Owen Sound Committee - Operations Meeting Transcript — February 19, 2026

00:00:19 Christine Gilbert: Okay everyone It's five thirty so we're going to go ahead and get started here

00:00:32 Christine Gilbert: Okay so everyone welcome to the first operations committee meeting of the new term We have a couple new faces around the horseshoe today so maybe by starting we'll just go around and introduce ourselves We'll start over with you Graham

00:00:50 Member Jordan: Remember to push the button I'm Graham Jordan I'm new to this cycle but I have been on ops before so a few familiar faces and a few staff faces that I used to know that aren't here anymore So I'll have

00:01:04 Member Jordan: to know the new staff Looking forward to this term Thank you

00:01:09 Brock Hamley: Yep I'm Brock Hamley I'm one of the councilors

00:01:15 SPEAKER_625: I'm Arlene Blueindo I'm a public member

00:01:20 SPEAKER_625: Scott Craig deputy mayor

00:01:24 SPEAKER_625: Alida Schutter public member

00:01:28 Jon Farmer: John Farmer I'm one of the councillors I was on this committee for like six months when we drafted rules in 2022 and I'm back for the end of my tour

00:01:42 Jon Farmer: Michelle Hawkins public member

00:01:45 Jon Farmer: Carol Martin councillor

00:01:52 Jon Farmer: Donald Anderson community member

00:01:56 Jon Farmer: Tim Simmons City Manager

00:02:01 Jon Farmer: Laura Woodfield Director of Public Works and Engineering

00:02:12 Jon Farmer: Bryce McDonald Manager of Water and Wastewater

00:02:17 Christine Gilbert: Perfect And then Heidi and Mason if you want to come up

00:02:23 Heidi Jennen: Heidi Jennen Supervisor of Environmental Services

00:02:28 Mason Bellamy: Mason Bellamy Manager of Public Works and Engineering

00:02:33 Christine Gilbert: And I'm Christina McLean I'm the Committee and Executive Support Coordinator and also the Recording Secretary for all of these meetings

00:02:41 Christine Gilbert: So the first order of business on the agenda is election of a chair

00:02:48 Christine Gilbert: So the chair has to be a council member one of the council Members members that are on the committee and any anybody can nominate one of them for the role of chair

00:02:55 Christine Gilbert: If you have any questions while we go through it just let me know I'll start by just opening the floor for nominations for the position of chair

00:03:04 Brock Hamley: Councillor Hamley

00:03:06 Brock Hamley: I would nominate the deputy mayor

00:03:11 Christine Gilbert: Deputy mayor do you accept that nomination

00:03:13 Christine Gilbert: Yes

00:03:15 Christine Gilbert: Any further nominations

00:03:19 SPEAKER_034: Donald

00:03:20 SPEAKER_034: I would nominate John Farmer

00:03:24 SPEAKER_034: Councillor Farmer Do you accept that nomination

00:03:29 SPEAKER_034: Yes I would accept that

00:03:32 Christine Gilbert: Okay Any more nominations

00:03:37 Christine Gilbert: Okay Seeing none so since we have more than one nomination that somebody has accepted we'll move to a vote by a show of hands So raise your hand if you're all in favor of Deputy Mayor Greg for the position of

00:03:49 Christine Gilbert: chair

00:03:55 Christine Gilbert: and that's five so that is carried So Deputy Mayor Greg you can assume the chair for the remainder of the meeting

00:04:11 Scott Greig: Okay and thank you to my nominator and for the support This year the next step before us will be election of the vice chair

00:04:21 Scott Greig: Do I have any movers nominees Councillor Hamley

00:04:27 Scott Greig: I would nominate Councillor Farmer

00:04:32 Scott Greig: And Councillor Farmer do you accept that nomination

00:04:37 Scott Greig: I do

00:04:40 Scott Greig: And are there any other nominations for position of vice chair

00:04:45 Scott Greig: Asking a second time asking a third time not seeing any so I will declare nominations closed and acclaim Councillor Farmer as Vice Chair Thank you very much

00:04:59 Scott Greig: And we are to item having completed the elections Item four is call for additional business Is there any items this evening Councillor Farmer Go ahead

00:05:10 Jon Farmer: Through the chair I'd like to spend some time talking about traffic calming and And

00:05:15 Jon Farmer: design options to create safer more vibrant streets

00:05:23 Scott Greig: Noted Thank you Any other items of additional business

00:05:28 Scott Greig: Not seeing any Okay Declarations of interest Are there any declarations to be made by members of the committee at this time

00:05:38 Scott Greig: And if one should appear later during the meeting you're able to raise it at that point as well and so I'm not seeing any declarations of interest confirmation of minutes These minutes were approved by council without

00:05:55 Scott Greig: any comment or changes So at this time I'm just looking for a mover for receipt of those minutes Member Anderson has so moved Were there any questions comments to the minutes

00:06:07 Scott Greig: Not seeing any All those in favor

00:06:10 Scott Greig: That's carried thank you and we have two deputations presentations this evening So the first

00:06:17 Scott Greig: is presentation and orientation So I will pass the screen and the microphone over to Christina

00:06:27 Christine Gilbert: Okay so we just have a short introduction presentation New members met with us a few weeks ago to go over more of a fulsome orientation So this is just kind of a higher level overview I'm just going to do a

00:06:38 Christine Gilbert: couple Housekeeping slides first

00:06:43 Christine Gilbert: So this is an overview of the city's committee structure We currently have three standing committees Community Services Corporate Services and Operations One advisory committee which is the Tom Thompson Art Gallery and one ad hoc committee Service Review Implementation

00:07:01 Christine Gilbert: And each of the standing committees and the advisory committee are made up of a mix of council members and public members

00:07:10 Christine Gilbert: So minutes from all of these committee meetings go to council for final approval and they have the ultimate decisionmaking authority So that's why in reports you'll see wording such as the committee recommends that city council does X Y or Z

00:07:25 Christine Gilbert: And while council holds this decisionmaking authority committees have an important role in providing advice and recommendations hosting public meetings and open houses and monitoring and evaluating performances of programs and services

00:07:40 Christine Gilbert: So this committee typically meets the third Thursday of every month at five thirty here in the council chambers The interactive calendar on the website is up to date and everybody has

00:07:52 Christine Gilbert: Outlook calendar invites that have been sent as well I think some of them got resent today too So you can ignore those emails if you got them And please note that there's currently no meeting scheduled for the end of this

00:08:03 Christine Gilbert: year just due to The municipal election which is taking place in October

00:08:10 Christine Gilbert: Agendas are published the Friday before the meeting and I send out an email to everyone letting know that it's published and with a link to access all the materials Agendas are to be read prior to the meeting and as always

00:08:23 Christine Gilbert: please let me know if you can't attend a meeting to ensure that quorum will be met It's always too bad if everyone gets here and we're unable to proceed with the meeting And let me know if you need to attend

00:08:33 Christine Gilbert: Virtually and I can get you set up with a Teams link as well

00:08:38 Christine Gilbert: So the mandate of the Operations Committee which is why we're all here today to provide advice and recommendations to Council on public works and engineering policies programs and services provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and actions on policy

00:08:53 Christine Gilbert: programs and initiatives related to public works and engineering to implement and support the work of Council in achieving the vision goals and objectives of the city's strategic plan relating to public works and engineering

00:09:07 Christine Gilbert: to review provide feedback and participate in city policy development in areas relating to public works and engineering and to engage support and work collaboratively with partners So with that I'm just going to turn it over to our director of public

00:09:20 Christine Gilbert: works and engineering Laura and she's going to just provide some information and background on the department staff and highlights

00:09:29 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Christina So the divisions within the Public Works and Engineering Department include Environmental Services that's Heidi Transit also Heidi Engineering I guess represented by Mason tonight Public Works also Mason

00:09:46 Lara Widdifield: Water treatment and distribution and wastewater treatment and collection both Bryce

00:09:53 Lara Widdifield: So some common topics that we'll discuss at the committee will include asset management and infrastructure planning transit roads and bridges We also deal with corridor control It doesn't really come up too often at committee but we

00:10:09 Lara Widdifield: have discussed that before That's things like permits to use the roadways encroachments utility approvals road closures We assist with development review We oversee drainage

00:10:25 Lara Widdifield: and stormwater management engineering and

00:10:29 Lara Widdifield: engineering design and construction

00:10:32 Lara Widdifield: environmental sustainability fleet operation and maintenance solid waste

00:10:40 Lara Widdifield: We have two shuttered landfills I believe Two yeah two shuttered landfills So there's a quite a lot of administrative work still required even though they're closed Street lighting traffic Control signals

00:10:57 Lara Widdifield: and then as a winter maintenance everybody loves winter maintenance and then as I noted the water treatment and distribution and water wastewater collection and treatment So

00:11:12 Lara Widdifield: this is an image of our organizational structure for our department We have roughly fortytwo people in a variety of roles including engineering technologists and engineers

00:11:25 Lara Widdifield: We have superintendents that are the supervisor level of the outside staff if you will and then Heidi is the supervisor of sort of inside I guess So she's a supervisor not a superintendent

00:11:39 Lara Widdifield: We have a number

00:11:43 Lara Widdifield: qualified

00:11:44 Lara Widdifield: operators that operate our treatment plants and our

00:11:49 Lara Widdifield: piping systems

00:11:52 Lara Widdifield: and oh and we have a number of

00:11:55 Lara Widdifield: parttime casual staff that assist us with our household hazardous waste collections in the summer and a couple of staff that work out of our transit terminal

00:12:07 Lara Widdifield: So our the nature of our work is highly regulated Most of what we do is due to some law or other but we also have city policies our own standards and engineering standards best practices

00:12:25 Lara Widdifield: federal regulations and provincial regulations and they run the gamut from water environmental We we pay attention to road road design standards or geometric standards water and wastewater

00:12:42 Lara Widdifield: standards fisheries and environmental standards So there are a lot of rules that oh highway traffic act There are a lot of rules that we have to pay attention to when we do our work

00:12:55 Lara Widdifield: So a few interesting facts that I can provide to you the city held eight hazardous and special products waste events which served 1591 vehicles from five municipalities this past year We issued 159 temporary encroachment permits So

00:13:12 Lara Widdifield: as I mentioned those are permits for people that either need to place something within City property or road allowance or need to build something within that road allowance So we issue permits to make sure that we can pay attention to

00:13:28 Lara Widdifield: how they restore the area so they're not leaving a safety hazard Make sure that we have the opportunity to look at how they're accommodating traffic and a bunch of other good stuff to protect the overall health and safety of the

00:13:43 Lara Widdifield: community We issued eighteen special Or sorry we assisted with 18 special events Most of the special events that we help with are in the downtown so there's quite a bit of

00:13:57 Lara Widdifield: road detour and traffic control setup required So our staff put those up and take them down

00:14:07 Lara Widdifield: We issued 46 municipal consents Those are alignment approvals for utilities like the telecom companies gas

00:14:16 Lara Widdifield: not Not typically hydro but usually the Embridge Rogers and Bell

00:14:24 Lara Widdifield: We have twentyseven water main breaks I think that's twentynine isn't it Twentynine I believe And

00:14:31 Lara Widdifield: we service and maintain over two hundred and eighty lane kilometers of road and one hundred kilometers of side Oh yeah those are those are old too One hundred and six kilometers of sidewalk is the number that I've been using lately

00:14:43 Lara Widdifield: and ah 280 lane kilometers and a lane kilometer is literally what it sounds like Most of our roads are one lane each way so that would be two lane kilometers each way

00:14:57 Lara Widdifield: So that's how we how we keep track of

00:15:02 Lara Widdifield: that In 2025 our public works staff spent 588 hours on clearing snow around fire hydrants 1400 hours picking up garbage in the downtown That is a huge job and that is not like that's not little litter picking like cigarette butts

00:15:18 Lara Widdifield: That is picking up

00:15:20 Lara Widdifield: typically like illegally dumped waste in the downtown Nine hundred fortyfour hours on tree maintenance So that's all kinds of things tree tree trimming stump grinding moving logs

00:15:32 Lara Widdifield: One thousand one hundred fourteen hours maintaining the compost site We have a municipal compost site for leaf and yard waste during the summer months we have a staff person out there pretty much full time maintaining turning the piles

00:15:50 Lara Widdifield: just keeping the cleanliness of the site up to snuff We spent one thousand four fortyfive hours on pothole repair eight hundred and thirtytwo hours on other road and sidewalk repair and maintenance seventeen hundred and thirtyeight hours on catch

00:16:06 Lara Widdifield: basins storm and sanitary sewer installation and Maintenance maintenance and two thousand and thirtynine hours on hydrant maintenance So that includes flushing and repairs

00:16:18 Lara Widdifield: In two thousand twentyfive we launched the new green bin program which was very exciting for us It collected three hundred and ninetytwo and point well point six tons of compost within the first seven months and we saw a decrease of

00:16:32 Lara Widdifield: over two hundred and twenty tons of garbage during this time compared to two thousand and twentyfour So it's pretty impressive

00:16:40 Lara Widdifield: We partnered with Recycle Coach to help residents better understand how to sort waste by using the Recycle Coach app Highly recommend everybody takes a look at

00:16:49 Lara Widdifield: that We we substantially completed the water meter replacement project

00:16:54 Lara Widdifield: It's at about ninety nine percent completion The rest of it will be accomplished with city staff

00:17:01 Lara Widdifield: Phase one of the Ninth Avenue East project sustain substantially completed And will be finished in the spring with phase two proceeding shortly thereafter Sixteenth Avenue sanitary replacement project got underway It got reinstated for

00:17:17 Lara Widdifield: the winter but there's still more work to be done If you've had the misfortune of driving up that road I suggest you don't do it with an open cup of hot coffee

00:17:29 Lara Widdifield: We've we've been collecting data to begin informing the winter maintenance review because that that's a for those of you that don't know we have a service review project underway to really take a good hard look at our winter maintenance operations

00:17:44 Lara Widdifield: and see if there's ways that we can either do it more efficiently

00:17:48 Lara Widdifield: or well actually yeah more efficiently or better

00:17:54 Lara Widdifield: for 2026 we intend to complete our stormwater management master plan and drainage study

00:18:01 Lara Widdifield: it was at about 60 completion Completion as of the end of the year

00:18:06 Lara Widdifield: we have a sanitary replacement to undertake on 11th Street West in the 600 block There's a partial There's well There's a pretty severe defect there that we need to rehabilitate We'll

00:18:22 Lara Widdifield: be doing the winter maintenance review

00:18:25 Lara Widdifield: We we have our annual asphalt and concrete replacement contract that's typically scattered all over the city

00:18:33 Lara Widdifield: doing road resurfacing and concrete repairs we have a number of traffic traffic signal components that we're going to be replacing this year We had a long lag time of delivery delivery of components from two thousand and twentyfive

00:18:49 Lara Widdifield: so we've got sort of a double double cohort of work to do this year and we have Fourth Avenue West reconstruction phase one anyway

00:18:58 Lara Widdifield: That's an exciting project You'll be hearing more about that later and we are continuing on with our stormwater separation program

00:19:07 Lara Widdifield: Oh and there's more Sixteenth Avenue East sanitary sewer replacement that I just mentioned We're gonna we have to finish that Wastewater treatment plant bar screens that is also a project that is sort of a multiyear project but it's finally

00:19:24 Lara Widdifield: getting going with construction It's to enhance screening to remove large debris before it gets caught up in our system

00:19:34 Lara Widdifield: Water and wastewater capital needs assessment to tell us what what we need to deal with in our wastewater treatment plant and our water treatment plants We have master plans for our linear networks but we don't really have such a thing

