Owen Sound Committee - Operations Meeting Transcript — April 17, 2025

00:06:17 Speaker 01: Okay, so we are good to proceed.

00:06:20 Speaker 02: Once again, we've got the live feed operating, and the first of two deputations tonight.

00:06:28 Speaker 02: I will pass it over to Lara for an introduction to the speakers, or Chris Webb is going to take this over to you, Chris.

00:06:38 Speaker 03: Through you, Mr. Chairman, members of committee, I'd like to welcome and introduce our two staff members from GSS Engineering.

00:06:49 Speaker 03: They're doing the engineering services, providing engineering services for the 32nd Street East water main replacement.

00:06:56 Speaker 03: We've got Jacob Bartley, who is making the presentation, and Tim Larose from GSS.

00:07:03 Speaker 03: Go ahead, Jacob.

00:07:09 Speaker 03: Is it working?

00:07:12 Speaker 03: Perfect.

00:07:13 Speaker 03: Yeah.

00:07:14 Speaker 03: Hello, everybody.

00:07:15 Speaker 03: Thanks for having me here today.

00:07:16 Speaker 03: Thanks, Chris, for that introduction.

00:07:17 Speaker 03: As he mentioned, my name is Jacob Barley.

00:07:20 Speaker 04: I'm from GSS Engineering, right here in Owen Sound, and I'm going to be talking to you today about a water main replacement project for 32nd Street East.

00:07:28 Speaker 04: Do we have the presentation queued up?

00:07:32 Speaker 04: There we go.

00:07:36 Speaker 04: All right.

00:07:37 Speaker 04: Make sure I got control.

00:07:39 Speaker 04: There we go.

00:07:40 Speaker 04: So the first figure we have in the presentation here is just to get us oriented.

00:07:44 Speaker 04: So it is a map of the northeast side of Owen Sound with the project area 32nd Street East highlighted.

00:07:50 Speaker 04: It runs west to east from East Bayshore Road to Ninth Avenue East and is actually the road from East Bayshore Road into the Kwanas Soccer Complex.

00:07:58 Speaker 04: We're just north of the water treatment plant, just east of Georgian Bay.

00:08:03 Speaker 04: On the north side of 32nd Street is the former Second Street, which is the former Goodyear factory building, and on the south side is the former RCA factory building.

00:08:11 Speaker 04: That site is currently owned by SkyDev, and you may be aware of their proposed development in this area of eight multi-story apartment buildings.

00:08:22 Speaker 04: So, quickly touch.

00:08:35 Speaker 04: Yeah, slide.

00:08:36 Speaker 04: So, quickly touch on the existing water mains that are on Thirty Second Street East.

00:08:40 Speaker 04: So, there's currently two water mains.

00:08:42 Speaker 04: The water main on the west portion of Thirty Second Street East is 250 millimetre ductile iron, and this is on the municipal pressure zone, fed from East Bayshore Road.

00:08:52 Speaker 04: The water main on the east portion of Thirty Second Street East is 300 millimetre asbestos cement water main on the industrial pressure zone, and this is fed from Ninth Avenue East.

00:09:01 Speaker 04: So, you may be aware of the pressure zones in the Owen Sound water distribution system.

00:09:07 Speaker 04: So since Owen Sound has varying elevations throughout the system, they maintain different pressure zones to service these various areas.

00:09:15 Speaker 04: So the municipal pressure zone services much of the residential area in Owen Sound, and the industrial pressure zones maintained at a higher pressure to service a lot of the industrial area in the northeast.

00:09:25 Speaker 04: So we actually have water mains on both pressure zones on Thirty Second Street East, but they're currently not connected,

00:09:31 Speaker 04: and the pressure of the municipal pressure zone on Thirty Second Street is about 91 psi water pressure, and in the industrial pressure zone it's about 128 psi water pressure.

00:09:40 Speaker 04: So there's a pretty substantial difference in the pressure zones of those water mains.

00:09:45 Speaker 04: The other piece I'll touch on is the water main on East Spacial Road, kind of at the west portion of our project, is three hundred millimetre PVC water main,

00:09:53 Speaker 04: and that is actually the sole feed that runs all the way out to servicing the Leith.

00:09:57 Speaker 04: And if we go to the next slide, so this slide provides an aerial photo of Thirty Second Street East, with the Municipal Zone Water Main on the west portion of the street shown in blue,

00:10:09 Speaker 04: and the Industrial Pressure Zone Water Main shown in red on the east portion of the street.

00:10:14 Speaker 04: And the one thing I'll point out is that water main that runs on East Bayshore Road as it gets to the intersection with Thirty Second Street East actually does a diversion to the east,

00:10:24 Speaker 04: and this is to avoid the inlet of a concrete box culvert that currently travels under East Bayshore Road.

00:10:30 Speaker 04: So what we're looking to do for this project is replace the water mains on 32nd Street East with one single water main,

00:10:37 Speaker 04: replace a portion of the water main on Ninth Avenue East on the north portion.

00:10:41 Speaker 04: We're actually going to create a connection between the industrial pressure zone and the municipal pressure zone, which I'll touch on in a second.

00:10:47 Speaker 04: And we're looking to replace that portion of water main on East Bayshore Road that's currently diverted around that culvert.

00:10:52 Speaker 04: So if we go to the next slide, the water main replacement project will be undertaken in a phased approach,

00:10:59 Speaker 04: which is important to maintain the water servicing to the properties in the area and maintain water out to that service to Leith.

00:11:05 Speaker 04: So we can't do it all kind of in one phase.

00:11:08 Speaker 04: We're looking to split it up into three separate phases.

00:11:10 Speaker 04: The first phase would be replacing the water main on the west portion of 32nd Street East with a 300 millimetre diametre PVC water main.

00:11:19 Speaker 04: So that would be from East Facial Road until we create a new connection about 130 metres to the east to the former Goodyear building.

00:11:28 Speaker 04: The second phase would pick up where we create that new service to the former Goodyear building.

00:11:32 Speaker 04: It would replace the remaining water main on the east portion of 32nd Street East and about 130 metres on the north portion of Ninth Avenue.

00:11:39 Speaker 04: So it's about 390 metres of water main in that second phase.

00:11:44 Speaker 04: In that second phase, where we kind of end replacing water main on Ninth Avenue, we'd be installing a pressure reducing valve,

00:11:51 Speaker 04: and this would allow for a connection between the industrial pressure zone and the municipal pressure zone, so that pressure reducing valve would act.

00:11:58 Speaker 04: It would be set so that it would reduce the pressure in the industrial pressure zone to under normal static pressure conditions.

00:12:04 Speaker 04: It would not allow any water to go from the industrial pressure zone into the municipal pressure zone to avoid over pressurizing.

00:12:10 Speaker 04: But if you had a pressure drop in your municipal pressure zone due to a large flow, a fire flow, and you had pressure dip below that PRV setting,

00:12:19 Speaker 04: it would actually allow water at a controlled pressure to migrate from the industrial pressure zone into that municipal pressure zone, so it would not overpressurize the system because it would be at a maintained pressure,

00:12:29 Speaker 04: but it would keep the pressure in that system closer to its static pressure level during large flows.

00:12:33 Speaker 04: So that's that's at the end of our second phase.

00:12:39 Speaker 04: The third phase goes back over to the west side of the project.

00:12:43 Speaker 04: Now that we've created that secondary feed from the industrial pressure zone at Talith, that allows us to actually shut down a portion of that east bayshore road water main without losing their water service.

00:12:53 Speaker 04: So our third phase would be replacing and realigning up that portion of diverted water main on East Bayshore Road.

00:13:01 Speaker 04: The purpose for this is currently that culvert that that water main is diverted around is proposed to be extended further to the east, so it'll actually run into that existing water main that's there now.

00:13:11 Speaker 04: So we're looking at options to realign that water main to make sure it's out of the way that culvert.

00:13:17 Speaker 04: So we've explored two options.

00:13:18 Speaker 04: The first being diverting that water main further to the east to get around where that culvert would be extended,

00:13:24 Speaker 04: but the preferred alternative at the moment is to directional drill a new water main underneath the culvert to straighten out the alignment of that water main.

00:13:33 Speaker 04: Some other aspects of the project to note: there'll be three new fire hydrants installed along 32nd Street East.

00:13:39 Speaker 04: We'd be looking to replace two sanitary manhole structures on 32nd Street East that currently show signs of groundwater infiltration.

00:13:47 Speaker 04: We'd be replacing a culvert at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Thirty Second Street East,

00:13:52 Speaker 04: and we'd be replacing the water and sanitary servicing to the new Goodyear site and the former Goodyear building as well.

00:13:59 Speaker 04: So, go to the next slide.

00:14:00 Speaker 04: So, this provides a similar aerial photo of Thirty Second Street East with the phased approach to the water mains.

00:14:08 Speaker 04: So, again, the phase one being the west portion of Thirty Second.

00:14:12 Speaker 04: Phase two being the east portion of Thirty Second, a portion on Ninth Avenue, and then we see that new pressure reducing valve location about 130 metres down on Ninth Avenue,

00:14:22 Speaker 04: and then Phase Three is back up to that diverted water main on East Bayshore Road.

00:14:27 Speaker 04: So one thing to note is all the water main along 32nd and that portion of Ninth Avenue that'll be replaced is now gone from red industrial pressure zone to blue municipal pressure zone since it'll

00:14:36 Speaker 04: be serviced from the municipal pressure zone on East Bayshore Road.

00:14:41 Speaker 04: So we go to the next slide.

00:14:43 Speaker 04: So a few benefits of the project, and I've touched on some of them already, but I'll just kind of go into them a little bit more here.

00:14:49 Speaker 04: We have improved infrastructure for servicing of proposed developments like that SkyDev development and future developments with the new PVC water mains.

00:14:57 Speaker 04: That pressure reducing valve, as I explained, provides a secondary feed out to Leith and the east northeast portion of Island Sound, and provides a backup pressure to the municipal pressure zone.

00:15:08 Speaker 04: And the new hydrants on Thirty Second Street East increase firefighting capabilities in that area.

00:15:14 Speaker 04: So we go to the next slide.

00:15:17 Speaker 04: We've prepared some preliminary construction cost estimates.

00:15:20 Speaker 04: We've broken them down into the three phases and then a separate category for the additional sanitary sewer work.

00:15:26 Speaker 04: And we come up with a total just over 1.5 million for our preliminary estimate.

00:15:32 Speaker 04: And we'll note that the city's received funding of just over 2.4 million from the Housing Enabling Water System Fund for this project.

00:15:40 Speaker 04: So we're within that funding budget.

00:15:43 Speaker 04: Next slide.

00:15:45 Speaker 04: So we have a few kind of dates for our tentative project schedule.

00:15:49 Speaker 04: We're within the process of finalizing our design, coming up with final tender documents, going out for tender.

00:15:56 Speaker 04: We're really looking to hit the construction contract award at the June 16th council meeting, with hopefully construction to start just after that at the end of June.

00:16:06 Speaker 04: We anticipate about an eight to nine week construction schedule.

00:16:09 Speaker 04: Hopefully finish.

00:16:09 Speaker 04: Schedule hopefully finishing kind of around the start to mid September range.

00:16:14 Speaker 04: Next slide.

00:16:15 Speaker 04: Yeah, and that's all I have for my presentation.

00:16:17 Speaker 04: Thank you very much for your interest in the project, and I'm available as well as city staff to answer any questions you might have about the water main replacement project.

00:16:26 Speaker 04: Thanks.

00:16:28 Speaker 05: Okay, thank you very much for the presentation, Jacob.

00:16:31 Speaker 05: Questions from committee?

00:16:34 Speaker 05: I'll go to Member Doyne first.

00:16:38 Speaker 05: Okay, through you.

00:16:40 Speaker 06: Mr. Chair, Thirty-Second Street will be on residential pressure, and the lot right to the south of it is still an industrial zone, is it not?

00:16:52 Speaker 06: All right, maybe that's not a question for you.

00:16:57 Speaker 07: And I'll defer to staff for that response to Jacob or Chris.

00:17:03 Speaker 07: I think I'm back on here.

00:17:06 Speaker 07: Yeah, I believe.

00:17:07 Speaker 04: And the city staff might be able to speak to this a little bit more.

00:17:10 Speaker 04: But that lot to the south has currently been rezoned for residential for the development planned and proposed there.

00:17:16 Speaker 04: So it's a residential development of eight apartment buildings for that site.

00:17:26 Speaker 04: Further questions, Member?

00:17:28 Speaker 04: Come on.

00:17:30 Speaker 04: Thank you.

00:17:30 Speaker 04: Through you, Mr. Chair.

00:17:31 Speaker 04: I don't know if this should go to you or you, but just so one.

00:17:34 Speaker 08: So, $1.5 million, $2.4 million is approved funding.

00:17:40 Speaker 08: So this doesn't cost the city anything.

00:17:41 Speaker 08: Then is that correct?

00:17:46 Speaker 03: Through you, Mr. Chair, there's housing enabling water system funding, and the city's portion is 27% of the project cost. 73% is provided through the grant funding.

00:18:00 Speaker 03: The $1.5 million does not include the directional drilling cost.

00:18:04 Speaker 03: I should note that that is estimated to be another $200,000, and on top of the construction costs.

00:18:12 Speaker 03: So now we're just over $1.7 million if it includes the directional drilling for the water main under the culvert.

00:18:19 Speaker 03: There'll also be the engineering costs and a contingency, which will probably bring the total project cost up to around $2.2 million.

