Owen Sound Council Meeting - Regular Meeting Transcript — September 22, 2025

00:00:24 Speaker 01: I will call our meeting to order.

00:00:27 Speaker 01: It's on Sound City Council, September 20th.

00:00:28 Speaker 01: City Council, September 22nd.

00:00:31 Speaker 01: This being our last meeting prior to September 30th, which is National Truth and Reconciliation Day, I wish to read the land acknowledgement.

00:00:42 Speaker 01: As council knows, I try not to read it so it becomes read by rote every meeting, but try and do it when it has some meaning behind it.

00:00:51 Speaker 01: We acknowledge with respect the history, spirituality, and culture of the non-Iskabibi people, who consist of the people of the three fires known as the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations,

00:01:04 Speaker 01: on whose traditional territories we gather and whose ancestors signed treaties with our ancestors, we recognize also the Métis and Inuit, whose ancestors shared this land and these waters.

00:01:16 Speaker 01: May we all as treaty people live with respect on this land and live in peace and friendship with all of its diverse peoples.

00:01:27 Speaker 01: So number two, Council.

00:01:29 Speaker 01: Is there any additional business, Councillor Farmer?

00:01:33 Speaker 01: Thank you, through the Mayor.

00:01:34 Speaker 02: I'll have four items: three about previous events, including the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, Municipal Community of Practice, recent event, trying to increase engagement and share information about the election next year,

00:01:50 Speaker 02: the Sweetwater Music Festival, and then one piece about an upcoming event hosted by Safe and Sound.

00:01:57 Speaker 03: Deputy Mayor Greig, I have one item pertaining to just asking staff for an update on where we're at on the zoning and official plan bylaw updates.

00:02:10 Speaker 01: Looking this way, any seeing none, I will have two items: being National Day of Reconciliation or Truth and Reconciliation, and event that I attended Saturday and still paying for.

00:02:27 Speaker 01: Any declarations of interest?

00:02:29 Speaker 01: Seeing no hands going up.

00:02:31 Speaker 01: Confirmation of the council minutes.

00:02:33 Speaker 01: I think Suneet's got the motions.

00:02:36 Speaker 01: Go ahead.

00:02:39 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, seconded by Councillor Merton, that the minutes of the following council meetings be adopted as printed.

00:02:46 Speaker 04: Number one, the closed session of the special council meeting held on July 21st, 2021.

00:02:52 Speaker 04: On July 21st, 2025, and second, the regular council meeting held on September 8th, 2025.

00:02:57 Speaker 04: And all in favour.

00:03:00 Speaker 04: And so that is carried.

00:03:02 Speaker 04: Number five is motion to move council into committee of the whole.

00:03:07 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, seconded by Councillor Merton, that the City Council now move into committee of the whole to consider public meetings, deputations, and presentations, public forum matters arising from correspondence, reports of city staff,

00:03:22 Speaker 04: consent agenda, committee minutes, matters postponed, motions for which notice was previously given, and additional business.

00:03:30 Speaker 04: And all in favour?

00:03:31 Speaker 01: That is carried.

00:03:33 Speaker 01: So we are now in committee of the whole.

00:03:36 Speaker 01: At number six in our agenda, we have no public meetings.

00:03:39 Speaker 01: At number seven, we have a deputation from Tamara Sargent, non-Owen Sound residents, with regard to circulating petitions and charter protected rights at public events.

00:03:48 Speaker 01: Thank you.

00:03:50 Speaker 05: On Saturday, pardon me, on Saturday, July 13th, I attended a public music festival in downtown Owen Sound.

00:04:00 Speaker 05: While there, I peacefully circulated a petition calling on Canada to implement a two-way arms embargo with Israel.

00:04:07 Speaker 05: A petition which has since collected 542 signatures and was delivered to MP Alex Ruff's Owen Sound office late, probably, pardon me, early last week.

00:04:15 Speaker 05: Or pardon me, early last week, it was confirmed by his office this morning that it is presently on route to Ottawa to be submitted to the Clerk of Petitions.

00:04:26 Speaker 05: This is our second petition which we've submitted to Mr. Ruff's office.

00:04:30 Speaker 05: The first one had over three hundred signatures, but Mr. Ruff regretfully informed us that the wording was not correct, so he could not submit it on our behalf.

00:04:38 Speaker 05: But we have confirmed the wording on this second petition with the Clerk of Petitions in advance, so we are grateful to Mr. Ruff for submitting this one.

00:04:47 Speaker 05: Coincidentally, a very similar private members' bill was tabled in Ottawa last Friday from Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, also trying to stop Canadian-made weapons from being sent to Israel while they conduct genocide—that is,

00:05:01 Speaker 05: murdering or displacing the Indigenous Palestinians to steal the land, from Turtle Island to Palestine.

00:05:08 Speaker 05: Settler colonialism is a crime.

00:05:11 Speaker 05: MP Jenny Kwan's bill is called the No More Loopholes Bill, and I encourage everyone to reach out to our MP Alex Ruff to let him know that you want him to support this bill,

00:05:21 Speaker 05: which will be voted on late next month, and which will stop Canadian-made weapons from being snuck into the genocidal ethno-state of Israel via the USA.