00:19:50 Lara Widdifield: for our water and wastewater treatment plants So that will lay out logical order and give us cost estimates for budgeting purposes

00:20:00 Lara Widdifield: we will be doing a condition assessment on our municipal reservoir That is up on Eighth Eighth yes Eighth Street East of Ninth Avenue If you don't know where that is it's a

00:20:17 Lara Widdifield: big mound of looks like a mound of dirt but it's a big underground tank And we'll be finishing the Ninth Avenue East rehabilitation and we also have a transformer replacement that we're going to be doing the design for at the

00:20:32 Lara Widdifield: water treatment plant

00:20:35 Lara Widdifield: So we have a lot going on always do Welcome to our new members You will not be bored So if you have any questions I would be happy to take them

00:20:47 Scott Greig: Thank you very much for that overview of the year ahead and the year in review Laura Are there any questions from community members

00:20:57 Scott Greig: Member Jordan go ahead

00:21:00 Member Jordan: To the director I drive past the water treatment plant every day and I see it's been a long project And I see you spoke into a couple of matters here I wonder if you could give us a thumbnail outline of

00:21:12 Member Jordan: what has been going on there And

00:21:15 Member Jordan: what's

00:21:16 Member Jordan: Thank you

00:21:20 Lara Widdifield: Over to you Lara Through the chair I'm going to let Bryce talk about that one because he's ready to Through

00:21:30 Member Jordan 2: you Deputy Mayor Yeah

00:21:33 Member Jordan 2: So the water treatment plant upgrades are primarily around filter underdrains So this project was initiated I want to say probably in two thousand and twentythree two thousand twentyfour And the premise of it was to replace the old underdrain system and

00:21:49 Member Jordan 2: add air scouring capability to To those filter filter underdrains so the the major components of it have been installed The new blowers the new backwash pumps the new underdrain system in filter number three one of our four

00:22:05 Member Jordan 2: gravity filters That filter right now is currently in the commissioning stages We've had some challenges as most plants do when you're integrating old technology with new and old equipment with new trying to get that program to function properly in the

00:22:21 Member Jordan 2: backwash sequencing but we're getting very close to having filter three commissioned and then the other filters should be relatively routine because it's simply removing the old filter media removing the old underdrains installing the new underdrains and

00:22:37 Member Jordan 2: installing the new media All the programming will be in place and it should operate the same as the filter three which is being commissioned now So we're expecting I don't want to give any promises on timeline for it to be

00:22:50 Member Jordan 2: completed but it should speed up substantially once we have filter three commissioned which I would think would be by the end of next week or so and then we'll be on to the next filter

00:23:02 Member Jordan 2: Thank you

00:23:04 Member Jordan 2: Councilor Merton

00:23:06 Member Jordan 2: Through you Chair

00:23:09 Carol Merton: I'm wondering if it is possible to arrange for a tour of some of our key facilities like water and the water treatment for the committee

00:23:20 Carol Merton: Having had that experience early on I

00:23:24 Carol Merton: just found it so helpful to be able to start to see some of the things And there is no doubt that many of the things that are approved through this are recommended for approval to council through this committee are big

00:23:37 Carol Merton: ticket items You know we spend a lot of money at this committee So

00:23:43 Carol Merton: is that possible to arrange for our committee

00:23:48 Carol Merton: go to the director for a response

00:23:51 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair to Councilor Merton Yes absolutely We had a tour I think in the works last year but for some reason it didn't I think maybe timing didn't work out So yes we can absolutely organize that

00:24:06 Scott Greig: Okay thank you Any further questions to that orientation overview Not seeing any and we have two presentations this evening So the second is a presentation from Pearson Engineering And previous to or prior to going

00:24:22 Scott Greig: to the engineering company I'll go to Mason I guess for introduction So to Mason at this time

00:24:34 Mason Bellamy: You're working now There we go Thank you Chair I just like to take this time to introduce Jesse Borges from Pearson Engineering They were the successful proposal for this project Pearson's a local company here in Old Sound and I will

00:24:48 Mason Bellamy: turn it over to Jesse for his presentation and then he'll be available for some brief questions and then Laura and I from staff can answer some followup to that further Thank you

00:25:06 SPEAKER_626: Good evening to the committee members My name is Jesse Borges I'm the structural project manager at Pearson Pierce Engineering and our company is we're a local firm here in Owen Sound and we had the opportunity to work with the city

00:25:20 SPEAKER_626: on the 16th Street East Pedestrian Tunnel Rehabilitation and the sidewalk expansion So I'll take you guys through the presentation today I'll answer any questions you guys have at the end but if there's any questions halfway through please let me know

00:25:39 SPEAKER_626: So

00:25:41 SPEAKER_626: we just ran a PIC presentation

00:25:43 SPEAKER_626: out in the atrium There we had some members from the public come out We had some

00:25:52 SPEAKER_626: groups come out Gray County came out Some members from the school board So we collected all those comments and we'll use those to help prepare the finalized design So our presentation tables will walk you guys through the present the PIC

00:26:07 SPEAKER_626: presentation that we did with the public and give you guys an overview of what the proposed preliminary design is right now

00:26:20 SPEAKER_626: So as part of this project we did some background studies Our

00:26:25 SPEAKER_626: structural team did an existing condition assessment of the 16th Street East Pedestrian Tunnel which is located over the Gray County CPR Rail Trail System

00:26:35 SPEAKER_626: We did Multiple top topographic surveys of the roadway embankment and trail system in that area to figure out the existing conditions and then we had a subconsultant

00:26:48 SPEAKER_626: join our team as part of this project and they completed some borehole drilling on 16th Street East adjacent to the tunnel

00:26:57 SPEAKER_626: partly to figure out the soil conditions in the area for any rehabilitation work that we are doing for the roadway any retaining walls that we may or may not be adding As well as looking at excess soils we're doing some

00:27:08 SPEAKER_626: sampling to make sure that any disposal of any soil material that may come off the site is disposed of in the in the right way

00:27:17 SPEAKER_626: So the first thing we'll talk about is the existing condition of the 16th Street East Pedestrian Tunnel

00:27:24 SPEAKER_626: It is tunnel again located over the CPR Rail Trail It's approximately four meters wide approximately four meters tall

00:27:34 SPEAKER_626: It has some minor concrete deterioration at the ends Some deterioration on the soffit the inside of the of the structure due to water leaking issues I'm very familiar with this trail having used it quite

00:27:51 SPEAKER_626: a bit in the winter time Iceicles build up at the joint locations which creates a little bit of a hazard So the structure was put in I think around Two thousand five two thousand six So to ensure a structure of

00:28:06 SPEAKER_626: this size because it's quite big and it's in the depth of it below the roadway is quite extensive we want to make sure that the service life of this structure is maintained and that the city isn't looking into a larger

00:28:19 SPEAKER_626: rehabilitation in the future

00:28:24 SPEAKER_626: So the proposed rehabilitation work

00:28:27 SPEAKER_626: includes installing a waterproof membrane and a concrete distribution slab over the tunnel This will help with water infiltrating through the joints We'll also be repairing poor concrete areas inside and outside of the structure Right

00:28:44 SPEAKER_626: now the interior of the structure the joints do have some minor breakdowns There's been some attempts in the past to patch some poor concrete areas

00:28:54 SPEAKER_626: So we also want to make sure that it's there's a level of safety for people using the trail We don't want any loose concrete falling on onto pedestrians

00:29:05 SPEAKER_626: We are looking at the option of installing some interior lighting as well as painting over the graffiti inside the tunnel Based on the comments we received during the PIC you know

00:29:19 SPEAKER_626: the graffiti

00:29:21 SPEAKER_626: is seen as as you know a visually appealing

00:29:27 SPEAKER_626: component of the tunnel and there's been comments by by city staff by even by the public that whether or not we should just allow the graffiti to remain and maybe adjust some portions of it

00:29:40 SPEAKER_626: that have some profanity

00:29:43 SPEAKER_626: Regarding the lighting

00:29:46 SPEAKER_626: it's our understanding from talking with Gray County that there was previous lighting installed in the tunnel when the structure was first installed it was removed after Some some vandalizing that happened and so right now we're

00:30:02 SPEAKER_626: looking at the option of it We're talking to city staff about that but we're trying to look at you know how do we make sure that the lights stay working Who maintains them and how does that get addressed The trail

00:30:13 SPEAKER_626: system is maintained by Gray County The structure and the roadway are maintained by the city So

00:30:21 SPEAKER_626: and then as part of the scope of work

00:30:25 SPEAKER_626: city staff asked us to expand that scope to look at potential widening options to the roadway to install a new sidewalk to address the future development that that's being seen in this area of Owen Sound So I'll bring you guys

00:30:39 SPEAKER_626: through the presentation You guys will see some pictures of that but it would involve installing a new one five meter sidewalk and some curbs and some new guide rail

00:30:49 SPEAKER_626: Construction is anticipated

00:30:52 SPEAKER_626: if approvals are reached to to go from spring 2026 to fall 2026 and it's estimated that for 16th Street East there would be some lane closures Traffic flow would still be maintained but it would be a single lane closure that's

00:31:07 SPEAKER_626: operated by temporary lights

00:31:12 SPEAKER_626: So the proposed tunnel rehabilitation there's potential that we'd install some new segmental block retaining walls on the south side of the tunnel to accommodate the potential widening the sidewalk We look at whether or not some additional lighting inside the tunnel

00:31:27 SPEAKER_626: would I

00:31:32 Scott Greig: would just go to Benbury Anderson with a question Go ahead Donna

00:31:39 SPEAKER_034: Hi through you Mr Chair Jesse I'm just curious because of my lack of vision I'm going to ask that Are you describing the pictures and photos that are being presented with detail or just Glossing over for the general cited staff

00:31:52 SPEAKER_034: and council members here

00:31:56 SPEAKER_626: I was I was doing a little bit of a summary of the of the components of the slide that have a lot of writing on it We're just getting into the pictures now so if we want to add more details

00:32:06 SPEAKER_626: into descriptions I'm more than happy to

00:32:15 SPEAKER_626: Yeah that's no problem So we're looking at the proposed tunnel rehabilitation The first picture we're looking at is it is a typical picture of something representing the tunnel that we have right now We are looking at installing some segmental block

00:32:30 SPEAKER_626: retaining walls at the south end of the tunnel to accommodate the widening

00:32:36 SPEAKER_626: Regarding the new lighting it would be new lighting inside the tunnel that would either be mounted directly to the ceiling or to the sides That would provide some lighting inside the tunnel especially Especially for nighttime use

00:32:49 SPEAKER_626: the next picture is showing actually the existing tunnel itself with some AI help

00:32:58 SPEAKER_626: with the walls of the interior of the tunnel cleaned up and showing bare concrete again So it would be the removal of the graffiti Again we are looking at whether or not we could actually proceed with that work

00:33:11 SPEAKER_626: The next picture shows new hazard signs being installed at the ends of the of the tunnel for recreational vehicles using the trail the hazard signs right now are beat up and they're and they're painted over so those get mounted to

00:33:27 SPEAKER_626: each exterior wall of the tunnel and they're just the yellow and black signs that allow people to know that there's a potential hazard coming up

00:33:35 SPEAKER_626: The next picture shows some typical concrete repair details where where there's deteriorated concrete on the structure that deteriorated Concrete is chipped out and then if additional reinforcing is required that gets installed

00:33:52 SPEAKER_626: before they pour a new concrete patch over top and clean everything up And then the final picture in this slide is depicting a some steel reinforcing being installed over top of the culvert before the distribution slab gets installed So the

00:34:08 SPEAKER_626: distribution slab is a three hundred mil thick slab that gets poured over the entire top of the culvert It's partially used as a sacrificial layer for any future deterioration We don't want the precast component of the tunnel to get damaged

00:34:25 SPEAKER_626: It also acts as a bit of a structural

00:34:30 SPEAKER_626: component to make sure that the components the precast box culverts are installed in segments There it's multiple components of the precast box cover culvert that gets pushed together

00:34:42 SPEAKER_626: So this slab what it does it ties everything together to make sure those joints don't open up anymore

00:34:49 SPEAKER_626: So then we'll just move on to the next slide So the next slide is showing pictures of the proposed road rehabilitation

00:34:57 SPEAKER_626: The current plan is to

00:35:00 SPEAKER_626: pave the eastbound lane of 16th Street East and to maintain the existing lane and shoulder of the northbound Sorry the westbound lane

00:35:11 SPEAKER_626: We would also put in a new grass boulevard which is shown in the second photo and a new sidewalk So there would be a onepointfivemeter grass boulevard before the onepointfivemeter sidewalk that gets installed right beside the asphalt roadway The

00:35:27 SPEAKER_626: next picture shows a new steel beam guide rail system being installed adjacent to the eastbound lane just after the sidewalk Currently there's a threecable guide rail system The steel beam guide rail is a an improved guide rail system

00:35:44 SPEAKER_626: It also has lower maintenance when it's not subjected to to impact damage Cable guide rails typically utilize wood posts which break down more than the steel beam guide rail posts And steel the cable guide rails tend to need to be

00:35:59 SPEAKER_626: tightened quite often especially when snow gets pushed up against them

00:36:04 SPEAKER_626: The next photo is just showing that when we do the roadway widening to allow that new sidewalk to be installed that we will

00:36:15 SPEAKER_626: put new topsoil on any of the bankments that are disturbed make sure they're seeded and then make sure that an erosion protection measure such as erosion control blanket is installed

00:36:27 SPEAKER_626: over top of the new topsoil and seed so that the seed the seed has a chance to grow before the rainfall you know washes it down the embankment embankments

00:36:37 SPEAKER_626: The next photo

00:36:39 SPEAKER_626: illustrates that as part of the roadway rehabilitation we'll add some new stormwater catchment basins to the east side of the road Just some localized structures in lower areas and they'll outlet onto the into the embankments onto into swales and eventually

00:36:54 SPEAKER_626: into the ditches And then the last photo in this is a new mountable curb and gutter along the eastbound lane so that will go in between the asphalt roadway and the grass Grass Boulevard

00:37:08 SPEAKER_626: So the next slide talks about potential impacts to local residents I'll just go through some of the bullet points Construction work I mean there's has the potential of creating some noise issues for local residents

00:37:23 SPEAKER_626: In this particular project there's not a lot of local residents in the area so that the impact should be minor But

00:37:31 SPEAKER_626: regardless we'll still be maintaining the bylaw the city's bylaw of seven am to seven pm work

00:37:36 SPEAKER_626: Traffic flow interruptions

00:37:39 SPEAKER_626: There will be some temporary lane closures as part of the rehabilitation work Again those will be maintained by temporary traffic signals that will allow traffic to flow in each direction at any given point during construction

00:37:57 SPEAKER_626: Utility disruptions Again this is a There should be little to no impacts in this regard There isn't very many utilities out there but we always like to identify there is potential of that

00:38:08 SPEAKER_626: Tree removals in the in the area again

00:38:12 SPEAKER_626: there should be very little impacts to tree removals as much as possible We try to leave

00:38:19 SPEAKER_626: vegetation and trees when they can stay and we will not be completing any tree removals on private property without permission And then finally in probably the bigger one is the recreational trail and the impacts to that

00:38:34 SPEAKER_626: So the city will work with Gray County to keep the public up to date on that

00:38:39 SPEAKER_626: There's potential of some temporary closures We are still looking at the option of whether or not the trail would be closed for that entire construction period or if we would do periodic closures depending on what work is being completed at

00:38:52 SPEAKER_626: the time

00:38:57 SPEAKER_626: And so the next slide is showing a drawing of a plan view and cross section of the existing conditions of the roadway The current roadway for 60th Street East has a lane in each direction and two 26 meter wide