00:18:28 Speaker 03: We don't have those other costs in the slide, but we just stuck to the construction costs, so of that, whatever the final cost, it looks like we're going to be within the grant funding limit,

00:18:43 Speaker 03: and the city will be paying 27 percent of the cost.

00:18:47 Speaker 03: And I should also note that part of the benefits of the project will help to support the residential development of SkyDev, and they're making a contribution for the pressure-reducing valve and chamber.

00:19:11 Speaker 03: Thanks, Chris.

00:19:12 Speaker 03: Anything further, Mike?

00:19:14 Speaker 03: Okay.

00:19:15 Speaker 03: Any further questions?

00:19:18 Speaker 03: Councillor Merton, go.

00:19:21 Speaker 03: Through you, Chair.

00:19:24 Speaker 09: It would be very helpful to get a sheet of information that clearly outlines the cost for the city versus what the grant funding is going to do, and have that breakdown.

00:19:39 Speaker 09: So that's a request, if that's possible, to have brought forward.

00:19:44 Speaker 09: I may have missed that in the information, but I didn't see a breakdown.

00:19:51 Speaker 09: Okay.

00:19:52 Speaker 05: I look to staff for response there.

00:19:56 Speaker 05: Yes, that can be easily done.

00:19:59 Speaker 03: But I would remind committee that the project is being tendered, and the council award will include the final breakdown of costs, detailing those costs as part of the contract award.

00:20:12 Speaker 03: So council will be well aware of the breakdown and the sources of funding.

00:20:16 Speaker 03: If that's sufficient, Councillor Merton, through you, Chair, it certainly is sufficient.

00:20:26 Speaker 09: However, we're really wanting to involve the public in information as with these projects, so bringing it to operations as well would be, I think, really, really helpful for our public to see.

00:20:40 Speaker 09: Council, of course, has the final approval, but I think as part of the information for, because this is, in this committee, the costs are high.

00:20:51 Speaker 09: You know, we deal with big, expensive projects, and I, I think it would be helpful just to have that even brought forward for information, if that's possible.

00:21:02 Speaker 07: One thing I do try to do is keep committee abreast when tenders do get issued, and they should just go directly to council for approval.

00:21:12 Speaker 07: And upon speaking back to committee, try to keep you informed of those activities.

00:21:19 Speaker 07: I hope that looks after your concern.

00:21:22 Speaker 07: To there is there should be some hesitancy in protecting such a specific breakdown of costs as we prepare to go to tender, as opposed to putting everything in the public domain.

00:21:38 Speaker 07: To you, Chair.

00:21:40 Speaker 09: That certainly addresses the intent of my request, and I'm comfortable with that as long as we have the information.

00:21:46 Speaker 09: The other question that I have: we are in the process of looking closely at where we obtain materials and procurement policies.

00:21:59 Speaker 09: You will be replacing pipe for sure.

00:22:03 Speaker 09: Can you speak to how we move forward, recognizing the concerns that we have around a variety of issues of sourcing material and tariffs?

00:22:17 Speaker 09: Yeah, I would speak to that.

00:22:19 Speaker 04: Say, I mean, it really is up to the contractor for sourcing of materials.

00:22:24 Speaker 04: Once the contractor is selected, I'm not as familiar if the city has purchasing policy surrounding any ability to kind of constrain the contractor in where they purchase materials from.

00:22:39 Speaker 04: So I don't believe any of that could be put on onto the contractor.

00:22:44 Speaker 04: Speaking more generally, I would say generally contractors would like to be competitive.

00:22:49 Speaker 04: in their pricing.

00:22:51 Speaker 04: If certain products have higher costs due to tariffs, they would probably avoid some of those products to keep their cost competitive.

00:22:59 Speaker 04: That's merely speculative, but potentially may help the issue.

00:23:05 Speaker 04: Member Webb or Chris Webb, Manager.

00:23:08 Speaker 03: I just would like to add to the for Kenney's information.

00:23:13 Speaker 03: Although we're not sure, it looks like the PRV, which is a significant cost component, the suppliers are Canadian, Ontario-based.

00:23:26 Speaker 03: We've been getting pricing, and we may actually there's one company in particular that has supplied a number of the PRVs and chambers for the city.

00:23:35 Speaker 03: Probably end up sole sourcing, and it's a Canadian-based company.

00:23:38 Speaker 03: That's not to say that some of the components are constructed or manufactured elsewhere, but the company that puts it together and all the technical details is based in Ontario.

00:23:52 Speaker 03: Okay, I'm not seeing any other questions.

00:23:54 Speaker 03: Could I just ask a question?

00:23:56 Speaker 10: That particularly in summer, the soccer complex is a very busy location in the evenings.

00:24:04 Speaker 10: Has that been considered in your design?

00:24:10 Speaker 10: And I mean your plans at this point in terms of moving ahead and facilitating that type of traffic flow; they'll still need to move through the construction zone.

00:24:21 Speaker 10: Yeah, through you, Mr. Chair.

00:24:22 Speaker 04: As far as traffic control through the water main reconstruction, we'll be just looking.

00:24:31 Speaker 04: We should be able to get away with just taking it one light at a time,

00:24:35 Speaker 04: since all the water main will be installed on the south side of Thirty Second and on the west side of Ninth Avenue.

00:24:41 Speaker 04: So we should be able to get away with only closing down one lane at a time.

00:24:45 Speaker 04: There might be a few select moments in the construction process where we do have to shut down both lanes.

00:24:51 Speaker 04: Specifically, that culvert at Ninth Avenue and the crossing as 32nd as we move closer to East Basile Road.

00:24:58 Speaker 04: But we'd imagine we can get those portions of the project done in a very quick manner to reestablish at least one lane for traffic.

00:25:06 Speaker 04: And the contractor will have to submit a traffic control plan for approval.

00:25:11 Speaker 04: It will make sure it considers the traffic loads through there, especially the soccer complex throughout the summer.

00:25:18 Speaker 11: Thank you very much, Director Widdifield.

00:25:23 Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:25:23 Speaker 11: I just wanted to add to that.

00:25:25 Speaker 12: We can be fairly prescriptive in our tender with our expectations for access when it comes to the constructability component of the project.

00:25:36 Speaker 12: Okay, that's good to hear.

00:25:37 Speaker 12: I should maybe just invite a motion just to receive the.

00:25:38 Speaker 05: Invite a motion just to receive this deputation, the presentation for information.

00:25:44 Speaker 05: Would I have a mover?

00:25:45 Speaker 05: Member Hawkins is so moved.

00:25:47 Speaker 05: Any further questions?

00:25:49 Speaker 05: Not seeing any.

00:25:49 Speaker 05: All those in favour?

00:25:52 Speaker 05: And I'm just going to go online and check in with Councillor Hamley.

00:25:56 Speaker 05: In favour?

00:25:59 Speaker 05: Yes.

00:26:01 Speaker 05: Okay.

00:26:01 Speaker 05: Thank you.

00:26:02 Speaker 05: So that is carried.

00:26:04 Speaker 05: Thank you very much for your time tonight, Jacob and Tim.

00:26:08 Speaker 05: And yeah, look forward to this project advancing and getting us that much closer to constructing some much-needed housing in the communities.

00:26:20 Speaker 05: Which leads us directly into the next deputation this evening, regarding an update on the water rates and the rate study.

00:26:30 Speaker 05: So this time, I think I will go to Director Allan for introduction.

00:26:37 Speaker 05: Thank you.

00:26:37 Speaker 05: Mr. Chair.

00:26:38 Speaker 13: Andrew Mirabella is here from our consultants, Hemson Consulting, and he is going to present the water rate study presentation.

00:26:47 Speaker 13: And then later, just after Heidi's couple reports, we actually have a report from myself recommending the increase to the rates this year.

00:26:54 Speaker 13: So it'll use the same information.

00:26:57 Speaker 13: Okay, this time over to you, Andrew.

00:27:01 Speaker 13: Great.

00:27:02 Speaker 13: Good evening, Mayor and members, Council and Committee.

00:27:05 Speaker 14: My name again is Andrew Mirabella, associate partner at Hemson.

00:27:08 Speaker 14: To Kate's point, we were retained to undertake a water and wastewater rate study update to support the water financial plan.

00:27:15 Speaker 14: So we're here today to provide a bit of an update on that study process and the results.

00:27:19 Speaker 14: I have a fairly detailed deck that we'll go through.

00:27:23 Speaker 14: So okay, we'll defer to the next slide.

00:27:26 Speaker 14: Yeah.

00:27:27 Speaker 14: So just in terms of some of our discussion topics, we'll go through the background and study objectives.

00:27:31 Speaker 14: I'll talk a little bit about some of the key inputs into the analysis as it relates to our projection of billed consumption, our operating costs, our capital programmememe that we're using.

00:27:40 Speaker 14: I'll talk a little bit about the asset management requirements and contributions to reserve, and how your reserve funds are changing over the years, with considerations of the water and wastewater rates that we've calculated.

00:27:51 Speaker 14: And I'll cap off with just some benchmarking, next steps, and some concluding comments.

00:27:56 Speaker 14: Go to the next slide.

00:27:58 Speaker 14: Just to kind of again, just a bit of a precursor in terms of the study background itself.

00:28:01 Speaker 14: The background itself.

00:28:03 Speaker 14: The last water and wastewater rate study was completed back in 2020, kind of just right in the height of COVID, with the view of updating that rate study in five years time.

00:28:14 Speaker 14: The city has updated this process just a little bit earlier, prior to that five year mark, to respond to some of the increasing costs, and obviously in conjunction with the water licence renewal requirement.

00:28:25 Speaker 14: So it's been initiated.

00:28:26 Speaker 14: We, the rate study is going to support the financial plan that's required for your licence renewal application itself.

00:28:33 Speaker 14: So as part of the rate study, there's a separate report that deals with the financial plan that's needed for that supporting documentation itself.

00:28:40 Speaker 14: The rate study looks at a 10-year projection of rates over the planning period, with the first kind of increase starting scheduled for July 1 of 2025 to coincide with your mid-year cycle.

00:28:51 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, just to provide council and committee here with a bit of an update in terms of the existing rate structure and some comments and observations around it,

00:29:01 Speaker 14: just to re-familiarize yourselves.

00:29:03 Speaker 14: You currently have, on the water side, a fixed charge which is differentiated by metre size, which is quite common in most municipalities, and then you have a consumption-based rate structure,

00:29:13 Speaker 14: or what they call as a variable rate, which is differentiated on a two-tier system.

00:29:18 Speaker 14: Block one is on a charge per cubic metre, and the charge increases with the second tier beyond a consumption threshold.

00:29:26 Speaker 14: On the wastewater side, it's a surcharge.

00:29:26 Speaker 14: Wastewater sides, it's a surcharge of the water bill, which is set at 124% of the water rates themselves.

00:29:33 Speaker 14: The structure that we see and that's employed in the city is quite consistent from what we see from municipality to municipality.

00:29:39 Speaker 14: And of the total, when we think about the composition of the rates, about 50% of the revenues are coming from your fixed charge, and 50% of the revenues are coming from the variable rates.

00:29:49 Speaker 14: So it gives a good mix of what's coming from a fixed charge to cover your system costs, and also giving your end users some control over their water bills.

00:29:57 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, just to kind of substantiate that a little bit, we did want to evaluate that rate structure with some other communities,

00:30:05 Speaker 14: and this just looks at the breakdown of the fixed versus variable in a number of different municipalities.

00:30:10 Speaker 14: One in Grey County, some Polk County, and some others that are of your size.

00:30:14 Speaker 14: Your current structure of that approximately fifty-fifty split is on the kind of mid to higher end in terms of the relationship of the cost recoveries, but it is quite consistent with communities that have again,

00:30:25 Speaker 14: kind of the structure of yourselves in terms of the seasonal population, and the capital cost that you're actually seeing.

00:30:32 Speaker 14: So there is some relationships in terms of what we're seeing there, and that is going to be a decision of how you want to structure the rates themselves.

00:30:39 Speaker 14: However, like I said, the structure that we see very common, the relationships quite common, and during that process in discussions with staff,

00:30:47 Speaker 14: we didn't see really see any need to change that relationship or the rate structure given the continuity with other communities.

00:30:54 Speaker 14: So, if we go over the next slide, just to provide some context in terms of your asset replacement value.

00:30:59 Speaker 14: So, the city is responsible for just on the water and the wastewater side, almost close to a billion dollars worth of infrastructure which you're managing.

00:31:06 Speaker 14: So, 971 million dollars, split a little higher on the water side, just over 500 million on water and about 470 million on sewer.

00:31:16 Speaker 14: It's quite a substantial portfolio that you have, and within those, come your larger systems in terms of your plants, your water and the wastewater treatment plants,

00:31:25 Speaker 14: which are built and do have capacity to service development too.

00:31:27 Speaker 14: So there is a bit of a cost here that you've already up fronted that, and you have the infrastructure, the capacity to do that.

00:31:33 Speaker 14: But that's a large portfolio of assets to manage with a community of your size, which obviously you know puts on the ratepayers and yourselves in order to manage that portfolio.

00:31:41 Speaker 14: You have to make sure that it's you know the water quality is safe, it's you know it's serviceable, and there's availability to everybody.

00:31:48 Speaker 14: So there is a quality component to it.

00:31:51 Speaker 14: that you have as council and staff to make sure that that is appropriate, and that's all built into the management of the system, which we'll get into the cost side next.

00:32:00 Speaker 14: I just will highlight the annual replacement provision.

00:32:03 Speaker 14: So based on the asset management plan and the needs analysis, in order to manage that in terms of a full life cycle approach,

00:32:10 Speaker 14: it's about an 18 million dollar average investment on the water side and 11 million dollars on the wastewater side, and that's at the optimal level.