00:05:31 Speaker 05: On July 13th, while speaking with attendees of this public music festival in Owen Sound about our local petition, I was approached by an event organiser from the United Way,

00:05:41 Speaker 05: who informed me that petitioning was not permitted and instructed me to stop.

00:05:46 Speaker 05: When I explained that I was exercising my charter rights to peaceful expression in a public space, I was told that I would be asked to leave the event if I continued.

00:05:54 Speaker 05: I told her that if she tried to kick me out for petitioning, she would have to call the police to see what they said, and I walked away from her.

00:06:02 Speaker 05: A short while later, two other organisers approached and interrupted conversations I was having with interested attendees, again attempting to prevent me from continuing to exercise my charter rights.

00:06:13 Speaker 05: At no time was I obstructing walkways, disrupting performances, or raising my voice.

00:06:18 Speaker 05: I was simply speaking with community members who chose to engage.

00:06:21 Speaker 05: Forty of whom signed the petition before I ran out of blank pages.

00:06:25 Speaker 05: It was respectful, quiet, and voluntary exchange.

00:06:28 Speaker 05: This experience was deeply concerning.

00:06:30 Speaker 05: Peaceful petitioning is a constitutionally protected form of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:06:37 Speaker 05: It is a core democratic tradition, and public events held in shared civic spaces must not become zones where political expression is selectively policed or discouraged.

00:06:48 Speaker 05: When residents are threatened with removal from a public gathering for engaging in protected speech, it raises serious questions about equity, accountability, and access to public life.

00:06:58 Speaker 05: These days, you're either a fascist yourself, or you are rightly frightened by the ever-increasing control fascists have over our institutions.

00:07:06 Speaker 05: We must resist charter violations like this and uphold our right to free expression.

00:07:11 Speaker 05: So, in light of this incident, I respectfully urge Council to one, review policies and agreements related to the use of public space for community events; two,

00:07:22 Speaker 05: clarify and publicly affirm the rights of individuals to engage in peaceful political expression during public gatherings; and lastly, to consider offering guidance or training to event organisers to ensure that moving forward,

00:07:36 Speaker 05: chartered rights are understood and respected.

00:07:39 Speaker 05: Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

00:07:42 Speaker 06: Thank you very much for your presentation and making us think about something.

00:07:47 Speaker 06: So thank you.

00:07:55 Speaker 06: Next deputation presentations at seven B. Presentation from Mr. Simmonds with regard to City Manager's update.

00:08:04 Speaker 06: Thank you, Mayor.

00:08:05 Speaker 06: Thank you, Council.

00:08:07 Speaker 07: So this update is from our last meeting in July through this past week over the summer.

00:08:14 Speaker 07: I've got a lot of highlights to go through.

00:08:15 Speaker 07: I probably will jump over some of them,

00:08:19 Speaker 07: but I want to hit a few others because there are some key partnerships and stakeholders that helped us make the summer so great in tourism at the Tom and other events.

00:08:29 Speaker 07: So I'll start with Camp Tom wrapped up in August.

00:08:31 Speaker 07: So this is the first year that the Tom brought back summer camps.

00:08:36 Speaker 07: They had 87 campers attended.

00:08:37 Speaker 07: Several spaces were held for youth to attend at no cost, thanks to the sponsorship of the Kauanas Club of Owen Sound.

00:08:43 Speaker 07: And so again, a special thank you to the Kauanas.

00:08:46 Speaker 07: The Gallery received just under 300 submissions of works by 194 artists for the upcoming juried exhibition, Convergence.

00:08:53 Speaker 07: That exhibition will open at the Tom on October 18th.

00:08:58 Speaker 07: TD Harbour Nights free music series concluded on August 10th.

00:09:01 Speaker 07: Series concluded on August 10th, and again, a thank you to the two thousand and twenty-five sponsors: Barristan Law, Owen Sound Gardens, the Owen Sound Attack, Longa McQuade, Country 93, Kelso Villa, Zoomer 92.3, Tahini's,

00:09:14 Speaker 07: and Shanker Law.

00:09:17 Speaker 07: Tourism is continuing with their second year of a pilot project to deliver key visitor services at the Tom.

00:09:23 Speaker 07: We had five summer students join the team at Tourism.

00:09:26 Speaker 07: And of note here, four of those positions were supported by grant funding.

00:09:29 Speaker 07: So we thank the federal and provincial government for those grants to allow us more summer students.

00:09:34 Speaker 07: They worked on TD Harbour Nights, Canada Day, had a street sale, had tourism boosts at the Salmon Derby and also at SummerFolk.

00:09:42 Speaker 07: We had a beta launch of our tourism app for the Salmon Tour.

00:09:45 Speaker 07: In just in the past week and a half, two weeks, we had Cars and Coffee and Concord de l'Amont down in the River District.

00:09:52 Speaker 07: Very positive economic impact on the city from hotel stays to shopping, Main Street drawn foot traffic, and really what's a nice note because it's cars?

