the other side of the street.

01:54:15 Speaker 04: If you'd like to come with me, you can also come.

01:54:17 Speaker 04: But I thought it would best if I was there to answer any questions and lead them in the correct direction for parking and those kinds of questions.

01:54:26 Speaker 04: I have an additional ask to that: this evening, Winnie is not here, and I'm wondering if there is somebody who would have the capacity to volunteer to do her block.

01:54:40 Speaker 04: I could do that.

01:54:42 Speaker 13: I currently do not have a block, so I am happy to take on.

01:54:46 Speaker 13: Of course, as well as if any board members happen to need a hand at any point, I am available.

01:54:54 Speaker 13: So, yeah, you can—you can absolutely call on me to give you a hand at any point because I am a free agent.

01:55:05 Speaker 13: Yes, Pam.

01:55:06 Speaker 06: I wonder if Vivica, for all the viewers who are watching and will be watching, could tell us what we're talking about, when it is, and where it is.

01:55:22 Speaker 04: Thank you, through you, Mr. Chair, for the viewers.

01:55:25 Speaker 04: This is an event that celebrates the completion of the DRP Two project, which was the redevelopment of this—might not mean anything—the 900 block of First Avenue East.

01:55:36 Speaker 04: This is an area that has not seen development since paving over the train tracks that used to go through there.

01:55:45 Speaker 04: This area is often used for parking for the businesses, but now it's been beautified to have this really lovely boardwalk,

01:55:52 Speaker 04: and it's meant to be a space where we can engage people in a really very cool atmosphere.

01:55:58 Speaker 04: So on June six, from four p.m. to eight thirty, four p.m., we will have a ribbon cutting and some remarks.

01:56:05 Speaker 04: Four fifteen, Gracie Jet will take the stage.

01:56:07 Speaker 04: Everybody loves Gracie.

01:56:08 Speaker 04: For about ninety minutes, following that, we'll have Midlife Crisis take the stage until about eight thirty.

01:56:17 Speaker 04: The Milkmaid will be there serving up some bevies, and it should be a really fun atmosphere.

01:56:23 Speaker 04: We'll have the fire tables out, Adirondack chairs or Muskoka chairs, whatever you want to call them,

01:56:28 Speaker 04: out there for people to kind of sit casually and engage and communicate and just spend some time in this flexible space.

01:56:38 Speaker 04: Thank you, Pam.

01:56:39 Speaker 04: Did you have any other comments?

01:56:41 Speaker 04: Anyone?

01:56:43 Speaker 04: Thanks very much.

01:56:44 Speaker 02: I think it was commonly known as Phase Two, was it not?

01:56:48 Speaker 02: In terms of final completion of the area.

01:56:54 Speaker 02: Thank you.

01:56:58 Speaker 02: Notices of motion.

01:56:59 Speaker 02: I don't believe there were any.

01:57:01 Speaker 02: And finally, we are adjourned.

01:57:05 Speaker 02: Thank you all.