00:32:17 Speaker 14: What you'll see in the ensuing slides is that we're not at the optimal level by any stretch, but we do want to make a concerted effort to try and continue to manage that system,

00:32:26 Speaker 14: move towards cost recovery, recognizing the gap is still quite big even at the end of the period.

00:32:33 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, just in terms of our water and wastewater rate setting approach, it's quite a complex process in terms of the way we structure the model,

00:32:42 Speaker 14: in which we do pass it along to city staff to use and to continue to manage on an ongoing basis.

00:32:46 Speaker 14: But we do look at the forecast of number of connections, the forecast of volume.

00:32:51 Speaker 14: We do a deep dive into the operating cost and the capital cost.

00:32:54 Speaker 14: So what expenditures do we need to fund over the next ten years?

00:32:58 Speaker 14: And then we also look at those life cycle costs of our capital asset management.

00:33:01 Speaker 14: So looking at that one billion dollars worth of infrastructure, how do we have to manage that over the longer term?

00:33:07 Speaker 14: And we try to manage that into the calculation of the rates.

00:33:10 Speaker 14: Once we understand the total cost of operating the system, both operating and capital, set relative to the number of users, both volume and connections, we have our calculated rates themselves,

00:33:22 Speaker 14: and that's on both the water and the wastewater side.

00:33:25 Speaker 14: We go to the next slide.

00:33:27 Speaker 14: So one of the key inputs here is the consumption forecast, and it's looking at the growth or the management of the built water volumes over the planning period,

00:33:37 Speaker 14: and the 2018 to 2023 built volumes are shown, which are the actual flows both on Tier One and Tier Two, and then in Tier Two, and then going forward,

00:33:45 Speaker 14: we have our projection of flows in the municipality.

00:33:50 Speaker 14: So we've taken effectively an average of the last couple years, and we've moderated that growth.

00:33:56 Speaker 14: And we have built in some additional flows that are going to be coming online because of the metreing project.

00:34:02 Speaker 14: So we have built that into our flow forecast itself.

00:34:05 Speaker 14: But what we're seeing across a number of municipalities, and not dissimilar to what we see here in Owen Sound, is that the actual consumption is declining, even with new growth,

00:34:14 Speaker 14: and that's pretty consistent because we have general operational savings.

00:34:18 Speaker 14: You know, residents are pretty attuned to their bills, and they've got new kind of water efficient programmememes and toilets and low flow waterheads, which all kind of conserve the water itself,

00:34:29 Speaker 14: which brings down the volume.

00:34:30 Speaker 14: So that water has actually been coming down on a billable flow basis, even with new growth over the planning period.

00:34:36 Speaker 14: So we've kind of maintained some of that trend going forward, even as you're growing, you're adding new people, and you connect.

00:34:40 Speaker 14: You're adding new people and new connections.

00:34:42 Speaker 14: Our flows are going to continue to be maintained or come down a little bit, despite some of the new growth that we're showing, just because of the water metre and replacement programmememe that's coming in.

00:34:51 Speaker 14: So that kind of shows the billable flow projections over the planning period.

00:34:55 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, I'll get into the operating and capital costs a bit.

00:35:00 Speaker 14: So on the operating side, we take a look at the expenditures on a cost centre basis, and we try to make projections of how those costs are going to change over the planning period,

00:35:11 Speaker 14: with different adjustment factors, whether it's salaries, materials, hydro, insurance costs, and how that might change over the planning horizon.

00:35:19 Speaker 14: And we also track the rate-funded debt over the period, and we do see some increase in the debt over the short term as we need to fund our capital programmememe,

00:35:28 Speaker 14: and then it moderates over the period as we have sufficient monies on hand in order to do that.

00:35:33 Speaker 14: But our operating costs increased from about four and a half million dollars today to about 6.3 million dollars by the end of the planning period,

00:35:40 Speaker 14: which does take into consideration the inflation effects that we've assumed over that planning horizon.

00:35:46 Speaker 14: On the wastewater side, which is on the next slide, very similar kind of story in terms of the cost centres that we've used.

00:35:53 Speaker 14: The one little difference here is on the debt side that we're tracking.

00:35:59 Speaker 14: We're actually seeing some debt retiring over the planning period.

00:36:01 Speaker 14: We don't need any really new debt on the wastewater side that's projected.

00:36:05 Speaker 14: So some of that debt starts to come off line towards the end of the planning period, and we're not showing any new debt.

00:36:09 Speaker 14: So our costs towards the end level out a lot closer to where we're currently at today because of some of that debt that's coming offline, and our costs aren't increasing at the same pace.

00:36:20 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, you'll see here the capital programmememe, and just at a very high level, we have a projection of about 30 million dollars in capital from 2026 to 2035.

00:36:34 Speaker 14: A couple notes here: you'll have the capital on top, and we have the funding sources below.

00:36:38 Speaker 14: We do have some debt financing that's coming in.

00:36:40 Speaker 14: So on the previous slide, we saw the debt on the water going up a bit.

00:36:43 Speaker 14: It's a result of us funding the capital programmememe, a portion of it through debenture financing, and then those costs principal interest are picked up through the operating budget.

00:36:53 Speaker 14: The cost for the programmememe is largely front loaded in the five-year period.

00:36:57 Speaker 14: That's pretty typical when looking at a planning horizon or a capital programmememe.

00:37:00 Speaker 14: We're much more certain of our expenditures in the next couple years, and then towards the latter end of the period, despite best efforts, we try and put those costs in,

00:37:07 Speaker 14: but those are going to likely change as we get towards the end of that period.

00:37:10 Speaker 14: But that's why we try to build in our contributions to reserves.

00:37:13 Speaker 14: So, as we get those projects that we weren't planning for, we're able to draw upon our reserve funds towards the end of the period.

00:37:19 Speaker 14: But we have projected them out what we think the costs are going to be based on the city's input.

00:37:25 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide on the capital forecast slide for wastewater, it's a less intense programmememe, about 15 million dollars over that period.

00:37:34 Speaker 14: Again, similar story in terms of the capital being somewhat front loaded in the five to six year period.

00:37:40 Speaker 14: It does kind of dwindle a little bit in the latter end of the period, and then pick back up again at the end.

00:37:46 Speaker 14: But most of the revenue projections here are going to be from your rates,

00:37:49 Speaker 14: and there are some OCIF and some grant funding associated with some of the projects that we brought in to play here in terms of to recover those costs.

00:37:59 Speaker 14: But go to the next slide, just in terms of the capital investment and the asset management needs.

00:38:04 Speaker 14: So just thinking back to that 970 million dollars worth of infrastructure that the city is responsible for, there are annual contributions which are ideal in terms of investment level.

00:38:15 Speaker 14: And you'll see on the graph we have two green bars at the top, one for water and one for wastewater.

00:38:20 Speaker 14: That's going to represent the capital asset management investment need that's required, and that's just adjusted for inflation each year.

00:38:27 Speaker 14: So that's your ideal spending level.

00:38:29 Speaker 14: What we have in the gold bar below is the actual true capital investment that we're building into this plan in this model.

00:38:37 Speaker 14: So we are making an increase in terms of our capital investment and our contributions to reserve.

00:38:43 Speaker 14: But you'll see that even at the end of the period, we're 25% of where we are or where we need to be, and 35% on the wastewater side.

00:38:51 Speaker 14: So we are making an increase over that period.

00:38:54 Speaker 14: But because of the stark difference between the total investment that's required and what's effectively financially feasible, we're managing the contributions with our reserve funds in order to kind of create a sustainable system.

00:39:09 Speaker 14: Go to the next slide.

00:39:10 Speaker 14: Before I get to the punchline of the actual rates, I will just talk about the net rate funding need here,

00:39:17 Speaker 14: and this just kind of caps off the total cost that we have here from the operating side, the capital, as well as our contributions to reserve.

00:39:25 Speaker 14: This summarises the total cost that needs to be funded through the user rates in each year, and this is what drives the rate increases, the rates that we're seeing.

00:39:33 Speaker 14: So we're at just over 6.5 million dollars on the water side, and then closer to eight million dollars on the wastewater side.

00:39:41 Speaker 14: And we do see that over the period, our actual water needs are growing faster than wastewater, so the weight,

00:39:46 Speaker 14: the water net rate funding need is greater than wastewater at the end of the planning horizon, and that's largely driven by the capital cost that we're seeing, and we're showing.

00:39:55 Speaker 14: On the next slide, we'll see a decrease in our wastewater surcharge as a result of that.

00:40:00 Speaker 14: So we're not growing wastewater rates the same pace.

00:40:04 Speaker 14: Go to the next slide.

00:40:06 Speaker 14: So just in terms of our annual rate per typical metreed household, this looks at the total charge for a user of two hundred cubic metres a year, and what that looks like over the period.

00:40:16 Speaker 14: And it's about a four percent average annual increase is what's being projected.

00:40:20 Speaker 14: It's a little different in the front end; it's a little higher, but over the planning period on average, it's at four percent.

00:40:26 Speaker 14: We're projecting or calculating five percent annual rate increases on the fixed charge for water and for the variable rate, fixed and variable.

00:40:34 Speaker 14: And on the wastewater side, the surcharge, we're expecting it to maintain at 124 percent for the first couple years,

00:40:41 Speaker 14: but then we are trying to slowly decline it down to 100 percent at the end of the period.

00:40:46 Speaker 14: And that means we, because of the capital projections and our investment in the system, we're trying to alleviate some of the pressure on the wastewater side,

00:40:54 Speaker 14: on the water side where we have more significant capital expenditures and our needs there, particularly even on the asset management front, is higher.

00:41:01 Speaker 14: We kept the rates a little bit more on there at the five percent per year.

00:41:06 Speaker 14: If we go to the next slide, so may ask yourself, well, what does that mean from our reserve funds and what does that mean from our fiscal position?

00:41:14 Speaker 14: So this just looks at some of the reserve fund continuity on both the water and the wastewater system.

00:41:19 Speaker 14: So despite some of the rate increases that we're seeing, particularly in the first kind of three to five years, the reserve fund position isn't changing all that much, particularly on water.

00:41:28 Speaker 14: It does start to accumulate on both water and wastewater when we get into the second half of the planning period beyond year five.

00:41:34 Speaker 14: Partly of that is being attributed to when we look back at the capital programmememe sheets, we have less capital projects in those periods because those projects might just be not as well known right now.

00:41:44 Speaker 14: So that money is being shifted into the reserve fund.

00:41:46 Speaker 14: So as that capital programmememe gets filled out in those periods and those projects come to be realized, we're able to draw on that money and fulfil the capital investment needs that we need to do.

00:41:57 Speaker 14: Even with those periods, we kind of put two benchmark elements there in terms of a minimum and a kind of a maximum reserve fund policy target.

00:42:06 Speaker 14: The low target is at one and a half percent of your replacement value, and then the higher end is being at four percent of the replacement value.

00:42:14 Speaker 14: Those are just some benchmarks that we see in other municipalities in terms of what they might look at in terms of managing the reserve funds,

00:42:20 Speaker 14: and both of which were kind of under the low target in the three to five-year period in which this rate study is going to be most relevant.

00:42:27 Speaker 14: When we get into the latter end of the period, we start to exceed the low target, kind of right in the middle on the water side,

00:42:33 Speaker 14: but only really at the end of the period do we hit the higher end target on wastewater, and we don't hit the higher end target on water.

00:42:41 Speaker 14: Those targets aren't an approved target; it's just kind of showing, just for conversation, just for a benchmark from other municipalities.

00:42:48 Speaker 14: So, if we go to the last slide, promise this is the last one.

00:42:52 Speaker 14: If the rate comparison is just in terms of what we see in other communities in terms of a typical bill, so this would be for a household similarly of two hundred cubic metres.

00:43:02 Speaker 14: Range of different communities on here from Simcoe and Grey County.

00:43:05 Speaker 14: The rates in Owen Sound currently are kind of on the mid to higher end of the spectrum on the chart.

00:43:12 Speaker 14: The calculated rate doesn't really change the existing position all that much; you really kind of are in that middle bracket where, although you're a couple notches higher,

00:43:22 Speaker 14: but the rates between you and Pentangoshine and such are really kind of within the five to ten dollar difference.

00:43:28 Speaker 14: It's just a matter of when perhaps they're updating their rates; they'll all kind of move around a little bit, but much less than we get into some of the smaller communities,

00:43:36 Speaker 14: and certainly less than Miford and Romero on that front in terms of their rates charged for a typical user.

00:43:43 Speaker 14: The only caveat I'll put on this is it's always hard to put the rate comparisons in an equal level playing field.

00:43:50 Speaker 14: I mean, it's good to see what other municipalities are charging, but it really is about the service and needs, the infrastructure requirements, where every municipality is on their asset management programmememe, what debt they have.

00:44:01 Speaker 14: So it's very unique to each system that it's hard to always qualify and quantify on a page.

00:44:06 Speaker 14: But this does at least provide you with some context of that rate comparison.

00:44:12 Speaker 14: So, just my concluding comments here.

00:44:14 Speaker 14: The annual rate increases and utility rates are effectively required in order to support those capital programmememes and the operating cost increases of the systems to operate it over the planning period.

00:44:27 Speaker 14: There is quite a bit of work that's required over the next three to five years, particularly on the water side.

00:44:31 Speaker 14: So, it's important that the city kind of utilises the rate study and the model, and manages those reserve funds and your debt levels properly as you have been doing,

00:44:40 Speaker 14: to make sure that everything continues to be as sustainable as it is, and those rates, as we saw, the rate increases and the rates themselves are quite comparable and comparable to other communities.