00:39:13 SPEAKER_626: paved shoulders The next slide is showing the new construction So the proposed scope of work for this is we will do asphalt removal to the centerline of the road

00:39:27 SPEAKER_626: remove the eastbound lane paved shoulder to accommodate the the installation of the new curb boulevard and sidewalk and the guide rail system So there is

00:39:42 SPEAKER_626: minor embankment widening that's being taken place to accommodate this work Unfortunately that the farther we push out it doesn't take very much to increase that bankman widening considerably

00:39:54 SPEAKER_626: but

00:39:56 SPEAKER_626: in the hopes that we've been talking with the city about how do we accommodate this project while keeping budgets in mind things like allowing the northbound lane to remain paved and not touching that the asphalt is generally in good shape

00:40:10 SPEAKER_626: so we're doing what we can with city staff to make sure that we're spending money money where it needs to be spent

00:40:18 SPEAKER_626: And then the last slide here shows a drawing of the rehabilitation work to the actual culvert itself

00:40:26 SPEAKER_626: So we will be installing a threemill thick distribution slab on top of the culvert

00:40:33 SPEAKER_626: Then that gets waterproofed over top of it with a with a membrane to stop water from leaking through the joints which is always a big issue with precast culverts

00:40:43 SPEAKER_626: We're actually looking at an option with the city too Culvert

00:40:48 SPEAKER_626: suppliers have started coming out with this new geomembrane system that can be installed in the granular layer over top of the culvert It's almost similar to a pool liner So any water that filtrates through the roadway it actually gets directed

00:41:00 SPEAKER_626: away from the culvert and put into subdrains and put into the embankments So that's actually shown on this drawing too It's a relatively low cost and it gives the waterproofing membrane that's on the culvert more more time before it has

00:41:13 SPEAKER_626: to be subjected to water Minor concrete repairs inside the culvert and on top and on Each culvert end and then we're also looking at the installation of a segmental block retaining wall on the south side to accommodate the embankment widening

00:41:34 SPEAKER_626: And I think that's it

00:41:37 Scott Greig: Okay thank you very much Jesse And I'll start with Councilor Hamley with questions first

00:41:43 Brock Hamley: I just had a question on the on the sidewalk and the guardrail like it's the road and then the sidewalk and then the guardrail Why isn't it the road the guardrail and then the sidewalk Like why is the guardrail not

00:41:57 Brock Hamley: in between the two things

00:42:01 SPEAKER_626: Yeah So the guide rail is is on the side of the embankment Part of the issue with putting the guide rail within the boulevard area is that the city needs the ability to do snow removal That close to the road

00:42:15 SPEAKER_626: it's going to get damaged And impacts any ability to maintain snow storage or snow removal in that limit But what we're trying to do is make sure even pedestrians on the sidewalk the embankments are relatively steep and there's a fall

00:42:30 SPEAKER_626: hazard at the structure So we want to make sure that pedestrians are being moved away from those embankments

00:42:39 Scott Greig: Okay good question Councillor Farmer Next

00:42:43 Jon Farmer: thank you through the chair I have one fewer question thanks to Councillor Hamley I am under the impression and maybe I'll look to staff that with the new high school that's going to be constructed in the area that the high

00:42:56 Jon Farmer: school property will have trails that connect to the rail trail I'm curious about how we're anticipating or integrating the idea of agile and impatient teenagers getting to lunch as soon as they can by going down the rail trail to

00:43:12 Jon Farmer: the great new sidewalk As someone who was formerly a teen and is currently impatient and reasonably agile I would just climb the embankment And I'm wondering if we've considered integrating the trail and the nice new sidewalk

00:43:28 Mason Bellamy: Through Council Farmer staff have looked at that option and we've been in many discussions with the school board for a similar effect So they are looking to have a threeseason connection to the rail trail but being that it's predominantly used

00:43:41 Mason Bellamy: by snowmobiles in the winter it'll just be a threeseason trail So they as part of the development will also be doing a sidewalk to connect to where we end off on this limits whether it's temporary or permanent So looking for

00:43:53 Mason Bellamy: a permanent option to go around

00:43:56 Mason Bellamy: As far as a longterm solution of the impatient teenager we'll call it We're looking to incorporate some of those in the future development on the west side of the rail trail

00:44:07 Mason Bellamy: We did look at an option to navigate the grade Difference difference from the rail trail up to 16th Avenue and it's just not possible to meet accessibility standards based on the grade change We did have peers look at that and

00:44:18 Mason Bellamy: it's just it's really challenging based on our

00:44:21 Mason Bellamy: well the current property we own Even if we owned a private property it's quite an additional expense to make that grade change

00:44:29 Mason Bellamy: Thank you I

00:44:32 Mason Bellamy: am also curious

00:44:34 Mason Bellamy: about

00:44:36 Jon Farmer: yeah number of questions One about the lighting

00:44:39 Jon Farmer: Is there any consideration into balancing the benefit of having that tunnel be lit but also trying to not add more light pollution or have some sort of maybe

00:44:50 Jon Farmer: dark sky supportive solution for timing or motion sensors things like that

00:44:58 SPEAKER_626: Yeah that's definitely something that we can we can work with the city on Again like I said there was lighting inside that tunnel when it was first installed but the lighting was damaged And then there was just some

00:45:10 SPEAKER_626: things that need to be worked out as far as who is maintaining the or replacing the new lights If the new light system is installed we can work with the city to figure out you know what kind of lighting system

00:45:20 SPEAKER_626: can be implemented so they're not on all the time Is it motion sensor operated But we want to make sure that we're looking at a solution that isn't going to create a future maintenance issue for the city We've even talked

00:45:32 SPEAKER_626: about whether or not the lighting could be implemented into an into the project as a provisional scope and we can see what kind of pricing we got with it Through the chair again

00:45:49 Jon Farmer: as we talk about maintenance costs is looking ahead to the landscape design portions of this Is there any consideration to replacing the grass in the boulevard with low

00:46:02 Jon Farmer: height perennial to To remove that cost and all also support some of the

00:46:08 Jon Farmer: work that the city's been doing in partnership around pollinatorfriendly ecosystemfriendly design

00:46:18 Jon Farmer: Go to Lara for a response there

00:46:22 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair to Councilor Farmer

00:46:25 Lara Widdifield: There are there are various seed mixes Like

00:46:29 Lara Widdifield: theoretically this would be hydroseeded right Yeah So it'd be hydroseeded So we could use whatever seed mix we want to and there would be there are like wildflower roadside mixes that could be used

00:46:41 Lara Widdifield: It's typically a little bit more cost but

00:46:44 Lara Widdifield: realistically nobody's going be out there mowing regularly anyway So eventually it's going to be full of those plants anyway So there may be some benefit to using some of those seeds right off the get go We can look at it

00:47:01 Lara Widdifield: Councilor Varma

00:47:03 Jon Farmer: and a final question around the graffiti My experience of local graffiti is that some of it is very artistic and some of it is racist and misogynist I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to start with a blank slate and then

00:47:18 Jon Farmer: use the public art and community engagement practices that the city has articulated in other

00:47:27 Jon Farmer: plans and strategies to

00:47:30 Jon Farmer: Mimic maybe what's on the second half artist alley with art that looks good and is there on purpose and has fewer words that I don't want to explain to my four year old

00:47:43 Jon Farmer: I'll just have you turn your microphone on there Jesse

00:48:15 Jon Farmer: There we go

00:48:17 SPEAKER_626: Yes I am complete agreement There are some images and words on there right now that that aren't great for people using the trail

00:48:27 SPEAKER_626: We have talked to we talked to some of your council members about this in the PIC about the opportunity of the fact that well that the graffiti as it stands right now

00:48:37 SPEAKER_626: even some of public we're talking about it about how the graffiti shows you know some history of the tunnel being installed we can talk with city staff about whether or not can we keep some of the existing graffiti there and

00:48:51 SPEAKER_626: add on to it or do we look at engaging some local artists and with that blank slate

00:48:59 SPEAKER_626: giving an opportunity to put something on there that that's a little bit more pleasant Always the hardship is regardless of what we do it doesn't stop people from still vandalizing it

00:49:12 Scott Greig: Okay thanks for that response So I'll go to Member Anderson next then Member Jordan

00:49:18 SPEAKER_034: Through you Mr Chair I want to thank Jesse and his colleagues When I read the print re report that was presented to committee members there was very well described

00:49:30 SPEAKER_034: words and phrases used for the pictures and photos that were presented So I wanted to commend your

00:49:37 SPEAKER_034: work on doing that making it very descriptive and thank you today for describing the pictures and photos that were up Also a comment following Council Farmer's suggestion about maybe creating a new slate and having our local artists contribute like much

00:49:53 SPEAKER_034: of our work downtown

00:49:55 SPEAKER_034: That would be very appreciated by some of us Although I wouldn't see it it might be an opportunity to create some tactile photos in that as well or descriptions Thank

00:50:12 Scott Greig: Okay go to member Anders member Jordan and then member Merton next

00:50:19 Member Jordan: Thank you Chair My question to the engineers is about the

00:50:25 Member Jordan: appearance that the eastern or the southern end of this structure is getting a lot more consideration engineering design and so on than is the northern end And why would that be Am I misinformed

00:50:42 SPEAKER_626: So we will be addressing all the concrete deterioration issues on throughout the entire structure including the distribution slab being installed the waterproofing any repairs to inside the structure and the repairs to the ends of the culvert Both ends of the

00:50:57 SPEAKER_626: culvert will get new We'll fix the concrete up and get new hazard signs The segment of block wall that's going on the south side of the structure is primarily for the roadway widening that's happening on the south side As we're

00:51:12 SPEAKER_626: not doing any work roadway widening on the north we won't be installing a Retaining retaining wall on that side because then embankments right now are stable and vegetated

00:51:28 Member Jordan: So if I understand the pictures that I've seen there are these retaining walls on the southern face Is there something similar going to be installed on the northern face or is the terrain different from the north and the south that

00:51:43 Member Jordan: it's not necessary

00:51:45 Member Jordan: on the north end

00:51:48 SPEAKER_626: Right now the north and south side of the of the tunnel are

00:51:53 SPEAKER_626: relatively the same Because of the new sidewalk the top of the embankment for the south side of road is getting pushed out which is raising the slope of the embankment So the new retaining walls that are on the south side

00:52:08 SPEAKER_626: are there to make sure that the widening of the embankment doesn't go beyond the end of the culvert

00:52:14 SPEAKER_626: Because we're not doing anything like that to the north side right now We're not looking at installing retaining walls on the north side of the pedestrian tunnel

00:52:24 SPEAKER_626: Thank you If that makes sense

00:52:27 SPEAKER_626: Councilor Merton next

00:52:30 Carol Merton: Through you Chair Just a request Not sure through to you Jesse or the staff When you look at the graffiti and you start to evaluate what to do

00:52:40 Carol Merton: is it possible to engage the school and the students In that conversation and make it a way to involve them because they will be the ones who are really using this

00:52:51 Carol Merton: to some significant extent and it would be great to be able to involve them in that as a project as well Thank you

00:52:59 SPEAKER_626: Yeah we'll definitely work with the city on engaging all parties considered for the graffiti

00:53:08 Scott Greig: Okay not seeing any other questions from committee Just a couple thoughts I also had that wrote down Councilor Irton but the proximity to the high school and the art classes right there is a potential resource down the road But that's

00:53:20 Scott Greig: just certainly down the road

00:53:22 Scott Greig: Provisionally I like the thoughts of lighting I can just imagine that lighting is is what it is It gets broke by individuals who don't care for it and I think we'll just walk that same path again by by lighting It

00:53:36 Scott Greig: would be my concern So the idea of a provisional item I think makes a lot of sense If you need lighting and you're cycling at night then you've got lighting on your bike

00:53:47 Scott Greig: So having it dark at both ends and it's lit through the tunnel And I can just imagine the ongoing maintenance concern with it I like the the art there That's now I kind of am quite supportive of retaining or examining

00:54:01 Scott Greig: retaining that I ran through there one evening and had a fellow runner comment on the quality of a Banksy

00:54:09 Scott Greig: balloon girl that was done on the inside

00:54:13 Scott Greig: and there is there is some real

00:54:17 Scott Greig: community

00:54:19 Scott Greig: It's a little bit of a community asset

00:54:22 Scott Greig: without the foul language and so forth But that's something maybe down the

00:54:27 Scott Greig: we'll get support with the community in terms of maintaining that and cleaning it up perhaps the school whatever So exciting to have this finally It's been on the books for a couple years now and to see it moving ahead One

00:54:40 Scott Greig: question

00:54:41 Scott Greig: We realized it last year with Sixteenth Avenue in the sixteen hundred block down to the the nineteen hundred block being closed Your comments about detours and traffic flow I wouldn't think we would want to begin or commence

00:54:57 Scott Greig: this job while Sixteenth Avenue could be

00:55:01 Scott Greig: also still under work What's your plans with staff in terms of timelines and guiding traffic appropriately

00:55:11 Mason Bellamy: Thank you Chair Talking with Pearson we are looking to have this construction start early summer would be would be our best hope and our intention by that point is Sixteenth Avenue will be completed prior to June one st as our

00:55:24 Mason Bellamy: current intention on that one So there may be some overlap but we're going to try to minimize that as little as possible

00:55:31 Scott Greig: That sounds good to hear Thanks for that Not seeing Any any other questions Is just a deputation this evening so no further action needed and

00:55:41 Scott Greig: and staff will be working closely with Jesse and your partner in furthering the project So thank you very much for the presentation this evening Jesse Thank you

00:55:51 Scott Greig: Next item is public forum under item eight and there is no members of the public here this evening We have no correspondence items being presented for consideration so we are down to reports of city staff The first report is ten

00:56:04 Scott Greig: A one and it is regarding the two thousand and annual organizational work plan So over to Lara

00:56:14 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Mr Chair This report is identical to one presented at

00:56:21 Lara Widdifield: community services last night and there will be one at corporate services as well

00:56:30 Lara Widdifield: this year in order for the committees and council to get a really good concept of how much work is done within the corporation in a given year all of the projects were put into one essentially

00:56:46 Lara Widdifield: one document and

00:56:48 Lara Widdifield: that is spoken to in this And it

00:56:54 Lara Widdifield: all of our projects are looping back to our strategic plan

00:57:00 Lara Widdifield: We're looking at interdepartmental resources and well it's a much more collaborative process than we have used in the past So I think it would be easiest if you have any questions

00:57:16 Lara Widdifield: I would be happy to answer them

00:57:20 Scott Greig: Thank you very much And with that introduction are there any questions regarding the organizational work plan Which before entertaining such I will comment This is a pretty good document just for all of us to kind of bookmark and be able

00:57:34 Scott Greig: to reference through the year I know it's something I've heard in commentary from members in the past is losing sight of what we do through the year And this is the kind of

00:57:46 Scott Greig: material we get the start of the year that is really good to look back at So Councilor Farmer go ahead

00:57:52 Jon Farmer: Through the chair just for the sake of maybe stating the obvious just clarifying that the numbers that we see for project numbers that shows the year in which something was started as the document says We've carried some stuff forward There's

00:58:07 Jon Farmer: some stuff that we're starting this year

00:58:09 Jon Farmer: Just looking to make that explicit

00:58:14 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair yes in general that is the case Some of them are odd in that we've continued to add budget funding to like multiyear projects Some of them made while you see some two thousand and projects They're elaborate

00:58:31 Lara Widdifield: involved drawnout projects They start with a study and then we go to design and then we go to construction and sometimes the construction takes more than a year Like so it adds up that particularly in this department there will be