00:44:53 Speaker 14: That is the end of my presentation.

00:44:55 Speaker 14: I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

00:44:59 Speaker 14: Okay, thank you very much, Andrew.

00:45:01 Speaker 07: And we will move up the report shortly, as opposed to leaving Andrew sitting for a period of time and then revisiting it,

00:45:10 Speaker 07: but are there any questions specific to the presentation that Andrew has given at this time?

00:45:18 Speaker 07: Well, oh, glad there's one.

00:45:20 Speaker 07: This is one of the biggest commenting subjects, probably in the public domain through the year.

00:45:29 Speaker 07: So I'm glad there's some questions coming forward.

00:45:32 Speaker 07: Member Cron, go ahead.

00:45:34 Speaker 07: I just have a question.

00:45:35 Speaker 08: It's on page 26 in the agenda.

00:45:38 Speaker 08: It's the consumption forecast.

00:45:40 Speaker 08: We've included one percent increase for the metre change.

00:45:47 Speaker 08: I'm curious why only one percent, and secondly, where did the one percent figure?

00:45:53 Speaker 08: Where does it originate from?

00:45:55 Speaker 08: Thank you.

00:45:59 Speaker 08: Through the chair.

00:45:59 Speaker 08: That's an excellent question.

00:46:00 Speaker 14: So we did one percent in the first year, and then a subsequent one percent in the next.

00:46:04 Speaker 14: So an overall two percent.

00:46:06 Speaker 14: There's some anecdotal kind of thoughts around that when you do a metreing programmememe, you could see an increase of two to five, or three to five percent increase in your total billable flows.

00:46:17 Speaker 14: The reality is we don't know what that might look like, so we did want to recognize that there could be some increase flows coming online because of the metre changeout programmememe.

00:46:25 Speaker 14: I'm just always cautious about overestimating the amount of new flows because that's a direct correlation to the revenues.

00:46:32 Speaker 14: So I wanted to be somewhat conservative and I wanted to be somewhat conservative in adjusting for it, and then, you know, when you actually get the data that comes online, one,

00:46:40 Speaker 14: it'll be reflected in the next rate study.

00:46:42 Speaker 14: Any additional revenue that comes in will just be put into the reserves and managed within the utility rate system itself.

00:46:48 Speaker 14: So, I just didn't want to overshoot or oversell what that could be.

00:46:55 Speaker 14: Member Endo.

00:47:06 Speaker 14: I apologize, Member.

00:47:07 Speaker 14: Your microphone.

00:47:10 Speaker 14: Sorry.

00:47:12 Speaker 14: Through you, Mr. Chair.

00:47:14 Speaker 15: I'm gathering like this is a sore spot to everybody I know, including myself.

00:47:21 Speaker 15: Five percent a year over ten years is a lot.

00:47:26 Speaker 15: I gather that's not because our water use is increasing.

00:47:29 Speaker 15: It's because the operation costs of the infrastructure plus it needs work.

00:47:34 Speaker 15: So I don't know the history, and I guess there's never been a look at whether those can go down at all.

00:47:43 Speaker 15: The sewer, the wastewater, is also like it's a big joke.

00:47:47 Speaker 15: We don't flush a toilet for a month or three months, and we still get charged 124.

00:47:57 Speaker 15: I'll let me.

00:47:59 Speaker 15: Sorry, I've cut you off.

00:48:00 Speaker 07: I'll let Andrew take a swing at it first, and then potentially go to Kate for follow-up.

00:48:08 Speaker 07: Yeah.

00:48:08 Speaker 14: So through the chair, I mean, those are all fair questions, and we get those quite often.

00:48:12 Speaker 14: I mean, so on the system side, the rates, they're you know, it's not always driven by new usage on the billable flow side,

00:48:20 Speaker 14: but it is about the cost to maintain the system and the operational cost.

00:48:24 Speaker 14: So there's a huge amount of it that goes into the operating costs, which are those that have been increasing, and they've increased quite substantially over the last little bit.

00:48:31 Speaker 14: Partly because of COVID, which we've seen capital cost and operating cost increases as a result of it.

00:48:36 Speaker 14: And the city has managed, just looking at the reserves, I'm quite well coming out of all that.

00:48:41 Speaker 14: But there's going to be continued pressure going forward on the capital side.

00:48:45 Speaker 14: There is large amount of capital investment that needs to continue to be done.

00:48:49 Speaker 14: And when you just look at the plan and the billion dollars worth of infrastructure, it's about maintaining that infrastructure in a sustainable way.

00:48:57 Speaker 14: There's always the criticism about the, you know, if you're not using the service, particularly on the sewer side, and you get charged for it.

00:49:04 Speaker 14: But there is a function that the capacity in the service has to be there when someone does decide to turn their taps back on if they were away or use the system,

00:49:14 Speaker 14: and that's part of what goes into it.

00:49:15 Speaker 14: Regardless of when they use it, there is a cost for the City to maintain it so that when they choose to do it, it's there,

00:49:22 Speaker 14: and that's partly why the fixed and variable rate is structured the way it is,

00:49:27 Speaker 14: so that we can ensure that those revenues are there to recover those costs should they choose to use it at any different time.

00:49:35 Speaker 14: If that answered some of the questions, is that good?

00:49:38 Speaker 14: Any follow-up?

00:49:50 Speaker 14: Just the water metres, and maybe this will come up later.

00:49:52 Speaker 15: Like, is that going to affect the bills at all, or that's just going to go into the cost for operating?

00:49:59 Speaker 15: Like, is it going to make it more efficient, so maybe some of the billable flow will go down, or no?

00:50:08 Speaker 15: Do you, Andrew?

00:50:11 Speaker 14: So the capital cost is built into the model as it is right now.

00:50:17 Speaker 14: It will make the bills a truer reflection of actual usage.

00:50:21 Speaker 14: Now that might impact each individual customer differently, because now the bills presumably will be read better.

00:50:30 Speaker 14: So how that impacts each individual customer, that'll be up to the change-off programmememe itself.

00:50:36 Speaker 14: But it can provide good information on what the true impacts are, and if they do go up, you now have the ability to monitor it and make an adjustment for it in your consumption patterns.

00:50:47 Speaker 14: Okay, thank you.

00:50:48 Speaker 14: I'll go to Kate as well.

00:50:50 Speaker 13: And just to build on what Andrew was saying, so with the new metres installed, it won't actually improve your efficiency or how you use water.

00:50:59 Speaker 13: Actually, conversely, what we may find, and not so much for residential usage, but for higher metre sizes like industrial and large commercial,

00:51:09 Speaker 13: where we currently may not be capturing all of the usage that's going through those older metres, will have more accurate billing.

00:51:17 Speaker 13: So what we could actually find is that we're able to recover more revenue from those users, which, if that's sufficient enough, we may be able to adjust our rates accordingly.

00:51:29 Speaker 13: We haven't necessarily anticipated it to a significant degree, and we will wait and see.

00:51:34 Speaker 13: We'll know within a year what those effects are, and especially once we start getting into those billing cycles with the new metres,

00:51:40 Speaker 13: and we'll be able to come back next year potentially and report back what the impact of the new metres are on the customers that are affected.

00:51:46 Speaker 13: Did you also have a comment?

00:51:50 Speaker 13: Go ahead, Lara.

00:51:52 Speaker 13: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:51:53 Speaker 16: I just wanted to make a comment about whether or not we could reduce the operating cost of our systems.

00:52:00 Speaker 16: I just, the cost of chemicals is constantly increasing, and that's where we've taken a big hit in our budgets from that particular item.

00:52:15 Speaker 16: The other thing that I did want to say is that our team is really taking it to heart with the service review project that's going on.

00:52:25 Speaker 16: That we're trying to chase down all of these miscellaneous little services or things that we do that we don't capture the water revenue from.

00:52:36 Speaker 16: So, for example, we're going to be looking into with the passing of the upcoming fees and charges bylaw amendment that is done annually.

00:52:48 Speaker 16: We're going to propose that we add certain service charges for people that are requiring staff to come out to their property to do various things.

00:52:57 Speaker 16: Those all have costs that are already being absorbed by the system, but they're things that not everybody uses.

00:53:04 Speaker 16: So that could help make the overall cost a little bit lower because those specialized little services will be paid for by the people that are actually taking advantage of them.

00:53:19 Speaker 16: So, and then on the operating side of things, we're trying to capture all of the water that we're using for various operational purposes.

00:53:30 Speaker 16: Making sure all of our parks have water metres so that we charge ourselves the water that we're using for irrigation.

00:53:37 Speaker 16: Capturing the water that's used in our process within the plants and for flushing and all of those other things, that all goes towards our balance of revenue to non-revenue water,

00:53:52 Speaker 16: and it counts towards like our overall operating costs.

00:54:01 Speaker 16: Okay, not seeing any other.

00:54:04 Speaker 16: Oh, Councillor Merton, then Member joining.

00:54:08 Speaker 16: Through you, Chair.

00:54:08 Speaker 09: Madam Chair, I'm wondering if we can pull up page 12, which is the capital investment versus asset management needs, if that's possible.

00:54:20 Speaker 09: Sorry, if not, I want to talk about the gap.

00:54:25 Speaker 09: Oh, it's on 12 on mine, but maybe it's not.

00:54:29 Speaker 09: It's not.

00:54:29 Speaker 09: Yeah, maybe.

00:54:31 Speaker 09: Not to worry.

00:54:32 Speaker 09: I can talk it through.

00:54:37 Speaker 09: Keep going.

00:54:38 Speaker 09: I think if you're here, so we've done a plan to 2035, and based on that, at five per cent each year, we have a huge gap between what we need and our capital investment.

00:54:59 Speaker 09: So even to increase every like five per cent every year, we're not even close to meeting what we need to meet.

00:55:11 Speaker 09: That concerns me, and my question is, how do we?

00:55:16 Speaker 09: What do we do with the gap?

00:55:17 Speaker 09: Like, when we need to replace or the assets, where do we find funding for this?

00:55:23 Speaker 09: Like, we're not.

00:55:25 Speaker 09: We're not even within smelling distance.

00:55:36 Speaker 09: So, through the Chair.

00:55:37 Speaker 14: So, and part of this is going to be a longer term horizon.

00:55:41 Speaker 14: In order to get there, I mean, the City is going to have other opportunities.

00:55:45 Speaker 14: You'll continue to see grant funding.

00:55:47 Speaker 14: You can defer works and finance works over a longer term if it comes out.

00:55:51 Speaker 14: But the asset management we have to think about that is still the ideal spending level to replace all assets right at the end of its useful life.

00:56:01 Speaker 14: Which there's, you know, there likely some record here that some assets continue to exist beyond their useful life.

00:56:07 Speaker 14: So, as your asset management programmememe gets more mature, and you'll be able to kind of refine and revise that number.

00:56:14 Speaker 14: But to your point, there's still going to be a gap, and that's why we're trying to move towards closing it.

00:56:19 Speaker 14: But it would be, if you wanted to increase any further, it would be on the backs of some more fiscal sustainability.

00:56:25 Speaker 14: But we also look at that again in context of the reserve funds, about that your accumulated money, long as we have sufficient funds on hand to manage our system.

00:56:33 Speaker 14: You know, we have the ability to be somewhat flexible in the timing of our capital expenses that are needed.

00:56:40 Speaker 14: Member Doyle, through you, Chair.

00:56:45 Speaker 06: My question involves the city water that's going outside the city limits.

00:56:51 Speaker 06: Is there separate costing for that, or a rate change?

00:56:56 Speaker 06: Would it be the same as it is for residents?

00:57:03 Speaker 14: So through the Chair, the current rate structure, I believe it's double of what the rate gets charged out, and we've maintained that similar relationship in here.

00:57:14 Speaker 05: Okay, I just actually I'll go to Councillor Hamley online.

00:57:18 Speaker 05: Did you have anything at this time, Councillor?

00:57:23 Speaker 05: Nothing for me.

00:57:25 Speaker 05: Okay, one question, Andrew.

00:57:26 Speaker 05: Probably same question asked two different ways.

00:57:28 Speaker 05: I've pulled different ways.

00:57:29 Speaker 05: I believe our loss factor is around 21% right now municipally, and the industry target or standards about 15%.

00:57:39 Speaker 05: When you're calculating or making your assumptions with new water metres installed, could you give a value in terms of is that maybe a 0.5 of that loss factor that we might be able to consider?

00:57:58 Speaker 05: Working towards that 15%, or is it so negligible that it's not impactful at all?

00:58:05 Speaker 05: The flip side of that is, 10 years ago, compared to our treated build water for 2024, we're about 227,000 cubic metres less.

00:58:21 Speaker 05: Could you also then flip that response, perhaps to position it again?

00:58:24 Speaker 05: Position it against that two hundred twenty-seven thousand cubic metres that we're not billing last year.

00:58:31 Speaker 05: That ten years ago we were deriving revenues from because we're certainly that's a huge amount of money a revenue stream that we're not collecting from ten years ago.

00:58:46 Speaker 05: So, through Chair, a good question.

00:58:48 Speaker 14: I don't know if we I can on the spot quantify what that difference is.

00:58:52 Speaker 14: I know qualitatively I can say that certainly, if we are going to be capturing more volume because of the better metre reads, that would reflect the reduction.

00:59:04 Speaker 14: Because your number of what's coming out of the plant is still the same, just we're actually billing more to our end users, so it will help reduce the loss.

00:59:12 Speaker 14: Now, what that might look like, that's part of I think going to be the monitoring exercise that you're going to be doing of how much more water are we actually billing now,

00:59:20 Speaker 14: and if that increase can be attributed to our better metre reads and our water replacement.

00:59:22 Speaker 14: Metre reads in our water replacement programmememe, then that should cut into your water loss itself.

00:59:28 Speaker 14: Okay, thank you very much.

00:59:31 Speaker 05: I think I'll just take a motion to receive this for information at this time, and then we'll march towards the report.

00:59:41 Speaker 05: Member Crohn has so moved receipt.

00:59:43 Speaker 05: Any further questions?

00:59:45 Speaker 05: Not seeing any.

00:59:46 Speaker 05: All those in favour?

00:59:48 Speaker 05: That's carried.

00:59:49 Speaker 05: Thank you.

00:59:51 Speaker 05: And stay with us, Andrew.

00:59:54 Speaker 05: We won't be too long.

00:59:55 Speaker 05: I don't see too much of a crowd here for public question period tonight, but I shall ask, case perhaps you have a question to ask.

01:00:03 Speaker 05: Not seeing anyone come to the podium with a question during public question period, which was item six.

01:00:09 Speaker 05: We have no correspondence items before us this evening at item seven.

01:00:13 Speaker 05: So instantly we're down to item eight, and if I can move item eight e one up and then pass it over to Kate to introduce her report and recommendation this evening to the committee.

01:00:28 Speaker 05: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

01:00:29 Speaker 13: My report tonight complements the presentation that has just been provided to committee from our consultants at Hemson.

01:00:36 Speaker 13: Overall, it's recommending that we move forward with that five percent increase to the rates effective July 1st of this year,

01:00:42 Speaker 13: and that we maintain the water wastewater surcharge at 124 percent for the next fiscal year.

01:00:49 Speaker 13: Included as attachments to the report are those inputs that we use in developing the financial plan.

01:00:55 Speaker 13: So we've got the multi-year capital plans for water, wastewater, as well as combined engineering.

01:01:00 Speaker 13: We have the operating budgets as well, and then I've just captured here that the other main input there would be the usage data that has been reviewed in the rate study.

01:01:11 Speaker 13: On the operating budget side, some of the key points is that we are staffed with 20 full-time employees, funded fully from the water rates.

01:01:19 Speaker 13: The department is overseen by the Director of Public Works and Engineering, and a portion of Lara's time is also recovered from the rates.

01:01:26 Speaker 13: In 2025, we have recognized insurance savings of approximately $230,000, and this is the result of moving to a new insurance provider.

01:01:37 Speaker 13: And so, those we allowed Water and Wastewater to recognize the full amount of those savings this year.

01:01:43 Speaker 13: Versus on the tax side, we're kind of easing into those savings.

01:01:47 Speaker 13: And then any annual surplus after operating and capital costs is directed to the reserves.

01:01:52 Speaker 13: So our goal is, despite the fact that spending, especially when you're looking at capital, varies year over year, our goal is to stabilize that and come up with an annual increase that's stable over time.

01:02:03 Speaker 13: In years where capital spending exceeds what we bring in revenues, we'll draw those reserves down, and in any years where capital spending is slightly below, we can build those reserves back up.

01:02:13 Speaker 13: And just to emphasize something that Andrew noted is that over the life of the study we start to see those reserves climb in the latter half of the study.

01:02:23 Speaker 13: But if you look at our multi-year capital plans, you see our capital investments decline just as we further out.

01:02:30 Speaker 13: It's harder to identify what some of those needs are, and that's been typical every year we've done these studies.

01:02:37 Speaker 13: That we see it's lighter in the latter half.

01:02:39 Speaker 13: But I guarantee once we get there to 2032, we'll be spending the same, if not more, than we are in 2025.

01:02:46 Speaker 13: So we would expect those reserves to grow as the capital eases off, but over time, will in truth, find that they stabilize.

01:02:55 Speaker 13: So I won't really add too much more there.

01:02:57 Speaker 13: There's a couple frequently asked questions.

01:03:00 Speaker 13: We do have some FAQs that we will put out publicly to go along with the announcement of the increase of the rates, along with other user fees effective on July 1st.

01:03:10 Speaker 13: But I'll open the floor to any questions that you may have.

01:03:13 Speaker 13: Okay, thanks, Kate.

01:03:14 Speaker 07: And while I'm looking at the screen, I'll just go to you first, Councillor Hamley.

01:03:19 Speaker 07: I don't see your face, so it's easier for me actually to overlook you.

01:03:25 Speaker 07: So I'll put it your way to open.

01:03:32 Speaker 07: I don't have anything at this time.

01:03:35 Speaker 07: Okay, thank you, Councillor Merton.

01:03:37 Speaker 07: Go ahead.

01:03:39 Speaker 07: Through you, Chair.

01:03:40 Speaker 17: I had communicated with the Director of Corporate Services.

01:03:46 Speaker 17: This is a long-term plan, and as we've just heard, we need to plan long-term.

01:03:52 Speaker 17: And every year, the water rate review comes forward for decision, ultimately at council, but certainly decision and information.

01:04:02 Speaker 17: And so, my question had been, knowing that we need five percent each year as part of your plan for the rates.

01:04:14 Speaker 17: I wondered whether, just like we do a multi-year capital plan, whether we need to think of this as approving not just one year at a time,

01:04:26 Speaker 17: but do we need to bring this forward so that people can plan for budgets?

01:04:33 Speaker 17: And Kate, you had provided an excellent response back to me.

01:04:37 Speaker 17: I'm wondering if you would mind sharing the pros and cons of that kind of approach.

01:04:46 Speaker 17: Certainly.

01:04:47 Speaker 13: So we'd certainly be open to discussing the option of approving a four or five-year increase at five percent a year instead of doing it annually.

01:05:00 Speaker 13: There are some pros and cons that you'd want to weigh.

01:05:03 Speaker 13: So some of the potential benefits of a multi-year approval would be predictability to the user.

01:05:07 Speaker 13: Certainly, knowing in advance, in a fairly long horizon, what those increases would be would allow residents and businesses from benefiting from knowing what to expect over a longer term.

01:05:21 Speaker 13: There's certainly administrative efficiency.

01:05:23 Speaker 13: Although staff would absolutely continue to review inputs annually and assess whether the projected rate path remains appropriate, generating the reports and coming through committee to present these each year is administratively burdensome.

01:05:39 Speaker 13: It takes council's time as well, so we could eliminate that and only come back to council in the event that we felt the rates needed to change, other than what had previously been approved.

01:05:49 Speaker 13: And then, of course, with public pressure, approving a multi-year schedule once helps to normalize the annual increases as part of just normal, responsible financial planning,

01:05:59 Speaker 13: and it reduces public pressure that corresponds to an annual exercise.

01:06:03 Speaker 13: Some of the potential challenges would be changing inputs.

01:06:07 Speaker 13: So we build this based on the capital plan as it is known today, our operating costs that are known today, and possibly even more importantly, what our usage patterns are as they are known today.

01:06:18 Speaker 13: But as those can often shift in timing or external operating pressures, those would impact our costs and revenues year over year.

01:06:25 Speaker 13: There may be a perceived loss of flexibility.

01:06:28 Speaker 13: Council would have less ability to adjust the rates annually and adjust the rates annually in response to unforeseen financial pressures,

01:06:34 Speaker 13: but it certainly would be feasible to repeal and amend a multi-year rate bylaw as required.

01:06:39 Speaker 13: And then another challenge could be public accountability.

01:06:42 Speaker 13: Annual approvals can reinforce transparency and offer a visible check-in point with ratepayers.

01:06:49 Speaker 13: So certainly, we're open to discussing.

01:06:50 Speaker 13: I can see myself the advantages of having a multi-year approval, but I can also appreciate, especially with the changes that we're looking at with the metres, and some of the potential changes in usage,

01:07:03 Speaker 13: why we might want to stick with an annual increase as it is presented here for now.

01:07:10 Speaker 13: Okay.

01:07:12 Speaker 13: Okay.

01:07:13 Speaker 13: Can I talk now?

01:07:13 Speaker 13: Oh, definitely.

01:07:15 Speaker 13: Sure.

01:07:15 Speaker 13: I don't.

01:07:15 Speaker 13: Yep.

01:07:16 Speaker 13: Go ahead.

01:07:17 Speaker 13: Yeah.

01:07:17 Speaker 13: I, I, I see what Councillor Merton's saying, but I do worry.

01:07:23 Speaker 13: Like we all know that these things fluctuate wildly sometimes from year to year with the water and the wastewater, and I really just don't think we should be taking away our flexibility at this time.

01:07:36 Speaker 18: It might be something to do a year or two down the road, but I just I really don't support the idea of doing that now.

01:07:45 Speaker 18: Okay, thank you, Member Cron.

01:07:49 Speaker 08: Through you, Mister Chair, it's an interesting concept having pre-approval for four years.

01:07:57 Speaker 08: Perhaps next time council gets in, maybe they should just approve a five percent tax increase for the duration of their term.

01:08:05 Speaker 08: I'm sure that wouldn't go over well with the general public because there was a thing I think somebody mentioned, maybe Brock did about accountability.

01:08:12 Speaker 08: It's one thing that's always troubled me with the utilities in this municipality is that it appears that utility rates are allowed to increase higher than the tax rates, almost every year,

01:08:28 Speaker 08: and there doesn't seem to be any perceived review, any perceived pushback from council, perhaps even committee about the continued rates, the continued increase in utility rates versus taxes.

01:08:47 Speaker 08: I've said this many times.

01:08:49 Speaker 08: I said it when I was staff, and sometimes I view that the utility is like an open checkbook, versus the tax rates that are viewed just a little bit more stringently than the utility rates.

01:09:02 Speaker 08: Thank you.

01:09:05 Speaker 08: Okay.

01:09:06 Speaker 08: Further questions?

01:09:09 Speaker 08: Comments, Member Hawkins.

01:09:12 Speaker 08: Through you, Mr. Chair.

01:09:13 Speaker 19: My question would be: When is it anticipated that the new metres be installed, and if that looking at a four-year plan could be after that initial shock, maybe to the public.

01:09:30 Speaker 19: I know my house.

01:09:32 Speaker 19: There's two people live there.

01:09:35 Speaker 19: My brother-in-law owns a triplex.

01:09:38 Speaker 19: There's six people that live there, and my water bill is exactly the same as theirs.

01:09:43 Speaker 19: So I'm just wondering when the metres are going in, and the sticker shock from that.

01:09:50 Speaker 12: Through the Chair to Member Hawkins, they've started already.

01:09:59 Speaker 12: They're going to be going zone by zone in order to be as efficient as possible.

01:10:05 Speaker 12: But yes, the first zone is already underway.

01:10:08 Speaker 12: They've already received their first set of letters, and the first few bookings have already been made.

01:10:17 Speaker 20: Okay, I appreciate the questions because there's no such thing as bad questions when it comes to this subject here tonight.

01:10:23 Speaker 20: There is a ton of information.

01:10:24 Speaker 20: I remember being a new councillor, looking at my first rate study and seeing what was proposed.

01:10:30 Speaker 20: Then was a water tower, and as I look around the city, there is still no water tower built.

01:10:38 Speaker 20: So there are there is a plethora of different items that Andrew builds his calculations off of, which are done, and adjusted every year by council,

01:10:52 Speaker 20: which is why I think absolutely this is an exercise that should be done every year for transparency because we are making considerations on seven-figure capital projects that are always evolving and we're adjusting every year.

01:11:07 Speaker 20: And I know that when I totally agree with staff, it declines in the back half of the five years.

01:11:13 Speaker 20: But right now I'm thinking there's a St. Mary's Hill which we do not want to resurface because we're thinking we're going to reconstruct that hill.

01:11:21 Speaker 20: And there's water and wastewater underneath it.

01:11:24 Speaker 20: That also leads me to wondering why, in one of the appendices, there's $100,000 for water for Moors Hill, and I think $90,000 for wastewater in the calculations,

01:11:36 Speaker 20: when there's neither water nor wastewater goes underneath Moors Hill, or when we did, we started upon the backflow preventers, and we were given it was a value over like three years, four years, maybe,

01:11:52 Speaker 20: and now there's an extending twenty thousand dollars every year that is now in the budget because of that.

01:11:58 Speaker 20: But when we first went upon that exercise, that initiative, there was like a fixed dollar end, and now in the documents, there is no dollar end.

01:12:11 Speaker 20: It's a line item with an ongoing annual contribution, so I think it's essential that council has this look every year.

01:12:19 Speaker 20: For something that is more impactful than property taxes, from an equity perspective,

01:12:27 Speaker 20: it you it it consumes the same amount of water whether that household's fifty-five thousand dollars after tax or five hundred and fifty thousand dollars after tax.

01:12:39 Speaker 20: Essentially, the showers, the shower.

01:12:40 Speaker 20: Essentially, the shower is a shower.

01:12:42 Speaker 20: Brushing your teeth is brushing your teeth.

01:12:44 Speaker 20: So, increases to water rates can be more impactful to the end user that's paying the bill than property taxes, which are distributed in a different manner, generally reflective of a higher income, more valuable property,

01:13:00 Speaker 20: more ability to pay.

01:13:01 Speaker 20: And water rates and utility doesn't function quite the same.

01:13:05 Speaker 20: So, I'm fully on side.

01:13:08 Speaker 20: I don't think it's any.

01:13:09 Speaker 20: It's never too much work to bring documents forward every year for review to make the right decision.