00:58:47 Lara Widdifield: some olderlooking project numbers in the current year

00:58:54 Jon Farmer: And through the could we get some feedback or background for staff Some of the projects that are listed the descriptions make them seem like big projects and there's no budget allocated to them When we see that with a project what

00:59:09 Jon Farmer: does that mean for where the money is coming from or whether that's an operational or a capital expense How do we make sense of that

00:59:20 Lara Widdifield: Without looking at something specifically typically those would be operational projects like service review projects or policy reviews and things like that are of an operational nature that staff would be doing as a normal course of their jobs

00:59:36 Lara Widdifield: but that it consumes enough time and enough resources particularly interdepartmental resources that

00:59:45 Lara Widdifield: it necessitates really calling it project or having like a specific group of people that are working towards the objective and I will just point out that each of the budget cards at the very back of the

01:00:00 Lara Widdifield: extensive

01:00:03 Scott Greig: document Once you're in the pages three hundred and fifty and forward then you'll get into how everything's paid for whether it's OCIF funding tax levy water rates wastewater rates reserve transfers If something doesn't get done in the year that we

01:00:18 Scott Greig: plan it those monies are basically kept in reserve and then drawn from So that budget card is continually

01:00:28 Scott Greig: changing to demonstrate that

01:00:31 Scott Greig: what's happened with it

01:00:33 Scott Greig: Any further questions Not seeing any I did have one just to piggyback off Councillor Farmer too How do we know And and my question is essentially the exact same I'm going to point at 22 and six as the transformer replacement

01:00:47 Scott Greig: at Water Treatment Plant Is is 2022

01:00:50 Scott Greig: When you look at that

01:00:53 Scott Greig: we wouldn't realize that That my first question is Have we done that And we're doing it again How do we know the difference Because also there's the River Precinct Phase Two which we have done a few years ago Why is

01:01:07 Scott Greig: it still there What's it take to finally have some of these drop off the books Because I think Phase Two of the River Project is a good example Like

01:01:16 Scott Greig: why is it still in there

01:01:19 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Mr Chair That that that's actually a really good question That is a very strange project It started I think maybe just around the time that I started here or maybe just a bit before and it was originally conceived

01:01:34 Lara Widdifield: that because that transformer is original to the water treatment plant so it's from one thousand nine sixty something That

01:01:44 Lara Widdifield: its parts are becoming very scarce and eventually it's not going to work anymore And it takes a long time to order a transformer So the concept was that we would be able to essentially specify get a consultant specify a transformer

01:02:01 Lara Widdifield: and then just order it and have it on hand for when that one dies and we can just have it installed

01:02:09 Lara Widdifield: It so that evolved into Well

01:02:15 Lara Widdifield: you own the superstructure so I don't know if you're familiar with it but

01:02:20 Lara Widdifield: when you drive by you can see it There's a big like gantry and a bunch of wires and insulators and stuff on top of it Apparently the city owns all of that and we typically normally wouldn't We assumed it was

01:02:33 Lara Widdifield: the hydro companies

01:02:35 Lara Widdifield: So then the project gets bigger and more complicated and yeah and the transformers yeah and so

01:02:44 Lara Widdifield: it stalled for a while we tried to figure out what to do with it So that explains some of the time lag there And so now we're trying to change gears We're going to be looking at somebody that can actually

01:03:01 Lara Widdifield: specify the whole project and then move forward with it Because the way that we were doing it before as I said I think in other Meetings weren't necessarily thought all the way through to the end though admirable

01:03:19 Lara Widdifield: You can't just

01:03:21 Lara Widdifield: buy something and install it There's always repercussions to installing a piece of equipment or there are costs that for piping and

01:03:32 Lara Widdifield: other parts that need to be adapted or replaced in addition to that particular piece of equipment So things have a tendency to expand

01:03:43 Lara Widdifield: so that's why we're going to be doing the capital needs assessment so that we have a very wellinformed plan going forward and we'll have hopefully no more of these projects that sit for a years

01:03:59 Lara Widdifield: because we really don't know what to do with them

01:04:04 Scott Greig: Perfect and you led me into my second and last question the capital needs assessment and flow meter well those two those were new additions to the capital plan for 2026

01:04:17 Scott Greig: And committee hasn't seen this but council did They were funded by reallocations of existing

01:04:24 Scott Greig: capital jobs Could you just comment or yourself or Bryce comment in terms of what those other projects were that have been reallocated in terms of priorities so that the capital needs Assessment and flow meters have been funded

01:04:40 Member Jordan 2: Yeah through your chair So yeah the capital needs assessment was identified like Laura Laura alluded to there a little bit was a lot of these projects were identified through a previous facility capital needs assessment which I believe dated back to

01:04:56 Member Jordan 2: like the P S A P times when they were trying to do asset identification and hierarchy and they were given

01:05:04 Member Jordan 2: they were given sums of money that would kind of allocate the cost of that asset for replacing like for like So a lot of these projects that were a lot of these dollar figures that were pulled into these projects were

01:05:16 Member Jordan 2: pulled with very broad or very loose titles and topics and given a dollar figure and that end up forming the basis of some of our projects going forward such as sluice gate replacement which was

01:05:32 Member Jordan 2: in itself to replace these large thirtysix inch wide sluice gates might be a relatively reasonable cost for the actual structure but doesn't account for all the disruption that leads to getting this

01:05:48 Member Jordan 2: sluice gate installed and the design and contingency planning and the other

01:05:54 Member Jordan 2: process impacts that it may have So although those numbers may have been correct they were given as a single dollar figure in a single year with no plan to execute and no thought of how they were going to affect other

01:06:08 Member Jordan 2: projects So

01:06:10 Member Jordan 2: like Laura was saying to take a step back so we have these projects that are more clearly defined with contingency plans in place with proper staging plans in place with proper time to do design engineering and procurement of this

01:06:27 Member Jordan 2: That is the real need for the capital Needs study and these previous studies that were done were looking at like the building structure and all the things that encompass that This is strictly focused on the process and instrumentation So the

01:06:42 Member Jordan 2: meat and potatoes of those plants The other ones didn't do a great job of that They would say like process electrical and leave a broad Well process electrical and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is not a lot for me

01:06:55 Member Jordan 2: to execute a project on We need to someone to identify Like it's this MCC unit which also is tied to this pump and motor and VFD and these components and an electrical consultant that helps specify that ahead of time preferably

01:07:09 Member Jordan 2: a year in advance So when we're ready to go out to tender we have that specification and we have that information ready to go For the flow meters the flow meter came about needing to be replaced based on the commissioning

01:07:24 Member Jordan 2: of the filter So the filter upgrade project Project we had ultrasonic meters installed so they were essentially strapon ultrasonic meters that were on the pipe It's a very old technology and not a technology used for very precise

01:07:40 Member Jordan 2: flow measurements It was sufficient with the type of backwash that we were performing previously to give us a ballpark in the range that we were looking for But the new backwash pumps are operate on two stages and at various flow

01:07:54 Member Jordan 2: rates so we need a more precise measurement of flow to ensure we're not going to damage the underdrains So we thought that the ultrasonic flow meters were going to be enough or be accurate enough and reliable enough But due to

01:08:07 Member Jordan 2: the increased flows and the amount of interference and turbulence being created through the pipes it's not It's not going to be sufficient So we had to we had emergency purchase for the flow meter because it has a nineteen We had

01:08:19 Member Jordan 2: a nineteen week delivery time So we went through emergency purchase for that which I think you guys most the councils might remember seeing that

01:08:27 Member Jordan 2: and then we will be doing the installation through the remaining funds of this this project So that's why it's showing up there as a project for twenty six because we're realocating those funds to do the installation of that flow meter

01:08:40 Member Jordan 2: that should be delivered any time like next week sort of thing

01:08:44 Scott Greig: Okay thanks for that explanation Larry and Bryce Not seeing any other questions so there is a recommendation that City Council receive the report for information purposes do I have a mover Councillor Farmer So moved Any last questions comments Not seeing

01:08:59 Scott Greig: any All those in favour

01:09:01 Scott Greig: That's carried unanimously Thank you

01:09:04 Scott Greig: So we are then into item 10B1 which is a report regarding Fourth Avenue West reconstruction This is kind of just in the shoulders of the public open house that we had I guess two weeks ago Perhaps tonight maybe February

01:09:21 Scott Greig: 3rd maybe we had that in the neighborhood So over to you Lara to introduce this report

01:09:29 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Mr Chair So in lieu of our consultant doing a presentation tonight I will give you I think fairly comprehensive But I'm going to try not to talk too long Rundown

01:09:45 Lara Widdifield: of what we're looking at with this project So first off as a deputy mayor noted we had a little bit of a novel public engagement process with this one We normally have a public public

01:10:01 Lara Widdifield: information center before our committee meetings as you saw with the the tunnel project earlier today But with that with the Fourth Avenue West project we decided that we would go to the

01:10:17 Lara Widdifield: neighborhood and we rented the gym at the First United First United Church

01:10:26 Lara Widdifield: and

01:10:27 Lara Widdifield: so overall I think everybody that helped organize it agreed that it was quite well received by the neighborhood It was quite well attended even though it was essentially blizzard conditions that night The majority of the people walked there which

01:10:44 Lara Widdifield: was interesting to take note of

01:10:47 Lara Widdifield: And

01:10:49 Lara Widdifield: so we had a series of tabloids up just like the tunnel project did tonight I have included those as attachment two Hopefully you've had a chance to look at them But there we're essentially looking at a

01:11:05 Lara Widdifield: few different options for this project Currently Fourth Avenue functions as essentially a Nettie Sargent 20 It's maybe a bypass to the traffic signals I'm not really sure honestly why people use

01:11:21 Lara Widdifield: it but a lot of people use it and we get a lot of complaints about speed because of the Timothy Christian School that's within that corridor There's also Harrison Field the Ball Diamond and as I noted before just

01:11:38 Lara Widdifield: outside of the project limits which would be it would it would end up being in the next phase of this project is the First United Church and then not too far up again further is another park So

01:11:53 Lara Widdifield: there's quite a bit of residential pedestrian child children activity

01:11:59 Lara Widdifield: this neighborhood So we thought that it was a good opportunity to really take a good hard look at whether or not it would be appropriate to include an active transportation route because in our official plan it notes that the

01:12:15 Lara Widdifield: active transportation route should be along Eddie Sargent Parkway Eddie Sargent Parkway has a very expensive bridge and in order to include a an active transportation route along the side of that bridge it would require an expansion or consumption of part

01:12:32 Lara Widdifield: of the lanes of traffic both of which would be complex So and probably not super comfortable even If we were able to achieve those things so in order to

01:12:47 Lara Widdifield: reroute south active transportation movement and

01:12:54 Lara Widdifield: also at the same time potentially address some of the speeding concerns and implement traffic calming a couple of our options include consuming some of the existing road platform width

01:13:12 Lara Widdifield: provide lanes or multiuse path similar to what we installed on Alpha Street so we provided four options for display purposes at the public information center

01:13:29 Lara Widdifield: One of them is essentially status quo which is an asymmetrical section Oddly enough that one side I think is about Five meters wide and the other is side was I think

01:13:41 Lara Widdifield: Well do you think you could bring up that sketch please

01:13:52 Lara Widdifield: I is that yeah yeah Option one Okay So currently we have option one the engineering cross section sort of schematic shown on our screen

01:14:05 Lara Widdifield: It's showing five meter traveling on one side and three and a half meter traveling on the other so

01:14:12 Lara Widdifield: there is definitely room for on street parking in this particular type of cross section However

01:14:19 Lara Widdifield: in our like

01:14:23 Lara Widdifield: not extremely academic research but in sort of investigating the area it doesn't appear that it's heavily used However some of the sentiment That we did

01:14:36 Lara Widdifield: receive from the public was that they want to preserve that on street parking I think in the case that they have parties or family reunions that type of thing that they you know once or twice a year that they have

01:14:50 Lara Widdifield: a lot of need for parking

01:14:52 Lara Widdifield: So we you know we took that into consideration We've we've sort of filed that away for future reference

01:15:00 Lara Widdifield: This option has only sidewalk on both sides no provision for bike lanes Bicyclists would ride on the on the road share the lane and there would be onstreet parking

01:15:15 Lara Widdifield: Could you change the slide to option two please

01:15:18 Lara Widdifield: Okay so option two which we now have on our screen is the implementation of a tenmeterwide pavement with two threeandahalfmeterwide travel lanes So they would both be essentially like a relatively

01:15:35 Lara Widdifield: narrow but standard lane width and then on either side there would be a one five meter bike lane and then your sidewalks on the boulevard

01:15:47 Lara Widdifield: This this concept is common We have bike lanes elsewhere in the city

01:15:55 Lara Widdifield: It keeps the sidewalk separate from the road

01:15:59 Lara Widdifield: Ideally We don't like monolithic sidewalk which is a sidewalk that's right against the curb It's a nightmare to keep clean in the winter because every time the road plow goes by it fills the sidewalk in again with snow

01:16:14 Lara Widdifield: The disadvantage to this though is that the bicyclists are still on the road There's no physical separation and it doesn't really provide the visual cue for motorists that they need to slow down So A crash course in traffic

01:16:30 Lara Widdifield: calming Traffic calming works by making people feel like it is not safe or it is uncomfortable to drive any faster than the target speed limit So by that is that is why you you use road restrictions

01:16:47 Lara Widdifield: You do chicanes which are curves or bump outs You do very there are various techniques that you can use both vertical and horizontal deflection Deflections

01:16:59 Lara Widdifield: that will make it feel more constrained

01:17:03 Lara Widdifield: and the driver just naturally slows down Just like when when you're trying to pass somebody opposing you on a narrow road you tend to go really slow Or if you're passing another vehicle everybody does it

01:17:18 Lara Widdifield: It's an undeniable fact of human psychology

01:17:23 Lara Widdifield: So

01:17:25 Lara Widdifield: this option checks some of the boxes doesn't check others Could

01:17:31 Lara Widdifield: you change to option three please

01:17:34 Lara Widdifield: Option three

01:17:36 Lara Widdifield: is

01:17:37 Lara Widdifield: the opposite It checks some boxes and not others

01:17:43 Lara Widdifield: I should also note that in option two and in option three there is no more onstreet parking

01:17:49 Lara Widdifield: So we're sacrificing the onstreet parking for the additional Widths in order to create that active transportation corridor

01:17:58 Lara Widdifield: Doesn't matter if it's on the road or on the boulevard We can't have everything Unfortunately we're also trying to preserve the mature trees as much as possible It is going to be very difficult because even the underground utilities are going

01:18:14 Lara Widdifield: to cross a lot of the roots But we're going to try as much as we can to preserve as many trees as possible

01:18:23 Lara Widdifield: So in this option it is similar to what is on Alpha Street We've also received comments that Alpha Street has too much signage sort of signage pollution We are going to try not to replicate that And

01:18:41 Lara Widdifield: yeah so in this case it does achieve the the traffic calming of objective of narrowing the road It's still wide enough for snow plows It's still wide enough for garbage trucks

01:18:54 Lara Widdifield: moving vans all of those other good things but it just feels a little bit narrower

01:19:03 Lara Widdifield: Yep

01:19:04 Lara Widdifield: go ahead

01:19:06 Lara Widdifield: And then the last option is essentially the same as the previous option but it does provide wider lanes at the sacrifice of having narrower boulevards This is kind of like a worst of everything Option I'm not really sure why we

01:19:21 Lara Widdifield: included I think just to show wider lanes

01:19:27 Lara Widdifield: It's like this would not be my recommendation I'm not sure I'm yeah I'm anyway It provides wider lanes