01:13:16 Speaker 20: So I guess those are my comments, Councillor Kukreja and then Councillor Martin.

01:13:22 Speaker 20: Through you, Mr. Chair.

01:13:24 Speaker 21: Just a quick question to the director: that we are looking at the increase of five percent to the water rates, and which again,

01:13:32 Speaker 21: like there is sufficient evidence that this is something that is much needed over to maintain the existing service standards that are available through water.

01:13:44 Speaker 21: For water, my question is: Like, once the new water metre hits the entire City of Owen Sound, first of all, how much time will it take for the implementation throughout the city?

01:13:58 Speaker 21: And then, secondly, if there are efficiencies, I hope the intention is to review these water rates every year.

01:14:05 Speaker 21: And if there is a possibility, like looking at the utilities, just like how we look at the budget, like the rates would be adjusted if needed.

01:14:13 Speaker 16: Be through the chair to Councillor Kukreja.

01:14:20 Speaker 16: There will be efficiencies we expect to some degree.

01:14:28 Speaker 16: The project is supposed to be completed in roughly October if everything goes as planned.

01:14:33 Speaker 16: It should be done this year.

01:14:36 Speaker 16: The contractor has a very ambitious schedule, but they have done this many times before and seem very confident with their schedule.

01:14:45 Speaker 16: As for the reassessment of the rates,

01:14:51 Speaker 16: I think council should maybe keep in mind before making a decision like that that we're so far behind on our infrastructure debt as far as funding or putting money away in the reserve,

01:15:06 Speaker 16: that trying to shave off a percentage might not necessarily be the wisest decision.

01:15:14 Speaker 16: And I don't think, as staff, we would recommend that.

01:15:17 Speaker 16: But that is something you could do in a way.

01:15:20 Speaker 16: I kind of wish that the standard of care presentation came before this report,

01:15:25 Speaker 16: but you'll get a little bit more of an understanding of how important these decisions that you're making are when it comes to providing safe water and keeping the environment and people's basements and whatnot safe

01:15:45 Speaker 16: from sewage.

01:15:48 Speaker 16: I was going to say something about that.

01:15:51 Speaker 16: Oh, I lost my train of thought.

01:15:54 Speaker 16: Yep.

01:15:56 Speaker 16: I might just clarify too.

01:15:57 Speaker 13: The way the report is written is we would return to committee on an annual basis to review the rates, and certainly, although for the sake of our financial plan and our rate study,

01:16:08 Speaker 13: Hemson does this comprehensive review every five years.

01:16:11 Speaker 13: Each year when we bring this back to committee, we're doing relatively the same.

01:16:16 Speaker 13: We're using that tool.

01:16:17 Speaker 13: We're updating it with our current capital plans, our current operating costs.

01:16:22 Speaker 13: I might just reference though to when we compare the water rate increase to our tax rate increases.

01:16:28 Speaker 13: We're talking about basically two services here: water treatment and distribution, and then wastewater collection and treatment.

01:16:38 Speaker 13: Our tax rate is a whole host of services.

01:16:42 Speaker 13: Some are discretionary; some are more discretionary than others.

01:16:46 Speaker 13: Water and wastewater, we don't have a lot of discretion as to what the level of services that we're providing.

01:16:50 Speaker 13: And so these increases are basically the cost of providing that service.

01:16:54 Speaker 13: What I do see on the tax side, we're maintaining stable increases over time,

01:16:59 Speaker 13: but what we're finding is that those non-discretionary services are eating away a little bit each year at some of our discretionary services.

01:17:07 Speaker 13: So some larger cost increases are forcing us to scale back on other services.

01:17:12 Speaker 13: We have a bit more flexibility there, in some cases, than we do with water and wastewater, and what that level of service is that we're providing.

01:17:24 Speaker 13: Councillor Merton, oh, just before I go to you.

01:17:26 Speaker 13: Councillor, I'll just go back to Lara quickly.

01:17:29 Speaker 12: Sorry, Mr. Chair, I remembered what I was going to say.

01:17:33 Speaker 12: The like, Council has the option to fund the water and wastewater system less, but this comes down to essentially a risk management issue.

01:17:46 Speaker 12: Then at that point, because we have legal requirements that we need to meet, and if we're not funding our system adequately, we could end up with sick people, or worse.

01:18:00 Speaker 12: And I don't want to scare you, but that is a very real possibility.

01:18:04 Speaker 12: At the very least, aside from that, you end up with major inconvenience with water mains that are broken every winter.

01:18:12 Speaker 12: People whose water gets shut off every time the water main breaks.

01:18:17 Speaker 12: Sometimes fairly large stretches, depending on whether or not there's redundant supplies to that area.

01:18:21 Speaker 12: So it applies to that area.

01:18:23 Speaker 12: So, these are, you know, council and committee recommends to council, but you have the right and the prerogative to decide that you don't want to fund it at the recommended rates.

01:18:35 Speaker 12: We've provided our professional opinion.

01:18:38 Speaker 12: It's up to you now.

01:18:39 Speaker 12: However, I do want to remind you that we have minimums that we are required to meet; we owe the community.

01:18:54 Speaker 12: Through you, Chair.

01:18:57 Speaker 09: I think the conversation about yearly accountability, transparency, and public awareness versus longer-term based on the study that was provided, was really valuable because ultimately, this touches people's lives every single day,

01:19:14 Speaker 09: every time they flush a toilet, every time they turn on the tap.

01:19:18 Speaker 09: So I am comfortable to move the recommendation as presented in front of us this evening.

01:19:26 Speaker 09: Okay, thank you, Councillor Merton.

01:19:27 Speaker 09: The motion's on the floor.

01:19:29 Speaker 09: Are there any further questions, comments?

01:19:33 Speaker 07: Not only could you argue to reduce it, you could argue to increase the financial support to Council beyond five percent.

01:19:44 Speaker 07: I mean, it goes both ways.

01:19:46 Speaker 07: It is certainly critical.

01:19:48 Speaker 07: And last summer in Calgary, we saw the impacts of an underfunded system as well, and the amount of dollars that it costs downstream if you do have catastrophic damages to it.

01:20:02 Speaker 07: Not seeing any further questions.

01:20:03 Speaker 07: I do have one question.

01:20:05 Speaker 07: This is one I ask to Kate occasionally when we talk about reserve balances.

01:20:13 Speaker 07: Everyone could have an idea of the appropriate reserve balance.

01:20:16 Speaker 07: Perhaps nobody is wrong.

01:20:18 Speaker 07: What are your assumptions that are made here in terms of the proper reserve balance?

01:20:25 Speaker 07: Because if it's too high, I'm going to argue that we're double-dipping against today's taxpayer.

01:20:31 Speaker 07: We're collecting for current costs, and we're taking money from them for future costs in a way that businesses don't entertain.

01:20:40 Speaker 07: Businesses are supposed to depreciate, put monies aside.

01:20:44 Speaker 07: We know they don't.

01:20:44 Speaker 07: It goes to the shareholders.

01:20:45 Speaker 07: They go to the shareholders, and then they have a plant that needs updating in 60 years, and there's no money set aside.

01:20:53 Speaker 07: But theoretically, that's how it's supposed to work.

01:20:56 Speaker 07: And then they finance it on a go-forward basis.

01:21:01 Speaker 07: What are the assumptions that you made here in terms of developing the right reserve balance?

01:21:06 Speaker 07: That's perhaps not too low, and not so high that one could construe it as, you know, essentially double-dipping for a period of years.

01:21:20 Speaker 13: Through you, Mr. Chair, Andrew can correct me if I'm wrong, but the two thresholds I believe were 1.5 percent of the annual total replacement cost and 4 percent at the upper end.

01:21:30 Speaker 13: Truthfully, I didn't do the threshold that I would normally use in the years that we do those reviews,

01:21:37 Speaker 13: but we look at a percentage of the operating budget plus the current year capital spending to have at least that in reserve.

01:21:45 Speaker 13: Average annual capital spending, I would say.

01:21:49 Speaker 13: Okay, oh, sorry, I cut you off.

01:21:52 Speaker 07: And I think it is worth knowing too that occasionally staff are able to apply good news projects.

01:21:58 Speaker 07: I think maybe Alpha Street was one that came in under budget and saved contributions or movement from the reserves into capital plans.

01:22:09 Speaker 07: Or there's another big one, maybe two or three years ago that the city benefited from unforeseen granting opportunities.

01:22:15 Speaker 07: So those are always good news opportunities too.

01:22:17 Speaker 07: That it's great to share with the ratepayers.

01:22:20 Speaker 07: So we have had the motions on the floor.

01:22:23 Speaker 07: No further questions.

01:22:25 Speaker 07: All those in favour, and that is carried.

01:22:30 Speaker 07: I'll just go to Councillor Hamley as well for verbal ye or nay.

01:22:34 Speaker 07: In favour.

01:22:35 Speaker 07: Okay.

01:22:35 Speaker 07: Thank you, Councillor, and thank you, Andrew, for not just your time this evening, but I think a lot of time and effort's been expended before this evening getting to this point.

01:22:48 Speaker 07: So appreciate all the support.

01:22:54 Speaker 07: So we will skip back to Item Eight B One and welcome Heidi to the meeting at this time, which is report regarding circular materials eligible community recycling calendars agreement.

01:23:14 Speaker 07: Through you, Mr. Chair.

01:23:15 Speaker 22: So, the city currently has an agreement with Circular Materials to promote recycling collection through the waste calendar and the city's website.

01:23:24 Speaker 22: So, as part of the city's efforts to enhance waste diversion and public education, the Recycling Coach will be introduced to City residents in May, coinciding with the launch of the green bin programmememe.

01:23:37 Speaker 22: Key features of this app will include what goes where, if it can be recycled, if it can go into the green bin, or if it goes to garbage.

01:23:45 Speaker 22: And it also has image recognition technology and reuse and donations suggestions.

01:23:53 Speaker 22: So Circular Materials has selected the Recycling Coach as their official app through an RFP process.

01:24:00 Speaker 22: This app will provide residents with up-to-date information on what is recyclable under their programmememe.

01:24:07 Speaker 22: So, since the city is implementing the Recycle Coach app, Circular Materials will compensate the city an additional fifteen cents per household for the remainder of the year and all of 2026.

01:24:20 Speaker 22: And the funding will help offset the costs associated with implementing the app and conducting public education efforts.

01:24:31 Speaker 22: So, under the 2026 Twenty-six agreement with Circular Materials for eligible communities, the city will be receiving thirty-five cents per household to support the design, printing, and distribution of waste calendars.

01:24:51 Speaker 22: Does anybody have any questions?

01:24:55 Speaker 22: Thanks, Heidi.

01:24:56 Speaker 22: And are there any questions?

01:24:58 Speaker 22: Member Dwyne first, and then I think Member Hawkins.

01:25:04 Speaker 06: Through the chair, the app is going to provide extra detail, but not everyone uses computers or has access to that.

01:25:16 Speaker 06: What's their means of substituting for using the app?

01:25:26 Speaker 06: Through you, Mr. Chair.

01:25:27 Speaker 22: Sorry, I should have clarified that; it's not just an app, but it will also be embedded into the website.

01:25:35 Speaker 22: So you would be able to add an item if you included like meat and you put it into the app, not just the app, but embedded in the website.

01:25:46 Speaker 22: Then it will bring up options as to where you can put that.

01:25:54 Speaker 06: Also, accessing the web for some people is a problem.

01:25:59 Speaker 06: So what's the alternative for getting the answer to their questions?

01:26:05 Speaker 22: Oh, as for what can be placed in the green bin, so we will also once we are distributing the green bins, we will be providing information,

01:26:15 Speaker 22: and there will be an information pamphlet in there that will.

01:26:19 Speaker 22: It's a visual as well as a basic language pamphlet that shows what can be put into the green bin.

01:26:31 Speaker 22: Michelle, you, Mr. Chair, just a compliment.

01:26:35 Speaker 19: I was playing with the app this afternoon, and it's fantastic.

01:26:38 Speaker 19: So, good call.

01:26:42 Speaker 19: Go ahead, Council Hamley.

01:26:45 Speaker 19: Yeah, so I'm just a little confused.

01:26:48 Speaker 19: So, is the app theirs or is the app ours?

01:26:56 Speaker 19: Like, who did the RFP?

01:26:57 Speaker 19: Was it them or was it us?

01:27:00 Speaker 19: Three, Mr. Chair.

01:27:01 Speaker 22: So the app was part of the whole promotion with the green bin, so that to help residents determine where they would put some of their material,

01:27:12 Speaker 22: and it just happened to be a coincidence that Circular Materials also had chosen that app for their recycling.

01:27:20 Speaker 22: So I met with Circular Materials, and they provided us with an amending agreement to the current agreement that we have,

01:27:29 Speaker 22: for an additional 15 cents to help us help Circular Materials promote what they approve for recycling going forward throughout the remainder of 2025 and 2026.

01:27:47 Speaker 22: Okay, thank you, thank you.

01:27:48 Speaker 22: I was I had it completely wrong.

01:27:50 Speaker 22: Thank you.

01:27:53 Speaker 22: Okay, thank you.

01:27:54 Speaker 22: Any further questions?

01:27:57 Speaker 22: Not seeing any.

01:27:58 Speaker 23: If I could just ask one question, I'm a little unclear.

01:28:02 Speaker 23: Are we still distributing a paper copy, or are the references to waste calendars just kind of speaking in and referencing using the technology, the cell phone only?

01:28:18 Speaker 23: Are we still doing like a paper copy that's going out to residents?

01:28:23 Speaker 23: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

01:28:25 Speaker 22: So this year we didn't mail out the waste calendars to everybody because of the mail strike, and surprisingly, the public seemed to be okay with that.

01:28:38 Speaker 22: And the City really needs to look at different ways that we can save on paper.

01:28:42 Speaker 22: So I think going forward, we will continue to have calendars available at City Hall,

01:28:48 Speaker 22: and those calendars do have that information in it for those that do not have the ability to travel or limited mobility.

01:28:57 Speaker 22: We will mail them a calendar still, but so that is the part of printing the calendar.

01:29:05 Speaker 07: Okay, I think I'm comforted to hear that because there are seniors who, you know, their lingering comment might be, "Don't forget me."

01:29:14 Speaker 07: I don't utilise technology to the same extent as others, and sometimes I'm just fearful that we may move forward and exclude some in our thoughts and our processes.

01:29:27 Speaker 07: So, at least it's an outlet.

01:29:30 Speaker 07: A lot of people still come to City Hall to pay their taxes, and at least it's something that can be distributed.

01:29:38 Speaker 07: So, glad to hear.

01:29:39 Speaker 07: Looking for a motion then regarding the recommendation; Councillor Kukreja has so moved.

01:29:45 Speaker 07: Any further questions?

01:29:48 Speaker 07: All those in favour, and that is carried.

01:29:51 Speaker 07: And yay or nay, Councillor Hamley.

01:29:54 Speaker 07: In favour.

01:29:56 Speaker 07: Thank you.

01:29:58 Speaker 07: Item Eight B Two is a Product Care amending agreement.

01:30:02 Speaker 07: Back to you, Heidi.

01:30:04 Speaker 07: Thank you.

01:30:05 Speaker 07: Three, Mr. Chair.

01:30:06 Speaker 22: So the City currently has an agreement with Product Care.

01:30:10 Speaker 22: Product Care funds us for some of the household hazardous waste materials.

01:30:14 Speaker 22: We sell hazardous waste materials that we collect, including paints, solvents, pesticides, and flammables.

01:30:21 Speaker 22: So the most recent agreement that we have with them is from 2021.

01:30:25 Speaker 22: They reach out to us in March with an amending agreement that would provide us more funds for the per kilogram of that we collect for painting for paints and coating,

01:30:41 Speaker 22: an additional 36 cents a kilogram for pesticides, an additional one dollar and one cent per kilogram, and for solvents, an additional 74 cents.

01:30:52 Speaker 22: They will be providing us a one-time payment for the material that was collected in 2024.

01:30:58 Speaker 22: And does anybody have any questions?

01:31:06 Speaker 22: Okay, not seeing any questions.

01:31:11 Speaker 22: I'm going to read out the recommendation in case there is.

01:31:12 Speaker 05: The recommendation that, in consideration of staff report OP 25-012 respecting Product Care Association of Canada municipal services agreement,

01:31:20 Speaker 05: the Operations Committee recommends that City Council direct staff to bring forward a bylaw to authorise the Mayor and Clerk to execute the services agreement with Product Care Association of Canada for the collection and processing

01:31:31 Speaker 05: of hazardous and special products as outlined in the report.

01:31:34 Speaker 05: Would I have someone move that recommendation?

01:31:37 Speaker 05: Member Hawkins has so moved.

01:31:39 Speaker 05: This looks like just all good news.

01:31:42 Speaker 05: Is there any bad news in there?

01:31:45 Speaker 05: Okay.

01:31:47 Speaker 05: Can I say something, Mr. Chair, Councillor Hamley?

01:31:50 Speaker 18: So the way that this regulation is set up, municipalities no longer have to provide this; the companies have to provide this,

01:32:01 Speaker 18: and so like we're undertaking a lot of the work on behalf of these companies, and like I don't think we're getting the full dollar that we should be for them.

01:32:11 Speaker 18: So I just really wanted to put that on the table and, yeah, because I think they could be paying probably a lot more of this.

01:32:21 Speaker 18: Okay, thank you very much.

01:32:23 Speaker 20: So certainly a blessing to get more, but let's keep asking and working for full cost recovery.

01:32:30 Speaker 20: Not seeing any further questions.

01:32:32 Speaker 20: All those in favour?

01:32:35 Speaker 20: And that is carried.

01:32:36 Speaker 20: And ye or nay, Councillor Hamley.

01:32:37 Speaker 20: Councillor Hamley, opposed.

01:32:41 Speaker 20: Okay, thank you.

01:32:43 Speaker 20: Motion is still carried with one opposed.

01:32:47 Speaker 20: Item Eight E Two is a report from the Maniwaki and Wastewater regarding drinking water standard of care.

01:32:54 Speaker 20: But I think Lara is preparing to present that this evening.

01:32:58 Speaker 20: Over to you, Lara.

01:33:01 Speaker 20: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

01:33:02 Speaker 12: So we had a nice little introduction to this presentation, sort of organically with our conversation earlier, the standard of care.

01:33:11 Speaker 12: We're presenting this to you today because typically we do a more like a more detailed—I think it's like a two-hour presentation—to Council each time a new Council is inaugurated.

01:33:26 Speaker 12: But the majority of the Committee members on this Committee have not had a chance to see that presentation because you've all sort of taken your position, all sort of taken your positions since then.

01:33:36 Speaker 12: So for the few Councillors that are on this Committee, please I beg your indulgence as I give a brief overview.

01:33:46 Speaker 12: Some of this might be interesting to you, though, because I did put a little bit more; I'm planning on going into a little bit on the Flint water crisis, a little bit,

01:33:58 Speaker 12: which although it's an American situation, it's really—and it's really quite relevant, and it's a good learning lesson.

01:34:08 Speaker 12: Anyway, standard of care.

01:34:10 Speaker 12: This is your why, Allison.

01:34:14 Speaker 12: If you could, yes, thank you.

01:34:16 Speaker 12: All right.

01:34:16 Speaker 12: So, in the context of water management, standard of care refers to your legal responsibility because you are the decision-making authority over municipal drinking water systems.

01:34:29 Speaker 12: You are required to exercise a level of care, diligence, and skill that a reasonably prudent person would, in similar circumstances.

01:34:38 Speaker 12: So it's the whole acting reasonably: what would a—you know—the legal term of reasonable person do in those situations to protect public health and prevent drinking water hazards?

01:34:52 Speaker 12: Next slide, please.

01:34:54 Speaker 12: So what started all of this was the Walkerton water crisis in the year 2000.

01:35:02 Speaker 12: This was the perfect storm of mismanagement at all levels.

01:35:10 Speaker 12: I'll preface it that way.

01:35:12 Speaker 12: It was literally every level of the organisation, from Council to the operators; essentially had small mistakes that added up to seven deaths and 2,300 people getting sick with E.

01:35:29 Speaker 12: coli.

01:35:32 Speaker 12: What happened was they had improperly constructed wells that allowed groundwater to get into the well casing, which contaminated the aquifer that they were pulling water out of for their water supply.

01:35:45 Speaker 12: When they had heavy rainfall that washed cattle manure right into the well casing, then the operators weren't trained properly and possibly as a result of that,

01:36:02 Speaker 12: were skipping proper testing and covering it up by falsifying records.

01:36:10 Speaker 12: So, like you see, these compounding issues.

01:36:14 Speaker 12: It was an underfunded system.

01:36:16 Speaker 12: Do you just want to make sure I get everything yet?

01:36:21 Speaker 12: Training operators lacked the formal training to understand the pathogenic risks.

01:36:25 Speaker 12: They didn't understand their why, so they cut corners because they didn't really get how important it was, and in the end, they ended up flushing all of the contamination further into the system, which spread,

01:36:42 Speaker 12: which spread the bacteria further and got more people sick.

01:36:48 Speaker 12: Slide, please.

01:36:50 Speaker 12: So as I said, in that case, it was failure at multiple levels, and typically, when you have a crisis like that,

01:37:00 Speaker 12: it usually—you can't really point to one particular issue that is the only contributing factor.

01:37:08 Speaker 12: So, you know, improperly constructed well, contaminated water source, inadequate training and education of the public utility staff, and insufficient recording requirements.

01:37:20 Speaker 12: That's why we now implement a multi-barrier approach.

01:37:24 Speaker 12: We have our source water protection, which in our case, the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority takes care of that for us.

01:37:30 Speaker 12: We contract it to them.

01:37:32 Speaker 12: We have our water treatment system, which filters and disinfects the water for us before we send it through the system.

01:37:42 Speaker 12: We test it regularly to make sure that it meets our quality control standards.

01:37:48 Speaker 12: We also test it off of the system to make sure that the water that's way out in the periphery is still meeting those same criteria—that it's not sitting too long,

01:37:58 Speaker 12: that it still has enough chlorine in it to maintain that disinfection level.

01:38:02 Speaker 12: We have secure distribution through maintaining adequate, sound piping, so that we don't have leaks that are allowing contamination into the pipe, which is also something that you manage through having adequate pressure.

01:38:15 Speaker 12: Which, even if there was a crack or something, it would push it out and not let it leak in, and that ultimately results in delivering safe, clean water to our residents and users.

01:38:28 Speaker 12: Slide, please.

01:38:31 Speaker 12: So, out of the Walkerton crisis, there were 121 recommendations that were implemented over the next few years.

01:38:39 Speaker 12: That, and it started several acts: the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Nutrient Management Act.

01:38:46 Speaker 12: The Nutrient Management Act had to do with manure and proximity to water supplies and that kind of thing.

01:38:53 Speaker 12: The Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act are ones that we deal with on a regular basis.

01:39:00 Speaker 12: This all requires rigorous operator training and certification regulation.

01:39:07 Speaker 12: We have annual inspections of our treatment plant and audits of our staff and our procedures.

01:39:17 Speaker 12: We have a drinking water inspection protocol, limited-time certificates of approval, so you have to get recertified after a certain amount of time to ensure that you're staying on top of things.

01:39:30 Speaker 12: Continuous monitoring for chlorine and turbidity.

01:39:33 Speaker 12: Turbidity is like the cloudiness or clearness of the water.

01:39:37 Speaker 12: Staff training and business process improvements, and we can have random testing from the Public Health Board.

01:39:47 Speaker 12: Development of response to adverse drinking water quality incidents.

01:39:51 Speaker 12: That was one of the things that came back as an opportunity for improvement or minor non-compliance with our recent audit.

01:39:59 Speaker 12: We had out-of-date forms, so we need to have a protocol for making sure that we have mitigation for every conceivable potential incident that we would have to respond to,

01:40:22 Speaker 12: and improvements to information management financial requirements.

01:40:27 Speaker 12: That was the rate study that we just listened to.

01:40:30 Speaker 12: We have to prove to the Ministry as part of our annual or every three-to-five years certification that we have the operating capital and resources to maintain the system for a certain number of years without

01:40:48 Speaker 12: essentially going bankrupt.

01:40:51 Speaker 12: Like it's the government needs to oversee that, licensing and accreditation, and watershed-based source protection, as I mentioned before.

01:41:02 Speaker 12: Slide, please.

01:41:05 Speaker 12: So I mentioned the various pieces of legislation, the standard of care, is what you're listening to now.

01:41:14 Speaker 12: We have operations, water quality standards.

01:41:18 Speaker 12: We have training and certification.

01:41:20 Speaker 12: All of our operators have to undergo testing, like exams, and then have to have a minimum number of hours before they can become fully certified.

01:41:31 Speaker 12: And then they also need to reach a certain level, one, two, three, four, and depending on the complexity of the system that they're running, they need to have the according level of certification.

01:41:44 Speaker 12: Then we have the Clean Water Act, which used to be the Source Water Protection Act, the Nutrient Management Act that I already mentioned, and the Sustainable Water and Wastewater Act.

01:41:56 Speaker 12: So, examples of standard of care.

01:42:01 Speaker 12: Mr. Chair mentioned the Calgary water main break last year.

01:42:07 Speaker 12: There's a little bit in here on that, but the Flint water plant.

01:42:11 Speaker 12: I don't know how many of you remember that, but it basically started by Flint, Michigan's decision to change its source water from what they used to pipe it from Detroit for 50 years or so,

01:42:26 Speaker 12: and because of the Rust Belt evolution, Flint essentially slowly started going bankrupt after the 1980s, and in 2011 it was put under the control of the state of Michigan.

01:42:44 Speaker 12: In order to cut costs, the state decided that instead of using Detroit's water supply, they would take water right out of the Flint River,

01:42:54 Speaker 12: which you know after 100 years of industry using it essentially as an open sewer, it was highly, highly contaminated, and then being underfunded, their treatment system wasn't treating it adequately.

01:43:11 Speaker 12: In 2014, so they made that decision in 2013.

01:43:16 Speaker 12: In 2014, the system went live.

01:43:19 Speaker 12: As soon as the residents started being supplied with that water, they immediately started reporting that it was making their skin itch.

01:43:27 Speaker 12: It smelled bad.

01:43:28 Speaker 12: It tasted awful.

01:43:30 Speaker 12: They were getting sick.

01:43:32 Speaker 12: But essentially, they were just completely disregarded,

01:43:36 Speaker 12: and this went on for about three years until a federal judge agreed to order the state to provide every resident with a faucet filter or home delivery of bottled water.

01:43:49 Speaker 12: Charges were laid in 2012 against three state officials: the governor, the director of health and human services, and the state chief medical executive.

01:43:59 Speaker 12: But unfortunately, because of a loophole in their legal system, the charges were eventually dropped because they could not be held responsible for their actions.

01:44:10 Speaker 12: Actually, no, it's not exactly that.

01:44:13 Speaker 12: It was a special term.