01:19:37 Lara Widdifield: It still provides the active transportation corridor but it would be worse on tree removal and it doesn't provide the traffic calming effect as well as

01:19:46 Lara Widdifield: as the others But it probably could Could provide on street parking on one side Maybe that might be a benefit

01:19:55 Lara Widdifield: So we took these options to the community We received comments Some people filtered comments to us afterwards which was fantastic Right now I guess what I'm asking of the committee and in the future I'm asking committee to

01:20:11 Lara Widdifield: ask council to provide us with what you think your priorities are when it comes to the corridor I'm not asking you to pick an optionyou know one two or three or fourbut

01:20:27 Lara Widdifield: which is more important in the hierarchy of onstreet parking versus active transportation versus traffic calming and then trees factor in that mix somewhere I think everybody agrees that we're going to try to preserve as many trees as possible in any

01:20:42 Lara Widdifield: option

01:20:43 Lara Widdifield: but we're asking for sort of council slash committee priorities for

01:20:51 Lara Widdifield: the use of the space within the corridor

01:20:56 Lara Widdifield: Oh yes and the next step would be that there will be a second public information session once we once we take all of this information Committee and council are our last two essentially information sources and we're so we're going to

01:21:11 Lara Widdifield: go back to our consultant complete the detailed design with what the preferred option seems to be and then we'll come back with like with the final preferred recommended option This is what we ended up with Great unveiling

01:21:29 Lara Widdifield: at a second public information session and presentation to committee and council

01:21:35 Scott Greig: Okay thanks Lara This is a very big project before the city for the next two two years Undertaking it Just before I get entertaining questions can you tell me what the general good practice is for establishing parking widths when you're

01:21:50 Scott Greig: establishing onstreet parking Like not the engineering standard but what's generally a good practice Because right now you've got one lane that's five meters wide

01:22:01 Scott Greig: One point five meters still does not strike me as

01:22:05 Scott Greig: overly wide accommodating parking

01:22:10 Scott Greig: No in that

01:22:13 Lara Widdifield: case it would be an expectation that you would be going into the opposing lane in order to go around that vehicle But there would still be enough space to pass So that would be something like on a local road If

01:22:26 Lara Widdifield: you have like a regular residential street it might not have a very wide

01:22:32 Lara Widdifield: asphalt surface but we can still allow onstreet parking as long as it's only like on One side and there's still an enough room for vehicles to get past because the likelihood of two people meeting at the same time is low

01:22:47 Lara Widdifield: or one pulls over the other one goes by and so forth

01:22:53 Lara Widdifield: So it's essentially without going to an engineering standard or a reference manual of some kind it comes down to what the municipality is willing to accept So it if

01:23:10 Lara Widdifield: we want all dedicated on street parking lanes like what we have in downtown for example that's a totally different story and I don't think that we have the real estate in this case to provide that

01:23:26 Lara Widdifield: except for maybe in a few localized areas We've been talking about that actually If we took away on street parking we could focus on a few key areas Where we can enhance the onstreet parking for example on the side streets

01:23:41 Lara Widdifield: or near the park to provide that sort of overflow parking in cases that people have family gettogethers

01:23:51 Lara Widdifield: Did I answer your question

01:23:55 Scott Greig: Like a politician

01:23:57 Scott Greig: I didn't hear two and a quarter meters as the preferred standard or anything like that But yeah we understand

01:24:04 Scott Greig: Questions to the report I'll go to Member Farmer then Member Hawkins then Member Anderson Through

01:24:12 Jon Farmer: the chair I have a number of questions I'm I

01:24:18 Jon Farmer: just want to start with the strategic alignment The so through the chair the

01:24:23 Jon Farmer: Vision Two Thousand and Fifty is new Also the expansion of of staff reports to include more careful consideration of things like the strategic plan alignment and human resource resources time and equipmentall that stuff This is new and I'mI'm curious

01:24:40 Jon Farmer: As I read through the report I got the sense that this could in fact also align with the priorities listed under Green City and a City That Moves But it only lists city building

01:24:51 Jon Farmer: Is it fair to say that those themes are equally implicated here And if so how do we have future reports name all the relevant themes So that as we're thinking like what do we need to recommend to be in alignment

01:25:05 Jon Farmer: with this document that's supposed to be guiding us that we've got that front of mind

01:25:12 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair yeah absolutely Like that thought crossed my mind and I had a moment of indecision actually on which one to pick But yeah

01:25:24 Lara Widdifield: corporately we'll have to discuss it I guess If if there's changes to the template required but I could have easily discussed those other those other strategic priorities in the dialogue like after the because it's a it's a pick like pick

01:25:40 Lara Widdifield: list that we have in our template So I could have picked one and then discussed the rest

01:25:49 Jon Farmer: Through the chair thinking back to multiple choice tests all of the above is sometimes a good option I found it hard to know looking at that overview and thinking about

01:25:59 Jon Farmer: Like the overview that included the red markings for the the trees and hydro poles and hydrants that were maybe where we want to put other stuff I found it hard to know which of the options kind of implicated which thing

01:26:12 Jon Farmer: Is it the case that for any of the presented options that are different than the current layout that all of those trees and hydro poles and things like that would all

01:26:24 Jon Farmer: be implicated or do we have the flexibility Ability to real realign the street so that it's not just point a laser pointer between here and there and everything goes

01:26:39 Lara Widdifield: through the chair Yeah those drawings were essentially generated for the public information center so they're a little bit conceptual That when we get to the detailed design

01:26:52 Lara Widdifield: we'll be able to refine that a bit We have issued instructions to the consultant that if we need to adjust the offset for example of the of the path or sidewalk or whatever the case may be slightly from block to

01:27:07 Lara Widdifield: block in order to make

01:27:09 Lara Widdifield: the conflicts like fewer Then you know we've given them sort of the authorization to go ahead with that That we don't have to have one particular cookie cutter exactly the same on on every block at the sacrifice

01:27:26 Lara Widdifield: of those other

01:27:28 Lara Widdifield: street features so

01:27:32 Lara Widdifield: yeah

01:27:34 Jon Farmer: Through the chair one of the

01:27:36 Jon Farmer: items listed as a disadvantage in a number of the options was the idea that we're increasing the impervious

01:27:43 Jon Farmer: like ground so we're paving more stuff less opportunity for water to infiltrate more water runoff But when I looked through

01:27:52 Jon Farmer: option Three three if we're making the road narrow by the amount that we're making the multi the one sidewalk into a multipurpose path it looks like especially if we're ranging between two point seven and three meters for that path we

01:28:06 Jon Farmer: might actually be the same or less Is like am I am I understanding that appropriately And is there a way How do we weight the consideration of increased runoff like increased paving

01:28:21 Jon Farmer: between those different options

01:28:31 Lara Widdifield: I would say that would probably be the least important of the considerations So I

01:28:40 Lara Widdifield: wouldn't I wouldn't put as much weight Like if that was going to be a factor that one wouldn't be the one that I would be worrying about the most

01:28:50 Lara Widdifield: because that is something we can design around and realistically you're right We're taking away some like for that particular in that particular case we're taking away some asphalt and then putting some asphalt elsewhere in the in the road allowance So

01:29:05 Lara Widdifield: whether or not is exactly equal I don't I can't say right now but I don't think it would be a giant difference And

01:29:17 Lara Widdifield: yeah so whatever the end outcome option would be we'd have to have the consultant look at the final numbers But that would be a major concern I think with option four because you're leaving the road wide and you're adding an

01:29:31 Lara Widdifield: asphalt path

01:29:33 Lara Widdifield: and potentially potentially option two with the bike lanes

01:29:39 Lara Widdifield: We'd have to look at that Option three I think might be a wash

01:29:45 Lara Widdifield: Possibly it might be little bit more

01:29:51 Jon Farmer: As I rattled down my list I'm curious Do we have baseline data for movement counts of vehicles cyclists pedestrians currently or things like average speed Knowing

01:30:02 Jon Farmer: that we I think as a city just got a bunch more traffic count devices so we might not have had the tools previously to get those numbers But what do we know currently so that we can think about what what

01:30:15 Jon Farmer: best meets the needs going forward

01:30:20 Lara Widdifield: The traffic count information that we've been working off of is the old the old information

01:30:26 Lara Widdifield: strictly because at this point we're not really making any changes that would really affect That being said before construction and potential well see it's still winter I don't really want to do traffic counts in the winter because it's not necessarily

01:30:41 Lara Widdifield: going to be representative of the type of traffic we'll have in the summer but before we go to construction and after the winter at some point

01:30:52 Lara Widdifield: we'll be doing I think some pretty

01:30:55 Lara Widdifield: comprehensive traffic counts not only on Fourth but on the surrounding roads because I really want to see whatever we implement how it changes before and after the construction project because it's

01:31:11 Lara Widdifield: also well documented Documented that when you implement traffic counting often it will move traffic to a different It just causes bypassing on other areas That's why implementing overly strict speed limits in certain areas

01:31:28 Lara Widdifield: is not always effective because it just moves the traffic to the next road over

01:31:34 Lara Widdifield: So in this case if it goes to Eddie Sargent Parkway that's great That's where it should be But we don't really want to move it like to the to Fifth Avenue I guess for example

01:31:47 Lara Widdifield: So it'll be interesting to study that I think

01:31:52 Lara Widdifield: yeah

01:31:53 Jon Farmer: To the thanks for your patience both chair and committee and staff As someone who's in there also because that neighborhood is a mecca for local lawn bowlers and brings folks there but also as someone who rides my bike around past

01:32:08 Jon Farmer: Kelso things like that The the

01:32:11 Jon Farmer: there are a number of folks who ride their bikes from apartments and developments to the north of of Kelso Beach and Nae Wash Park and

01:32:21 Jon Farmer: often to avoid the discomfort of of the Eddie Sargent Parkway and also the slope of the bridge and the hill that's there

01:32:32 Jon Farmer: it's a lot of folks end up taking the Rail Trail but the Rail Trail spits out at the marina and I'm

01:32:39 Jon Farmer: I think that that would be a more comfortable route to go down Fourth if that was designed in a way to make it more comfortable But there's also then I think some knockon questions of how do you funnel what is

01:32:53 Jon Farmer: cycling and pedestrian traffic from the rail trail

01:32:57 Jon Farmer: down the couple of blocks to to pick that up and I don't know how we take that into account But I think that's worth

01:33:06 Jon Farmer: noting and

01:33:08 Jon Farmer: we

01:33:11 Jon Farmer: talk about ways like traffic calming straight roads are great to go fast on That's why drag strips are straight And

01:33:20 Jon Farmer: I'm curious if we're giving any consideration to traffic calming with a more gradual alignment

01:33:28 Jon Farmer: and if that's even possible within the width of road

01:33:32 Jon Farmer: right of way that we have

01:33:39 Lara Widdifield: To be honest we haven't looked at that However I my expectation is that we don't have enough right of way width for that because where you have your outside bend that's your most constrained point on the boulevard

01:33:56 Lara Widdifield: So for us to have room for

01:33:59 Lara Widdifield: any kind of active transportation within that space would be very limited

01:34:06 Jon Farmer: And to the chair I've got comments as after questions but I may be tempted to let folks also ask questions before getting to comments If you'll let me chime in later on or do you want comments now

01:34:18 Scott Greig: I'll circle back to you I'll go to Member Hawkins next

01:34:22 SPEAKER_039: You Mr Chair forgot my question No no Kenny

01:34:26 SPEAKER_039: I just had a quick question on

01:34:29 SPEAKER_039: whether the demographics for Fourth Avenue West for the onstreet parking if it's predominantly singlefamily dwellings or if it is multifamily dwellings I believe there's a lot of rental homes in that area

01:34:46 SPEAKER_039: so you've got tenants that are parking on the street And that I don't know if that's been taken into consideration with the removal of onstreet parking

01:35:00 Lara Widdifield: I think predominantly where we've been getting the comments from would be from singlefamily homes but mix Okay so I'm being told mix just because he's not on a microphone

01:35:18 Scott Greig: And just so we can support the environment if you're able to reference Mason if he's speaking just so that everyone's clear

01:35:28 Scott Greig: Anything further Member Hawkins Member Anderson go ahead

01:35:35 SPEAKER_034: Thank you Mr Chair I'm curious I'm not sure I might have missed the information but

01:35:42 SPEAKER_034: after the presentations and the community commented were there actually anyone or any sort of patterns or indicators of what the local community wanted like option one two three or four

01:36:01 Lara Widdifield: Sorry I had a moment there In general what we heard was that we want peopleor sorrythat people want us to increase the safety In general

01:36:14 Lara Widdifield: it seemed like there was a variety of ways of how people envisioned we would go about doing that Not of all which agree with each other but the resoundingthe The resounding takeaway was to increase safety For

01:36:32 Lara Widdifield: I guess to take that as you will everybody has a different idea of what that means but that was the word that everybody was using

01:36:44 SPEAKER_034: If I could again through Mr Chair as a pedestrian and not a driver although I do allow people to drive me and through the communities the The options I looked at I know we're not supposed to comment about them but

01:36:57 SPEAKER_034: to be honest if we're looking at what we would consider values in that community and I have lived in that community the trees I'll be honest for sure I like traveling in shade I get tired of burning my head and

01:37:10 SPEAKER_034: having my dog collapse in the blazing sun

01:37:14 SPEAKER_034: Also the

01:37:16 SPEAKER_034: the use of the sidewalks and the medians I like that idea as well It makes it easier to travel The nature trail connection and the single trail

01:37:26 SPEAKER_034: number three optionI have to say something to identify what I'm talking

01:37:31 SPEAKER_034: aboutis appealing to a degree But if I lived on the other side of the street and had to walk across the traffic to get to that trail I wouldn't be that be impressed to make that sort of pedestrian traffic flow

01:37:44 SPEAKER_034: as friendly or helpful

01:37:50 Lara Widdifield: Good comments I'll go to Lara for a response

01:37:53 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Mr Chair and thank you Member Anderson You actually made me think of something that I didn't really mention in my

01:38:00 Lara Widdifield: introduction The other part of this is that there are a number of intersections and we've also had an identified pedestrian crossing near the the school That once we realized

01:38:16 Lara Widdifield: that we were going to be doing this project we put it on hold So It's going to be done as part of this so the pedestrian crossing infrastructure will be enhanced as well

01:38:27 Lara Widdifield: as long as you're crossing at a designated location

01:38:35 Lara Widdifield: Councilor Martin go ahead

01:38:37 Lara Widdifield: Through you Chair

01:38:39 Carol Merton: As we're working through this document and this process it occurs to me that it would be helpful to almost have a decisionmaking template of the key decision criteria to be able to streamline

01:38:55 Carol Merton: down to take us to eventually the option We've talked about bike lanes multiuse lanes We've talked about active transportation You know there's a variety of things that that we've talked about that almost

01:39:12 Carol Merton: around the table could be yes no to be able to take us down to the decision making

01:39:19 Carol Merton: The other part that I think would be helpful to consider is the winter maintenance and that is a critical factor I know we're going to be chatting about that later but you know to go through the various options to be

01:39:34 Carol Merton: able to bring people together on you know multiuse versus bike lane you know parking no parking

01:39:43 Carol Merton: all of that to be able to take us down into helping to make that decision I think would be very helpful

01:39:53 Lara Widdifield: Noted Unfortunately I guess I can't give that to you right now but you did you did bring up another topic as far as

01:40:02 Lara Widdifield: maintenance is concerned I think I I talk about it in the report a bit about bike lanes versus the path with winter maintenance So the bike lanes do bring a couple of challenges with them whether

01:40:18 Lara Widdifield: or not we're prepared to either close them in the winter or maintain them to some like to a standard but it has to be a specific standard Whereas the paths we can like and we already have essentially

01:40:35 Lara Widdifield: an operating procedure that we do one one swath through them

01:40:41 Lara Widdifield: which is much Easier for our operations staff to to maintain So that's another consideration Thank you

01:40:50 Lara Widdifield: Member Indoo go ahead

01:40:53 SPEAKER_625: Through you Chair I just had a question and a comment on the parking How do you make the decision on that Like

01:41:03 SPEAKER_625: around you can park on a lot of streets around town I'm just thinking of Seventh Avenue East in the winter time specifically not so much in the summer but there is a church up there and they all park on the

01:41:16 SPEAKER_625: street and the side street like on Fourth Street So

01:41:21 SPEAKER_625: like they take in the winter because the heavy snow when we have it the banks aren't pushed back and they're taking up almost the entire lane

01:41:31 SPEAKER_625: And it isI know it's only for an hour or two on Sundays but I just wondered how that decision was made Thanks

01:41:42 SPEAKER_625: Through the chair so

01:41:46 Lara Widdifield: it's funny that you say this because I had a I had a question about this earlier today about

01:41:53 Lara Widdifield: how do we determine if there should be on street parking

01:41:58 Lara Widdifield: allowed particularly in the winter So we already have a prohibition of no on street parking anywhere in the winter between the hours of I think midnight and or yeah something like that It's it's the wee hours of the morning midnight

01:42:12 Lara Widdifield: and four am Let's say

01:42:15 Lara Widdifield: But

01:42:17 Lara Widdifield: we also implement a variety of other parking prohibitions in the winter depending on the location and it's typically based on how much of a nuisance it becomes In areas where you know the parking is very occasional people

01:42:33 Lara Widdifield: get by fine It's not a chronic problem we never hear about it and therefore it never really rises to the top to become

01:42:45 Lara Widdifield: added to the traffic bylaw In areas where it is a safety hazard it's constantly brought to our attention You know there are engineering like actual technical reasons why no parking should be allowed or

01:43:03 Lara Widdifield: yeah those are the main things Some roads even in the summer can only have parking on one side because it's a very narrow road But again it's it comes down to if if we hear like if it's reported to the

01:43:19 Lara Widdifield: city if we if we see that there is indeed an issue it will eventually be considered to to be added to the traffic bylaw

01:43:32 Lara Widdifield: But it has to be an actual issue we don't just put blanket prohibitions all over because there may be lots of places where you can safely park on the road

01:43:43 Lara Widdifield: even with a snow pile for example

01:43:50 SPEAKER_627: okay

01:43:51 SPEAKER_627: not seeing anything further oh okay go ahead member chair

01:43:56 SPEAKER_037: through the chair I was just curious so the current proposal here is for 15th Street to 20th Street So I want to know if there's a phase two intention for 21st further down to the park because that does make a

01:44:07 SPEAKER_037: significant impact going past the church and the park

01:44:11 SPEAKER_037: both for parking and transportation

01:44:16 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair yes there is It's further off in the in the capital budget This project alone is expected to span 2026 and 2027 construction seasons the

01:44:32 Lara Widdifield: the church actually wanted us to extend this year's project to past past their well twenty first Street but unfortunately we can't do that because we're already pushing it I think time wise with the

01:44:49 Lara Widdifield: piece that we're planning on doing So but yes the intention is at some point I think to go all the way to I think it's twenty fourth Street

01:44:59 Lara Widdifield: twenty No Yes Yeah

01:45:03 Lara Widdifield: Probably gets more tough as you go north

01:45:06 Scott Greig: At least past St Julian's that last block is a challenge Member Farmer go ahead Or Councilor Farmer

01:45:14 Jon Farmer: Thank you I guess for for comments I think that in a project like this it's really easy for us to calculate the cost of a hydro pole or a hydrant It's harder to calculate the cost of an old like a

01:45:27 Jon Farmer: mature tree that that's in these cases I think like easily more than a hundred years old for many of them And in doing some research around how we how we do that

01:45:38 Jon Farmer: for decades folks have been calculating the the benefits and costs of street trees in urban landscapes And from what I could find googling the other night

01:45:48 Jon Farmer: mature trees don't like a tree doesn't really give its full benefit until after the age of fifty And so if we're

01:45:57 Jon Farmer: If we're calculating the cost and it's really easy to calculate the cost of moving a hydro pole or a hydrant or those other street features I'd like to see the next report If it's possible

01:46:08 Jon Farmer: try to calculate the cost and what is lost for a mature tree Because with a fire hydrant we can move that and as soon as we plug it plug it in again I don't know I'm not one of them plumbers

01:46:18 Jon Farmer: But as soon as we hook it up it works But a mature tree we have to wait decades for it to provide the same benefits of cooling and

01:46:30 Jon Farmer: cooling and stormwater absorption and habitat provision and all of that and I worry that we might not

01:46:39 Jon Farmer: be easily able to

01:46:42 Jon Farmer: assess that as a community risk council if we don't have something that gives us a number that lets us measure in this case apples to apples

01:46:49 Jon Farmer: And

01:46:51 Jon Farmer: I also for the winter maintenance piece as we compare

01:46:56 Jon Farmer: bike lane to multiuse path the danger in my understanding is any time you've got road users or path users that are moving at a different speed And so to put bikes on a road when cars are going faster makes you

01:47:09 Jon Farmer: feel unsafe so people don't do it or you wave digits at people passing you unsafely And to put people on a multiuse path where they might be going a lot faster than the other folks that are walking or wheeling otherwise

01:47:25 Jon Farmer: it's a I don't

01:47:28 Jon Farmer: I think that tradeoff is important and when I think about who I see using multiuse paths

01:47:34 Jon Farmer: around versus who maybe has the courage to cycle down major arteries in Owen Sound I think the like for my money the multiuse path is a better

01:47:44 Jon Farmer: way to balance those priorities And even if it's only in a being maintained in the winter

01:47:50 Jon Farmer: to one one pass part of the day folks who are cycling in the winter tend to have to use the road anyway because the roads are maintained so much more regularly than the sidewalks are That

01:48:03 Jon Farmer: folks who are hardy enough to cycle in the winter are cycling on the road I think anyway So I would take that consideration and maybe make the font smaller on that one

01:48:11 Jon Farmer: For parking I

01:48:14 Jon Farmer: I don't think that we need on street parking here There are a number of side streets I cruised up Google Street View for that that section and there were only a few places where when the car happened to drive by

01:48:26 Jon Farmer: that day there were folks parked in the street and several of them were workers reroofing a house when they drove by So I

01:48:34 Jon Farmer: I don't for the what the function is of that street in that neighborhood I think that we can prioritize movement over parking knowing that the side streets are there That especially as you get north and around the school if people

01:48:48 Jon Farmer: are gathering on holidays or in the nights and weekends I'm

01:48:52 Jon Farmer: at least someone who's parked in a parking lot when the business or school has been closed and it's been convenient in the neighborhood I think that we can assume that might happen and I also want to flag a concern as

01:49:04 Jon Farmer: we talk in the human resources section of the report where it talks about where we do have to remove trees putting those on private property

01:49:11 Jon Farmer: That rather than the boulevard we have no protections in own sound Preserving preserving trees on private property and that means that the city could plant one this year with our boulevard tree planting program or replace one on a front yard

01:49:24 Jon Farmer: and that house could sell and someone could cut it down the the next day So if we're acknowledging that those that street trees provide many benefits and we're trying to save money in the long term operational

01:49:38 Jon Farmer: sense but at the expense of our ability to manage that public space for the collective good I would not support that initial move to instead of renewing boulevard tree planting put that on private property where we have no way to

01:49:54 Jon Farmer: protect that for the four or five decades until it really starts to provide all those benefits

01:50:01 Jon Farmer: If these are our four options personally I think option three

01:50:05 Jon Farmer: balances those priorities In my opinion

01:50:11 SPEAKER_627: Okay Any further questions comments from committee Not seeing any You've got a couple I

01:50:18 SPEAKER_627: don't know Twentyfive years ago twenty years ago the city removed parking south of the Jubilee Bridge That is an arterial road as it goes past Harrison Park but that was removed Any time you're going to remove parking from someone's street

01:50:33 SPEAKER_627: you will draw the ire of some I know in my neighborhood I canvassed from Mooers Hill around Around to Second Avenue and I think I had like eleven in support of getting rid of it for some bike lanes and and

01:50:47 SPEAKER_627: five stood vastly against it

01:50:51 SPEAKER_627: So this is a collector road not an arterial road When you report back or in your considerations I just wonder if you can measure this against some of the other collector or similar roads in terms of as Councilor Merton kind

01:51:06 SPEAKER_627: of that decision making process that you go through

01:51:11 SPEAKER_627: I personally like

01:51:13 SPEAKER_627: I'm certainly in favor of trying everything you can to save the mature trees along there

01:51:21 SPEAKER_627: and hence I'm in favor of options one and two I find when you introduce active transportation lanes into mature neighborhoods or established neighborhoods it's very disruptive

01:51:32 SPEAKER_627: You widen that transportation path and now you introduce more bumpers into people's shins Your bikes or trail trailer pack tow packages whatever because

01:51:43 SPEAKER_627: you're the setbacks on a lot of those houses and those driveways are not that big So I think you're going to run into constant obstruction when if considering putting a multiuse path on on on that piece of roadway

01:52:01 SPEAKER_627: Second question is

01:52:05 SPEAKER_627: Have you considered it just being seasonal So if the

01:52:10 SPEAKER_627: parking was removed and I think back to Second Avenue East when we talk about these are active transportation lanes not formal bike lanes If parking was removed why can it not be So you distribute the roadway as 35 meters Again

01:52:25 SPEAKER_627: you've got a one and a quarter or one and a half whatever it was on the side of each lanes of travel

01:52:34 SPEAKER_627: Why could it not be the same approach as Second Avenue where we do not guarantee

01:52:40 SPEAKER_627: that those will be maintained or clear in the winter We do our best and often those those shoulders on Second Avenue are

01:52:48 SPEAKER_627: somewhat usable They're not perfect but

01:52:53 SPEAKER_627: we are always finding the balance between perfect and what we can afford So that's my question there in terms of that maintenance question

01:53:04 SPEAKER_627: It is for seven or eight months of the year If parking's not there it's an opportunity for onstreet cycling enhancement and more security And in winter you've got less bikes so could you even have winter Well you know you couldn't

01:53:18 SPEAKER_627: have winter parking

01:53:20 SPEAKER_627: although you probably could because you have to go around that lane of travel and introduce yourself into the other lane Already that's what's already being done I don't know your comments there about

01:53:34 SPEAKER_627: the similarities I guess to just that the paved shoulder on Second Avenue East and the consideration there

01:53:43 Lara Widdifield: Thank you Mr Chair The problem is that more and more in cases where

01:53:53 Lara Widdifield: liability is being assigned

01:54:01 Lara Widdifield: If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it's a duck And whether we call them a paved shoulder or a bike lane or an active transportation lane

01:54:12 Lara Widdifield: if that's what its primary function is then we're going to be expected to maintain it like a bike lane And as I talked about it in the report they do have a slightly lower

01:54:29 Lara Widdifield: maintenance requirement than the actual lane beside it but that in and of itself is kind of

01:54:37 Lara Widdifield: ridiculous really because we would be clearing it with the road plow so it would be getting the same service as the road

01:54:44 Lara Widdifield: It just would never be It would never be dry pavement Like you wouldn't be able to ride a road bike I don't think in the weather that we've had this winter for example So

01:54:57 Lara Widdifield: we would we would have to think be very specific in our level of service policy on what we are willing to

01:55:07 Lara Widdifield: provide

01:55:11 SPEAKER_627: Okay thanks for that response I just think driving the the snowplow forty kilometers an hour

01:55:17 SPEAKER_627: and being able to wing it back onto the the grass boulevard is is perhaps I mean it's just faster than the sidewalk plows ever able to compete with with the active or off off road multiuse path So

01:55:33 SPEAKER_627: we just have a recommendation

01:55:36 SPEAKER_627: not

01:55:37 SPEAKER_627: directing staff for any specific

01:55:41 SPEAKER_627: design this evening So this is just recommending that city council provide general feedback to staff relating to the discussed design concepts including council's priorities when allocating space within the corridor

01:55:55 SPEAKER_627: Do I have a mover for the recommendation

01:55:58 SPEAKER_627: Yeah and do you want to move the recommendation on

01:56:03 Jon Farmer: that I'm happy to move the recommendation I'm also just I'm thinking about something that you said and around more bumpers into people's shins and things And I wasn't clear with that whether the implication was that

01:56:18 Jon Farmer: faster people passing would be running into folks or that they're the as we see in many sidewalks in town already that someone who isn't thinking about the sidewalk when they park then obstructs the the path whether it's a sidewalk

01:56:34 Jon Farmer: width or a multiuse path width I wasn't I wasn't sure whose bumper was hitting whom

01:56:41 SPEAKER_627: I think that's the challenge with established neighborhoods When you introduce wider multiuse paths you are now severely

01:56:56 SPEAKER_627: You're you're making it very difficult for some of these existing houses and driveways to accommodate the one or two vehicles that might be in in limited space So that's where I'm going there Once you widen that up you're introducing or

01:57:10 SPEAKER_627: enhancing the likelihood of

01:57:12 SPEAKER_627: of obstructions on the trail due to that's just natural environment It's old older established neighborhoods So

01:57:20 SPEAKER_627: do I have Okay So Councilor Farmers move that All those in favor

01:57:27 SPEAKER_627: and that is carried Thank you

01:57:30 SPEAKER_627: We've got a quick report under Item Ten C One So welcome Heidi at this time

01:57:40 Heidi Jennen: Thank you Through you Mr Chair So this report recommends approving the second oneyear extension of the agreement allowing the Flixbus to use the Owen Sound Transit Terminal platform

01:57:54 Heidi Jennen: so that would extend the agreement until April 30th 2027 So Flixbus has been operating the service in Owen Sound since 2024 May of 2024 and it provides five days a week service and

01:58:11 Heidi Jennen: the service connects Owen Sound with Toronto Union Station and includes Stops at Pearson Airport Barry Collingwood Thornbury and Melford and in the summer it extends out to Port Elgin and Sauble Beach So

01:58:28 Heidi Jennen: under the agreement FlexBus will pay the city five hundred dollars a month plus HST to use the platform City transit staff they do not provide any operational support to FlexBus That just this access to the transit

01:58:44 Heidi Jennen: terminal And and it allows the passengers to use the washrooms during the open hours

01:58:51 Heidi Jennen: and

01:58:53 Heidi Jennen: so staff are recommending that council approve that the mayor and clerk execute the agreement in bylaw for the extension of the flex bus agreement Thanks Okay Councillor Hamlin

01:59:07 Heidi Jennen: I would move the recommendation

01:59:10 SPEAKER_627: Thank you Any questions

01:59:12 SPEAKER_627: All those in favor

01:59:15 SPEAKER_627: and that's great

01:59:17 SPEAKER_627: That's good news It's excellent to have Flex serving the community I know I had a chance to ride it this year and the hardest part was me getting to the right spot at Pearson International finding on where to get it

01:59:28 SPEAKER_627: and everything after that was great And it was two thirds full and a good majority of the riders came to Owen Sound to finish the destination So great service Thanks Heidi

01:59:42 SPEAKER_627: And probably to Bryce then regarding the annual water report which is item ten D one Taken away