01:44:15 Speaker 12: They could not be held responsible for the consequences of their actions, so the charges were abandoned in 2023.

01:44:22 Speaker 12: The Flint community is still trying to recover.

01:44:26 Speaker 12: Their population declined by over 20,000 people.

01:44:29 Speaker 12: So, like, that's the equivalent of the population of Owen Sound, essentially fled their homes because they had no clean water.

01:44:39 Speaker 12: What was happening was the water was highly corrosive, and the people's properties, their lateral services, like their water services to their houses, were still largely lead and galvanized steel.

01:44:54 Speaker 12: So the corrosive water was leaching lead out of their pipes, and there were blood testing in children, and in those 18 months, their blood lead levels tripled in some cases.

01:45:16 Speaker 12: So it was pretty horrific, and it's an example of what can happen if you make poor or uninformed choices, and then have an underfunded system.

01:45:30 Speaker 12: There are other similar cases with wastewater systems that are underfunded.

01:45:36 Speaker 12: Employees or like the managers of those systems get jaded and they start not paying attention to quality control or whatever happens in those situations, and things just snowball.

01:45:54 Speaker 12: That's basically what happened at Flint, and there was essentially no responsibility taken by the people that started all of this.

01:46:07 Speaker 12: So the Calgary catastrophic water main break that we probably all heard about last year highlights the need for regular inspections.

01:46:19 Speaker 12: That was a massive water main.

01:46:21 Speaker 12: I've never seen one that big before, and it took a very, very long time for them to repair it, or even really diagnose how they were going to fix it,

01:46:34 Speaker 12: because of the volume that they were dealing with.

01:46:38 Speaker 12: The City had not conducted condition assessments of this pipe, and many valves that could have mitigated the damage were not regularly tested, so they couldn't essentially stem the flow.

01:46:51 Speaker 12: So it just kept hemorrhaging water.

01:47:00 Speaker 12: On this topic, our industrial mains are usually quite large.

01:47:04 Speaker 12: They are getting up there in age, but to this point, as far as we're aware, they're in good condition.

01:47:14 Speaker 12: But this is something that we need to be aware of as we go forward about non-destructive testing on those high-pressure concrete water mains.

01:47:24 Speaker 12: The other thing that we're going to be implementing in the future is more emphasis on valve turning, so that we can make sure valve exercising, for lack of a better term,

01:47:37 Speaker 12: so that we can make sure that our valves are operational if we have a catastrophic water main break.

01:47:44 Speaker 12: Not that we'll have something as big as that, but a major water main break could still drain our reservoir fairly quickly if we weren't able to turn valves to essentially block it fast enough.

01:48:05 Speaker 12: And I—oh, next, is there any more slides?

01:48:06 Speaker 12: I think that's it.

01:48:07 Speaker 12: Yep.

01:48:07 Speaker 12: So I would take any questions if you have any.

01:48:10 Speaker 12: Okay.

01:48:10 Speaker 12: Welcome any questions from committee.

01:48:15 Speaker 12: Not seeing any.

01:48:17 Speaker 20: So we do just have a recommendation respecting the Drinking Water Standard of Care and staff report OP-25017?

01:48:27 Speaker 20: The Operations Committee recommends that City Council receive the report for information purposes.

01:48:33 Speaker 20: Do I have a mover?

01:48:34 Speaker 20: Member Join has so moved.

01:48:36 Speaker 20: I would just note it's...

01:48:37 Speaker 20: Thank you very much for the presentation.

01:48:40 Speaker 20: It's great to have a refresher.

01:48:42 Speaker 20: You can't see that information often enough.

01:48:49 Speaker 20: So, it is quite a responsibility upon all of us to maintain that system for the community.

01:48:58 Speaker 20: Not seeing any further questions, all those in favour, and that is carried.

01:49:03 Speaker 20: Councillor Hamley, in favour.

01:49:06 Speaker 20: Thank you.

01:49:08 Speaker 20: So we are down to item nine, which is matters postponed, of which there are none.

01:49:13 Speaker 20: Motions for which notice was previously given, there are none.

01:49:17 Speaker 20: Correspondence provided for information.

01:49:18 Speaker 20: We have none this evening.

01:49:20 Speaker 20: Discussion of additional business.

01:49:21 Speaker 20: We had a few items.

01:49:24 Speaker 20: Member Krohn, go ahead.

01:49:26 Speaker 20: Yeah, through you, Mr. Chair.

01:49:28 Speaker 20: That's just for committee's information.

01:49:29 Speaker 08: There was a question asked earlier about the water metre replacement programmememe.

01:49:34 Speaker 08: We had our water metre replaced on Monday.

01:49:36 Speaker 08: Yes, we did.

01:49:37 Speaker 08: So the gentleman's name was Eugene.

01:49:41 Speaker 08: Very professional.

01:49:42 Speaker 08: Very knowledgeable.

01:49:44 Speaker 08: Fifteen minutes in the house, fifteen minutes outside the house, and he was gone.

01:49:47 Speaker 08: Yes, so no, no mess, no fuss.

01:49:51 Speaker 08: Relatively, he said it was a relatively easy installation, but went very well.

01:49:55 Speaker 08: So we'll see how much we're going to get hosed on water now.

01:50:02 Speaker 08: So I guess a good news story.

01:50:04 Speaker 08: And the vehicle he was in was like we have a very—you know—living in a kind of a small little cul-de-sac, and he's been around for the last couple of days.

01:50:11 Speaker 08: So, but he said things were going really well.

01:50:13 Speaker 08: He had just finished in Port Hope.

01:50:16 Speaker 08: They had just done Port Hope.

01:50:18 Speaker 08: When he gets done, I think he said when he gets done on Owen Sound in the fall, they go to Orangeville, and they start Toronto next year.

01:50:26 Speaker 08: So, yeah, City of Toronto.

01:50:28 Speaker 08: So, anyway, so a bit of good news.

01:50:32 Speaker 08: Thanks, Member Cron.

01:50:34 Speaker 07: Quick question: What's the expected lifespan of a water metre?

01:50:45 Speaker 07: To the chair.

01:50:47 Speaker 16: I used to know this number, but now I'm questioning myself.

01:50:55 Speaker 16: I think about 15 years.

01:50:57 Speaker 16: When was the last time they were put in?

01:50:59 Speaker 16: Oh, they—the ones that are in now were put in much longer than that.

01:51:04 Speaker 16: But I think that it's the battery that will die on you first on the head.

01:51:12 Speaker 16: I think we've got a committee member with that answer.

01:51:16 Speaker 16: Yes, you, chair.

01:51:19 Speaker 06: We also had ours replaced yesterday, and that was the question.

01:51:23 Speaker 06: I don't know if it was Eugene.

01:51:23 Speaker 06: I didn't catch his name, but I did ask that question, and he said 20 years is the lifespan.

01:51:32 Speaker 24: I hope they go longer because it's replacing one that's a lot older than that in my house.

01:51:39 Speaker 24: I've got three quick items this evening.

01:51:42 Speaker 24: The first one, perhaps, if I could just go to the director regarding the Downtown River Precinct Phase Two.

01:51:48 Speaker 24: So that big project last year did not quite get completed by year-end.

01:51:54 Speaker 24: There was some carryover.

01:51:55 Speaker 24: I'm just wondering what remains to be done as the snow has now melted and good working conditions are present.

01:52:05 Speaker 24: To you, Mr. Chair.

01:52:07 Speaker 12: So there's some cleanup work that they need to do.

01:52:10 Speaker 12: They need to finish off some details like planters.

01:52:18 Speaker 12: Oh yeah, yeah.

01:52:19 Speaker 12: There are a few little bits of corners that need to be fixed and that kind of thing, minor little things.

01:52:27 Speaker 12: And then as far as things that are still incomplete, there are a couple crosswalks that need to be finished off.

01:52:35 Speaker 12: Some streets.

01:52:35 Speaker 12: Some street sign modifications because we had to put them in basically just to make the roads safe to open for the winter.

01:52:44 Speaker 12: The riverbank shaping and landscaping still needs to be done.

01:52:49 Speaker 12: Yeah, there's quite a bit of landscaping I guess still left, and a couple other little odds and ends, ballards and that kind of thing.

01:53:00 Speaker 12: So sort of little detail-type items.

01:53:05 Speaker 12: But I'm not sure if my colleague has a date as to when they plan on returning to the site or not.

01:53:14 Speaker 03: Yes, through you, Mr. Chair, and members of committee, we had a meeting with the contractor at the beginning of last week, and he's intending to go get back in there probably early May.

01:53:29 Speaker 03: There is going to be a grand opening celebration, and he's been advised of that date, and that he needs to get the work completed before that, and that's in early June.

01:53:42 Speaker 03: There'll be further details about that in the near future.

01:53:47 Speaker 03: Okay, thank you very much for that update.

01:53:50 Speaker 20: Also, just providing for information for a committee, Grey County is undertaking some public engagement regarding their climate adaptation plan, and they've got cards distributed.

01:54:04 Speaker 20: So I'm just going to note in the next month because it is Earth Month.

01:54:08 Speaker 20: There's a lot going on.

01:54:10 Speaker 20: So county staff are attending such things as Earth Day with a booth, having community conversations.

01:54:20 Speaker 20: They're at a few different events over the next three or four weeks in the community as well.

01:54:25 Speaker 20: And there's also on grey dot ca backslash climate hyphen action is the website.

01:54:33 Speaker 20: There's also a 10-minute survey, which members of the community can go on and contribute to the completion of that climate adaptation plan being done by the county.

01:54:47 Speaker 20: So that is to build a more climate-resilient Grey.

01:54:53 Speaker 20: And thirdly, March 30th to April 2nd was this year's Good Roads Conference in Toronto, and I attended for one other councillor.

01:55:03 Speaker 20: I'm not sure who wasn't able to attend, and I was down with Director Widdifield.

01:55:10 Speaker 20: So just to speak to a couple items from this year's Good Roads Conference because it is certainly oriented to this committee, very technical in a lot of the sessions,

01:55:23 Speaker 20: but I just want to note that the keynote speaker was discussing car bloat and its subsequent impacts on society and municipal impacts as well.

01:55:33 Speaker 20: And I thought he actually is quite engaging, and it's quite a good topic.

01:55:40 Speaker 20: Actually, comparing the size of today's vehicles, both oversized pickup trucks with pickup trucks from 20 years ago, but also the weight of vehicles with batteries is not insignificant either.

01:55:53 Speaker 20: So that was a good opening keynote.

01:55:56 Speaker 20: I had attended some sessions, one on signs and lines, which focused on the topic of reflectivity to drivers, as well as a session on green infrastructure and resilient design.

01:56:07 Speaker 20: Another keynote speaker presented "Killed by a Traffic Engineer," which laid many different considerations for various modes of travel in design and build, and how they continue to evolve.

01:56:19 Speaker 20: And I'm not sure if Lara was in that big ballroom for that, but I'm glad they've certainly continued to evolve because there was some of those early integrations of cycling lanes.

01:56:32 Speaker 20: There were some dandy slides, but it continues to be a challenge trying to facilitate multiple modes of travel.

01:56:43 Speaker 20: And the last day, they did have an infrastructure update within the province in the 2024 assessment on roads and bridges.

01:56:52 Speaker 20: About 48% of municipalities reported very good or good roads, up from about 46% in 2019.

01:57:01 Speaker 20: However, about 30% were fair, which was down from 34% in 2018.

01:57:08 Speaker 20: With bridges and structures, 53% reported in very good or good, up from 47% in 2018.

01:57:16 Speaker 20: And I think the final number on the infrastructure deficit for roads and bridges and structures was about $43 billion, split between $20 billion for roads and I think $23 billion at this time,

01:57:38 Speaker 20: or as of 2024, on bridges across the province.

01:57:40 Speaker 20: So, not sure if Laura would like to add anything.

01:57:45 Speaker 20: I do have one question.

01:57:46 Speaker 20: I guess when I'm sitting in the lines, and we're talking about reflectivity and minimum maintenance standards.

01:57:52 Speaker 20: I think we do a really good job municipally here.

01:57:55 Speaker 20: However, if hard times were to beset communities and you had to make hard decisions, do we meet the minimum maintenance standard,

01:58:06 Speaker 20: or do we carry a standard that is somewhat above the minimum maintenance standard in our plans, policies, design standards?

01:58:16 Speaker 12: To the chair, operationally, it depends on the day, because obviously, like in extreme events, we wouldn't be, but we ask for relief through the significant weather event mechanism.

01:58:35 Speaker 12: But typically, we so on a general basis, we meet our minimum maintenance standards, acknowledging those exceptions.

01:58:44 Speaker 12: As far as our policies, as I've noted before, I think in a couple different reports, it's arguable that some of our policies exceed the minimum maintenance standards, which can be done.

01:59:02 Speaker 12: But the problem is that we still need a few pieces of more detailed information in order to really determine if they are in fact exceeding or if it was just a concern.

01:59:13 Speaker 12: It was just a conservative estimate based on the unknowns, so that's what we plan to dial in on this year.

01:59:24 Speaker 12: Okay, thank you.

01:59:25 Speaker 12: Any questions from committee?

01:59:27 Speaker 12: Not seeing any.

01:59:29 Speaker 12: So that does complete the additional business.

01:59:35 Speaker 12: Notices of motion is item 13.

01:59:37 Speaker 12: Any notices of motion?

01:59:38 Speaker 12: Not seeing any this evening.

01:59:39 Speaker 20: So item 14 is adjournment at 7:35.

01:59:42 Speaker 20: Thank you very much.