01:59:52 Member Jordan 2: through your chair to those that are new on committee This is generally my opportunity to present our annual summary report It's an opportunity for us to present the minutes from our management meeting

02:00:09 Member Jordan 2: and to also share With with you our audit results from the previous year

02:00:14 Member Jordan 2: This year our audit results are from our internal audit only as our external audit is being conducted right now Our audits don't typically follow a typical calendar year They're meant to be like a snapshot in time or a surveillance of

02:00:31 Member Jordan 2: our

02:00:35 Member Jordan 2: compliance to the standard So this report in this report it it has the the three attached reports Our annual and summary report is actually two parts to it It has our internal audit results and it shares with you the minutes

02:00:50 Member Jordan 2: from our management review The minutes from our management review are required to be presented to council It's our way of communicating the minutes of our management review to council who is the legal owner of the drinking water system

02:01:06 Member Jordan 2: So just Basically like what I said in the introduction in the background

02:01:12 Member Jordan 2: this is a requirement of us to share with you the performance of our drinking water systems give you an overview of some of our key issues and some of our successes So just running through the analysis here some of the

02:01:27 Member Jordan 2: highlights are from our annual summary report treated water production is up one zero one so relatively unchanged

02:01:36 Member Jordan 2: Build water is up 006 percent from 2024 This is expected to be significantly different in 2025 with the meter replacement project A lot of this data is not

02:01:52 Member Jordan 2: up to date or a lot of the billing cycles weren't accounted for when this data was available So I would expect that to be different next year

02:02:04 Member Jordan 2: Unaccounted water in the distribution system remains you know around the nineteen to twenty percent which is relatively high We do have our leak leak detection survey scheduled for two thousand and twentysix So typically that is a

02:02:20 Member Jordan 2: way for us to identify leaks and address them accordingly Only one primary customer was instructed to run water in two thousand and twentyfour So So we were able to avoid any serious

02:02:36 Member Jordan 2: issues of frozen services and we're relatively in the same position this year I think we only have our priority A customers running water and the weather looks a little more favorable now Water main breaks we were twenty nine in the

02:02:51 Member Jordan 2: calendar year of two thousand and twenty five That's slightly up from year to year average Taste and odor complaints were down this year We've seen a spike in two 2024 four with taste and odor complaints with our warm water conditions

02:03:06 Member Jordan 2: into late August early September but we didn't see the same warm source water conditions this year that led to that

02:03:15 Member Jordan 2: From our management review so these are items that we are required to consider under our DWQMS 20 framework So we had zero instances of nonregulatory compliance We had zero incidents

02:03:31 Member Jordan 2: of adverse drinking water tests We had zero deviations from critical control points Our critical control points are identified as primary disinfection secondary disinfection and backflow events or back siphonage

02:03:48 Member Jordan 2: events

02:03:50 Member Jordan 2: Includes comments of effectiveness of our annual risk assessment process So our risk assessment is done annually and that's used as an input into our infrastructure review And then our infrastructure review is

02:04:06 Member Jordan 2: one of the things we consider at our

02:04:10 Member Jordan 2: within our management report and how we use to

02:04:13 Member Jordan 2: justify or how we use to strengthen the case for future projects

02:04:19 Member Jordan 2: Internal and or internal and thirdparty audit results Internal audit result had one noncompliance and nine opportunities for improvement So like I said we didn't have the external audit results in this in this reporting period but our internal audit

02:04:35 Member Jordan 2: results had the one noncompliance which you can see in the attachment and nine opportunities for improvement

02:04:43 Member Jordan 2: Results of corporate cyber attack emergency response testing So we were responsible for ensuring we conducted emergency test exercise and that was corporately done through a cybersecurity breach

02:04:59 Member Jordan 2: one

02:05:01 Member Jordan 2: hundred MECP inspection score for as an indicator of operational performance So those those inspections are conducted annually We're currently in the midst of that Once again we haven't got results from that but we had no

02:05:18 Member Jordan 2: items of nonconformance identified through the OREG One Hundred and inspection Well water supply drinking Water quality trends None to report So as I mentioned before we seen lower number of taste and odor concerns So nothing was trending in a way

02:05:33 Member Jordan 2: that we need to discuss

02:05:36 Member Jordan 2: Follow up on action items Previous management management meeting minutes There was none

02:05:43 Member Jordan 2: Corrective action log showing status of management action items identified between reviews changes that could affect water quality

02:05:52 Member Jordan 2: management System So you'll see this item come up throughout the report and through our management review and then further on down in the report

02:06:01 Member Jordan 2: it's become evident that

02:06:05 Member Jordan 2: we we may lack some internal support when it comes to maintaining our drinking water quality management system

02:06:13 Member Jordan 2: compliance related stuff and to support both wastewater and new wastewater CILECA implementation and some future stormwater CIL ECA implementation

02:06:29 Member Jordan 2: So

02:06:30 Brock Hamley: Councilmember go ahead

02:06:32 Brock Hamley: Can I just ask about that Because like the CLI is supposed to be easier than the old system Because the old system used to have to go pipe by pipe So I don't know why we would need more people looking

02:06:44 Brock Hamley: at the policy Do you understand what I'm asking

02:06:51 Member Jordan 2: So and the I'm not I'm not I'm not very proficient on all the requirements but it's essentially downloading that responsibility to the municipality to account for it So rather than getting an approval every time it's more

02:07:07 Member Jordan 2: work on us to check all those boxes to ensure that it's in compliant and then we are we have the authority then to authorize it So rather than submitting for approval letting the municipality ministry do the legwork we're doing the

02:07:21 Member Jordan 2: legwork So there is significantly more work in implementing that system It's just not at the ministry level

02:07:31 Member Jordan 2: Did you have anything to

02:07:35 Member Jordan 2: Anything further

02:07:36 Member Jordan 2: Or perhaps

02:07:39 SPEAKER_627: committee might The public members may not be as familiar with what you're referring to If you want to just even speak Because this change came about two to three years ago perhaps just a little bit more background on that consolidated

02:07:53 SPEAKER_627: linear certificate that was being spoken about

02:08:00 Member Jordan 2: Yeah So sorry So C L I E C A is a

02:08:06 Member Jordan 2: consolidated linear infrastructure environmental certificate of approval So previously as Councillor Hamley mentioned is that you would as development began throughout the city you would

02:08:22 Member Jordan 2: have different segments of your wastewater system collection system that were approved in different segments in different chunks So anytime there was modifications need to be done to that or an addition you would be applying for a new ECA

02:08:39 Member Jordan 2: to the MECP the Ministry of Environment and then they would Approve that and it would be managed as its own kind of entity So anytime you wanted to change it you made a change to that specific C of A rather

02:08:55 Member Jordan 2: than be given the authority to operate your system as in like our drinking water system where we're issued a drinking water works permit which gives us the authority to do additions modifications and alterations to the drinking water system This process

02:09:11 Member Jordan 2: is allowing Us us to do the same So so we submit our plan and there's certain boxes we have to check for approval in consolidating that linear infrastructure And then the ministry says Now you have the authority to make the

02:09:24 Member Jordan 2: changes but you must consider all these things So like I was saying rather than the ministry considering them and us submitting an application to make an alteration now we have to consider all them and check all those boxes do all

02:09:40 Member Jordan 2: those initiate all those potential like research activities or consulting pieces and have that and maintain that and we are responsible for it

02:09:52 SPEAKER_627: Yeah I appreciate the backgrounder because I mean it's easy for us to recall having the earlier discussions but there it was a lot more There was a lot more to that

02:10:03 SPEAKER_627: So I think back to you Bryce to finish the report

02:10:46 Member Jordan 2: Sorry about that My apologies Thank you

02:10:49 Member Jordan 2: So sorry if you need me to repeat any of that I can

02:10:55 Member Jordan 2: So just yeah with regards to financial resources in order to complete this report the majority of this stuff is regular numbers and

02:11:05 Member Jordan 2: processes that we document in accordance with our DWQMS and our compliance stuff So really pulling together the

02:11:14 Member Jordan 2: data for these reports is not a significant financial resource But once again we have down to the human resources section We have identified that there is some gaps there that are not not being filled and some previously

02:11:30 Member Jordan 2: some of the previous administrative gaps were being filled by water Wastewater wastewater Administrative assistant Assistant that was

02:11:39 Member Jordan 2: is no longer a position within the organization and a lot of the stuff was being done to meet the intent of the legislation but not to build the structure of a quality management system to a level where it would be

02:11:55 Member Jordan 2: sustainable when you remove the individual So once again your processes are only as strong As you process some writing not the individuals executing them right So that's really what we're trying to get at here That

02:12:11 Member Jordan 2: there there is a legal requirement for us to maintain these quality management systems and we have had you know lengthy discussion with with senior management with regards to the concerns of the

02:12:27 Member Jordan 2: resources dedicated to this

02:12:31 Member Jordan 2: So yeah I'm open for questions There's the four attachments there and we try to make sure we get this report to committee and council before it gets posted which is required by the end of February

02:12:46 Jon Farmer: Okay thanks for that Bryce Councilor Farmer first

02:12:50 Jon Farmer: Thanks to the chair Just to pick up on that the report lists that there has been a business case developed for

02:12:58 Jon Farmer: bringing on the human resources that would make this actually work not just tick the box

02:13:04 Jon Farmer: What's my first time at the committee What's the status of that business case Where does that move through as we consider the workflow

02:13:18 Tim Simmonds: Through the chair to Councillor Farmer Really good question because from an operational perspective that usually stays on the operational side with the city But it's good for committee to understand This A number of years ago not just with this position

02:13:32 Tim Simmonds: and I'm just giving some broader context for committee we started to ask staff instead of just hey we need a new FTE fulltime employee or a parttime We're requesting that I'm requesting the city manager that a business case be prepared

02:13:45 Tim Simmonds: to understand exactly what the need is how it fits in what the what the current conditions within that department are trying to understand is there surplus Should we be looking at potentially a current position Having its job description redefined maybe

02:14:00 Tim Simmonds: to take on additional roles So looking at all of those different aspects and then from across that department understanding also how do the current roles all fit together and then determining is there If you look at a current annual fulltime

02:14:16 Tim Simmonds: employee of 1800 and some hours you start to look at that Okay how do those hours fill up What's the percentage of time devoted to certain segments of work So the business plan in this case that Bryson team put together

02:14:31 Tim Simmonds: analyzed that it also took into consideration could this work simply be done by a consultant or

02:14:39 Tim Simmonds: contracted person for on a parttime basis So could it be done parttime Could it be done fulltime Could it be done by contract etc And they went through that business case and reviewed each of those scenarios And in this Situation

02:14:55 Tim Simmonds: through my office through human resources Also we came to the conclusion that know the best most costefficient and

02:15:03 Tim Simmonds: and best approach for the city in this which is water which is one of the most important things we're all liable for That and building this system out and the additional upcoming

02:15:14 Tim Simmonds: responsibilities that you've been talking about that have bringing in a fulltime person was the approach to go We looked really hard at should it be Could we do it actually part time instead of full time And part of it comes

02:15:28 Tim Simmonds: down to when you start to look at the special requirements that this position needs to bring to the table Those type of people in general are fewer and far far between And then when if you take that down to a

02:15:41 Tim Simmonds: part time role it even becomes more complex in trying to find that right person So again Bryson team did a great job building the position out showing how in year one through five what their work plan would look like as

02:15:57 Tim Simmonds: far as percentage of time So year one I believe it was 60 or 70 percent of the time was just getting data and files and information back up to speed Year two that went down to about 55 percent and then

02:16:09 Tim Simmonds: another aspect of the job picked up until you get to year five where it sort of then was flowing through But the business case was pretty entailed I think was about four or five pages in length to determine Is this

02:16:20 Tim Simmonds: role really needed Especially you know trying to understand that it wasn't just administrative support to teams but it was really looking at the QMS and the other obligations that the province is putting on water systems

02:16:36 SPEAKER_627: Okay Any further questions from committee

02:16:40 SPEAKER_037: Not seeing it Oh member sure to go ahead Sorry I'm a little still there I just wanted to clarify something you said earlier because in the one of the Additional documents it says the license for the water system is under

02:16:51 SPEAKER_037: the municipality of Leith and you said it was owned by the city So could you clarify that for me

02:17:00 Member Jordan 2: So yes I'm not sure what spot you're specifically referring to but yes we are We so we're required to share this report our annual and summary report with municipalities where we supply water to So we supply water to Leith and

02:17:15 Member Jordan 2: the municipality of Mefer Miford right So at the north end so we are required to reference them in our report and indicate that they're the ones that are going to be receiving it We also share water with or we also

02:17:29 Member Jordan 2: distribute water to Georgian Bluffs but because they don't have a separate drinking water works permit number they fall under our system We don't identify them the same way in the report because it's just confusing for the ministry But they are

02:17:42 Member Jordan 2: also copied on the report and our sample results Through throughout the chair

02:17:54 SPEAKER_037: sorry Yeah maybe it might be worthwhile then to revisit that because the way it's read is that the license is owned by the municipality and reported to Georgian Bluff and

02:18:06 SPEAKER_037: Miford I don't know if it's worthwhile pulling that up I believe it was the third attachment

02:18:20 SPEAKER_037: just at the bottom of this there

02:18:22 SPEAKER_037: So drinking water system owner Miss PelletierMeaford lead

02:18:35 SPEAKER_627: I'll just say that's a great question In

02:18:39 SPEAKER_627: eleven or twelve years I've never had that question asked why I've been sitting on this committee most of those years or if not all of them That just that's to buy a moment for staff to locate it and provide you

02:18:50 SPEAKER_627: the response So I'll go to Lara

02:18:53 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair I think the confusion is so Both of those things are true We do own the water our water system and we do report to LEAF LEAF also has their own drinking water system number I think is

02:19:09 Lara Widdifield: what the confusion is

02:19:15 Lara Widdifield: Okay

02:19:17 SPEAKER_627: Anything further Okay you're good Two questions I had Anything further Member Schrader Go back to you

02:19:27 SPEAKER_037: Sorry I just wanted to emphasize on something that you said earlier with the CLI or CLRs I was wondering if there is some sort of a standardized acronym process or policy in place with the city because there is a lot

02:19:39 SPEAKER_037: of items in the attachments here that I yeah I'm done

02:19:47 SPEAKER_627: Acronym terminology over to you Lara

02:19:52 Lara Widdifield: Welcome to Operations Committee But in all seriousness we do use a lot of acronyms We do try to remember to spell them out first and definitely in our reports the first time we use an acronym we spell out the whole

02:20:07 Lara Widdifield: thing and then do the acronym in brackets But if ever when we're talking especially because you're new to the committee if you're ever lost or you need a definition absolutely please just ask We would be happy

02:20:23 Lara Widdifield: to help

02:20:25 Lara Widdifield: you out

02:20:29 SPEAKER_037: Yeah through the chair Thank you I appreciate that I just wanted to point out that maybe some of the acronyms were incorrect in some of the documents so it might be worth a second look Okay

02:20:46 SPEAKER_627: two quick questions

02:20:49 SPEAKER_627: It was noted two hydrants are hit by vehicles and that consumes city resources Are processes in place to recoup those damages from insurance companies

02:21:04 Lara Widdifield: Legally we can Whether or not we do I can't say That's done through a different group But we do track all of our costs and if we were ever asked for an invoice

02:21:21 Lara Widdifield: or we can provide an invoice to send to the person's insurance company That that is something that we're able to do

02:21:30 SPEAKER_627: Okay that's good because I presume we would treat it the same as the late Standard or any other city asset that's damaged

02:21:37 SPEAKER_627: there looked to me to be some real pressure points on your staff

02:21:42 SPEAKER_627: Water callouts double the year prior meter exchanges meter readings valve turnings way up Traffic light locates There was substantial increases in terms of the resource requirements Just wondering if staff

02:21:58 SPEAKER_627: can comment on what was the motivating factor Or the contributor to driving those requirements up and how are you responding to it Yeah so I think a lot of that was related to the work associated

02:22:14 Member Jordan 2: with the meter replacement project So we did have when we're saying operating valves we're operating curb stops as well So operating those curb stops to facilitate changing that meter Right So that project is

02:22:30 Member Jordan 2: winding down now Some of the other numbers you see a lot of the times Maybe the aggregate of a couple different activities that get associated with similar activity For example like the hydrant work

02:22:46 Member Jordan 2: right It might be hydrant flushing along with hydrant repair along with hydrant pumping right So it might be counted a couple different times there And

02:22:58 Member Jordan 2: in the future we are looking to

02:23:02 Member Jordan 2: provide more clear matrix on especially for distribution system activities right Because yeah it is it is at times a little unclear as to what that activity means

02:23:16 SPEAKER_627: Okay I appreciate that and I suspected as much that it would have to do a lot with the water meter exchanges but that's a relief to know that it's probably not ongoing strain to the department So this has a motion

02:23:29 SPEAKER_627: or a recommendation The operations committee recommends the city council receive the report for information purposes Do I have a mover member Hawkins Do you have a question I'll put it over to you And then member you know what I think

02:23:41 SPEAKER_627: maybe member Anderson has moved the report or moved the recommendation Okay so the recommendation has been moved It's on the floor member Hawkins

02:23:49 SPEAKER_039: Just a question There was a lot of chatter online about the water main breaks Affecting people's water billsis that true

02:24:04 Member Jordan 2: So you through your deputy mayor

02:24:07 Member Jordan 2: we had a lengthy discussion with Neptune the water meter supplier because we were

02:24:13 Member Jordan 2: in my experience and other operators' experience they had not seen that either They had not seen the ability for a water meter to essentially register for like Liquid is flowing through it when there's no enough no liquid flowing through it

02:24:29 Member Jordan 2: The way these water meters work is they're not a leading

02:24:33 Member Jordan 2: positive like displacement disc that you need the water to fill a chamber to empty a chamber fill a chamber empty a chamber So if it's if it's just vibrating it's not moving that and it's not registering So honestly I think

02:24:48 Member Jordan 2: a lot of this what where it came from was people potentially jumping on online doing some Google research and reading other information that may have been related to another scenario or a different type of water meter that wasn't what we

02:25:04 Member Jordan 2: had here Because as you guys as you all can appreciate there's there's a lot of that now Like

02:25:11 Member Jordan 2: they people become experts very quickly on technology and things that they they see in their homes or use in their homes based on reading an article that wasn't necessarily Quantified So we did have some of those concerns I think most

02:25:25 Member Jordan 2: of the individuals that we talked directly to were satisfied with our response but none of the staff or Neptune Technologies were familiar with a meter registering over based on a water meter water main break

02:25:41 SPEAKER_627: Thanks for the question and the response Good report

02:25:45 SPEAKER_627: excellent annual report So thanks to staff on behalf of committee So it's been moved and all those in favor

02:25:55 SPEAKER_627: And that is carried unanimously Thank you So we are through the reports Matters postponed There are none Motions for which notice was previously given None There are two items of correspondence Any questions from committee

02:26:11 SPEAKER_627: members regarding those Not seeing any And oh I'll go to Tim for a comment

02:26:19 Tim Simmonds: Through you chair I think we have our manager who wants to speak to item thirteen B

02:26:27 SPEAKER_627: Well welcome Mason I was looking at the clock at seven fiftysix so racing you through

02:26:33 SPEAKER_627: Go ahead Mason

02:26:36 Mason Bellamy: I'll try to speak quick chair For the existing members

02:26:41 Mason Bellamy: this is not new We tried to introduce this at the last meeting A quick explanation on how it controls for the new members this is a bit new for us but we're going to try to kind of give a month

02:26:51 Mason Bellamy: by month update how winter controls going This is new format so welcome some feedback on that and then this will kind of give some highlights as some reports come from staff in the future on how we're going to do winter

02:27:02 Mason Bellamy: control So I got a few points in the slide here I'll try to talk to each of them a little bit So this winter has been a challenge Obviously we have a lot of snow The main thing first thing on

02:27:13 Mason Bellamy: the slide here was we have three significant weather events So a severe weather event is where we cannot maintain the acceptable level of standard So we declare the event Gives a little more extra time to get things brought up to

02:27:25 Mason Bellamy: speed Our challenge here at the city is our sidewalks They take the longest to get caught up We have four sidewalk machines It is a challenge to keep them caught up on our one hundred and five kilometers of sidewalk When

02:27:39 Mason Bellamy: we get into deep snow we have the blowers on We average

02:27:44 Mason Bellamy: a kilometer and a half

02:27:46 Mason Bellamy: of sidewalk per hour when they are running which is awfully painfully slow So you can appreciate when we have some of these snow events where we've seen you know a meter of snow over a weekend we are a length of

02:27:59 Mason Bellamy: time getting caught up And as Laura pointed out earlier we have a number of models like sidewalk or curbbased sidewalk where we get the sidewalk clear we get more snow the plow comes by and we are at square one We

02:28:10 Mason Bellamy: start again and that is the challenge so So that is kind of where we're at Twenty consecutive days over those three events we've had

02:28:19 Mason Bellamy: those severe weather events

02:28:20 Mason Bellamy: The second item here is we've got two downtown cleanups so far in our river district getting rid of the snow banks The last one just for some context we had 26 staff take part in that event over two shifts Essentially

02:28:35 Mason Bellamy: all three of our operating shifts take part in that but we kind of shove them into a 12hour window to help out That we had fourteen contractors take part whether it was trucking or helping us push up snow or snow

02:28:47 Mason Bellamy: dump So it's a pretty sizable operation and just hopefully you know we can see the context of what that takes to make that happen a couple times a year So as I said we've had two to date and the last

02:28:58 Mason Bellamy: one went pretty successful even based on the amount of snow we had So the third thing here is

02:29:05 Mason Bellamy: excuse me

02:29:08 Mason Bellamy: So we started our winter control We'll call full time November twentysix We had snow We've kind of gone full tilt since then The number on the screen We're current as of Friday last week So up to then we had three

02:29:20 Mason Bellamy: days We had not

02:29:22 Mason Bellamy: done active winter control So we were lucky We had some rain this week So we're now at five as of today But so five days and eightyfive days in eightyfive consecutive days we've not had active winter control The staff's a

02:29:35 Mason Bellamy: little tired It's been a challenging winter To say the least So that kind of leads me to the next thing The city of Mount Sound on average receives three hundred and thirty centimeters of snow for a full calendar year

02:29:49 Mason Bellamy: As of Friday we had three eightysix

02:29:53 Mason Bellamy: As of today we're at the three hundred and ninetyseven centimeters of snow So I just pulled it up before the meeting It's been a challenging year We have you know look at the date half of February and the beginning March

02:30:06 Mason Bellamy: to go been a challenge ongoing and you know we are going to have to look at some

02:30:13 Mason Bellamy: new measures to account for that Like two winters in a row here we've been

02:30:18 Mason Bellamy: into it to put it the least So the last thing I have here we have some aging fleet and one thing we struggle with is lost equipment time So we've got these are based on twentyfour hour full losses so does

02:30:33 Mason Bellamy: not account for part days or shift losses but we've got four full lost days on plow trucks three full lost days on grader

02:30:41 Mason Bellamy: ten lost days with sidewalk machines We've been able to mitigate that with we've had a rental

02:30:47 Mason Bellamy: We've been had access to at times We've

02:30:50 Mason Bellamy: had six days back We were able to use that rental a couple of the days to help get caught up but it's not an ongoing thing we can utilize based on the cost So

02:31:01 Mason Bellamy: as I said these are all based on 24hour full Full day losses without our two dedicated mechanics who unfortunately this time of year work too many hours we'd be in a lot worse shape So be happy to answer any questions

02:31:13 Mason Bellamy: the committee has

02:31:15 Mason Bellamy: Thanks Mason Councillor Merton and Councillor Farmer

02:31:18 Carol Merton: Through you Chair First of all I want to say thank you

02:31:23 Carol Merton: to everyone who's out there trying to make it work and for the leadership team who are behind them not quite pushing the plow But wishing they could so excellent job and it has been a struggle There is no doubt

02:31:39 Carol Merton: and that councilors do receive emails of concern which we do forward on

02:31:46 Carol Merton: and it continues to be an ongoing challenge for the public as well as our staff A

02:31:53 Carol Merton: couple of questions Do we have enough sidewalk plows to meet the requirements of a city where 27 percent of our population Is sixtyfive and over

02:32:04 Carol Merton: based on historical patterns of last year which was again a challenging year and especially this year

02:32:11 Carol Merton: is it time now for us to reevaluate whether four sidewalk plows to cover one hundred and six kilometers of sidewalks is adequate to meet our current needs recognizing the amount

02:32:27 Carol Merton: of snowfall on average How Owen Sound gets and we're not We're facing a severe year this year That was my first question

02:32:36 Carol Merton: Let's pass this over to Tim

02:32:39 Tim Simmonds: Through you Chair to Councilor Martin It's a really good question I think that some of that information or maybe a majority of it will be coming back this year at our service review committee It's a different committee that's made up

02:32:51 Tim Simmonds: of the mayor and the chairs of each of the standing committees Are expecting a report back on winter maintenance in general so in that service review report I would suspect you'll be tackling everything from sidewalk maintenance to streets to

02:33:08 Tim Simmonds: everything else So it'll I think be contained in there and identify what gaps or nongaps we have from a human resource an equipment fleet type type aspect

02:33:23 Carol Merton: Thank you

02:33:25 Carol Merton: Second of all we do and if I recall last year rental of equipment also had to happen

02:33:33 Carol Merton: How much

02:33:35 Carol Merton: does that cost And

02:33:38 Carol Merton: moving forward perhaps through service review is there an opportunity for a combination of

02:33:45 Carol Merton: each year rental plus to be part of the actual delivery service delivery model on an ongoing basis

02:33:57 Carol Merton: about

02:33:59 SPEAKER_627: who's going to take that One of the comments I'll make is while we have four sidewalk plows we have only two staff overnight that you can put bums in those seats So we can upsize our fleet in some ways but

02:34:11 SPEAKER_627: we we don't have the staffing to accommodate I'll go to Tim to speak further to

02:34:17 Tim Simmonds: that That's exactly through you Chair That's a great point The other thing I was going to say even though it's not a rental of piece of fleet equipment

02:34:26 Tim Simmonds: our winter maintenance also in one aspect if you could call it renting is we have contractors that do our municipal parking lots and other things also So it's not just our staff So even though it's not a rental of a

02:34:37 Tim Simmonds: piece of equipment but we're renting a service So to speak using a contractor to clear certain areas and that will be put into winter maintenance also

02:34:46 Carol Merton: Through you Chair follow up and it's just for the new members of the committee as well Council is certainly knows that whenever you talk equipment there is that operational person power behind the equipment as well So whenever we raise

02:35:02 Carol Merton: a need with equipment the understanding as part of whatever is presented incorporates what's required for people power

02:35:12 Carol Merton: including mechanic power to repair them So thank you Yes

02:35:19 Jon Farmer: Councilor Farmer next

02:35:21 Jon Farmer: Through the chair last year I remember being told a number for what the cost of a downtown snow

02:35:28 Jon Farmer: cleanout looks like but I don't remember what number went in front of the zeros that were there Is could do staff know off the top of your head like what we pay for just one of those nights And I bring

02:35:42 Jon Farmer: that up because I had a downtown business owner say Hey it was great They finally did this Why don't they do that more often And I said Because it costs either seven or fifteen or three grand a time and I

02:35:52 Jon Farmer: didn't know which number was right

02:35:58 Lara Widdifield: Through the chair it is a considerable amount of money We essentially conscript like every contractor in the area that's willing to work with us Unfortunately I don't have that number readily available We would have to pull it but not only

02:36:13 Lara Widdifield: is it complex to coordinate but it is expensive

02:36:19 Lara Widdifield: It's a it's in the thousands yes

02:36:24 Lara Widdifield: Yeah and from memory it's way in the thousands

02:36:29 Scott Greig: Fifteen is low I think That's a deal

02:36:32 Scott Greig: So not seeing any other questions just a motion to receive those two items of correspondence is in appropriate Member Jordan has so moved All those in favor And that receipt is carried Thank you Discussion of additional business There was one

02:36:47 Scott Greig: item identified by Councillor Farmer Go ahead

02:36:51 Jon Farmer: Oh thank you Yeah and if I could just get Christina to pull a link up

02:36:56 Jon Farmer: there So as we were as I was reading through and thinking about four F it

02:37:01 Jon Farmer: struck me that we don't like I don't know where we get the kind of orientation around what's possible for streetscapes and street calming and so I just wanted to draw attention to one one resource that went Over the variety of

02:37:15 Jon Farmer: traffic calming strategies

02:37:19 Jon Farmer: just to maybe point to the fact that as we think about balancing the various needs that we heard in that report that there are a bunch of resources out there and that just looking around at what's already built in the

02:37:29 Jon Farmer: built environment in Owen Sound doesn't give us a sense of what's possible or what's in fact working really well in other places And Christine if you're okay to just I don't know slowly scroll down there and I'll send the link

02:37:41 Jon Farmer: to the member Anderson

02:37:44 Jon Farmer: because I don't know that as we approach 830 it's best that I read each of these options But

02:37:50 Jon Farmer: there

02:37:52 Jon Farmer: this website is the Global Designing Cities Initiative which is really focused on spreading best practice around the globe for creating built environments that are good for the people who live there and the businesses that are there and the people who

02:38:07 Jon Farmer: move through them and the environment and

02:38:10 Jon Farmer: that's a lot of things to balance But I think there are resources available and I

02:38:15 Jon Farmer: also acknowledge that it's really hard with all the other committee onboarding to find ways to share all the possibilities with folks across all of the

02:38:28 Jon Farmer: spheres that a committee like this has to be fluent in from

02:38:34 Jon Farmer: water and wastewater policy to

02:38:39 Jon Farmer: yeah traffic design and

02:38:42 Jon Farmer: yeah and all the other pieces So I just wanted to flag this as one of many resources and

02:38:49 Jon Farmer: yeah maybe ask the question of staff of like how do we share best practice more often or is that just a matter of email your fellow committee members when you find something cool

02:39:02 Jon Farmer: Go to Lara for that

02:39:05 Lara Widdifield: So the chair maybe that's a chair question more so than me but as far as implementing them like the we can only implement them as fast as we have projects that are appropriate for them But we do continue to keep

02:39:19 Lara Widdifield: these type this type of thing in the back of our minds when we whenever we redesign anything really

02:39:29 SPEAKER_627: Yeah and I think at this committee you're always thinking downstream Later this year we may get introduced to major reconstruction Reconstruction and roadway improvements on Ninth Avenue East which is going to span three or four blocks So there's opportunities to

02:39:45 SPEAKER_627: always take that information that we're seeing out there and and try to consider or incorporate some of those ideas in terms of future

02:39:53 SPEAKER_627: improvements in the city

02:39:57 SPEAKER_627: Yeah yep

02:39:59 SPEAKER_627: Any further questions Any questions Not seeing any So

02:40:05 SPEAKER_627: item fifteen is no notices of motion Are there any notices of motion this evening There are none so I declare at 810 we are adjourned Thank you very much everyone