00:10:01 Speaker 07: It's a really visible way to see the impact within the city.

00:10:04 Speaker 07: And then finally, the Salmon Spectacular was a great success with the Owen Sound Tourism Tent on site through the entire weekend.

00:10:11 Speaker 07: Continuing on and with tourism, we had a partnership with the Owen Sound Tourism Development Fund.

00:10:18 Speaker 07: They launched a Nature's Gateway campaign, and due to its success, an agreement has been reached to continue the campaign.

00:10:25 Speaker 07: I believe the total cost was just a few thousand dollars, but they had over three million impressions, over four platforms, and 18,000, more than 18,000 clickthroughs to date.

00:10:35 Speaker 07: And they're going to be doing a fall campaign focused on the same through the holiday season.

00:10:41 Speaker 07: Exciting!

00:10:41 Speaker 07: The new scoreboard is up at Tom Williams Park.

00:10:43 Speaker 07: The scoreboard was made possible by generous donations in memory of Bailey by his family, the Bay Sox and Minor Baseball again.

00:10:50 Speaker 07: So stakeholders coming together to honour Bailey.

00:10:53 Speaker 07: We really appreciate the new scoreboard.

00:10:55 Speaker 07: Summer camps wrapped up with excellent attendance and feedback from a variety of sessions.

00:11:00 Speaker 07: Those are our sports camps and Harrison Park camps.

00:11:02 Speaker 07: Report will be coming in November with more details, and I'll leave it to that report.

00:11:07 Speaker 07: Staff played a large support role for SummerFolk Fifty with a big success at Kelsey Beach at Naywash Park.

00:11:13 Speaker 07: The Bayshore Floor and Boards project was substantially completed by early September.

00:11:17 Speaker 07: The arena's team, staff team that is, put the first floods on the new floor on September 11th with the ice painting lines and logos installed on September 12th.

00:11:27 Speaker 07: I was there last Friday.

00:11:28 Speaker 07: It looks absolutely amazing.

00:11:30 Speaker 07: The ice actually almost looks—I know it's artificial ice, but it looks like fake ice.

00:11:34 Speaker 07: It's so clear and vibrant in colour.

00:11:37 Speaker 07: The home opener is this coming Saturday, September 27th.

00:11:40 Speaker 07: Arena staff also installed new benches in the Bayshore dressing rooms, replacing the old wooden benches with a new recycled plastic material, much more durable.

00:11:49 Speaker 07: Arena staff have painted the steel siding on the Emperor Concourse, which brightens and refreshes the entire arena.

00:11:55 Speaker 07: Bowl contract painters continue to paint; they're doing final touches and sort of that punch list right now to get everything ready for this next weekend.

00:12:03 Speaker 07: Looks really fabulous in the Bayshore, and the Julie MacArthur Regional Recreational Centre West Ice was installed early in August.

00:12:12 Speaker 07: From Public Works, Sixteenth Avenue sanitary sewer replacement has started.

00:12:16 Speaker 07: Road resurfacing is underway, and public work staff say that's expected to be completed somewhere around October 3rd.

00:12:23 Speaker 07: So in the next two to three weeks, our water metre project is progressing quite well.

00:12:28 Speaker 07: More than 90 percent complete, and they'll be sending out final notices to people who may have missed a notice, been away, or not responded to booking requests.

00:12:36 Speaker 07: Traffic counting devices have been received.

00:12:38 Speaker 07: Staff are training on that, so we can start to get more accurate counts vehicle counts on our roads, which will be a tremendous help moving forward.

00:12:46 Speaker 07: The City will be launching a new garbage bag tag design shortly.

00:12:50 Speaker 07: That new bag tag will be a larger size and improved visibility.

00:12:54 Speaker 07: There's also a number of active construction projects right now.

00:12:57 Speaker 07: So again, asking for our public's patience as we coordinate between multiple divisions.

00:13:03 Speaker 07: That collabouration among staff is critical to its success and shows the dedication of staff to the City.

00:13:10 Speaker 07: Moving into our committees and upcoming reports, we'll be looking at the October reports.

00:13:14 Speaker 07: Corporate Services meets on October 9th, which is a Thursday evening.

00:13:18 Speaker 07: We have the two thousand and twenty-five T2 financial update, an external communications strategy project plan, a joining or request to join the Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities, a pay and compensation update,

00:13:31 Speaker 07: a recruitment and retention update, and an update on safety in the council chambers.

00:13:36 Speaker 07: At Operations Committee on October 16th, again a Thursday evening, we have two reports scheduled right now.

00:13:42 Speaker 07: One is a bus stop agreement with Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings, and that's fronting the East Side Shoppers.

00:13:46 Speaker 07: Fronting the Eastside Shoppers Drug Mart, and also pedestrian signal status update.

00:13:52 Speaker 07: Finally, Community Services Committee scheduled for October 15th.

00:13:55 Speaker 07: That's a Wednesday evening.

00:13:56 Speaker 07: We have design and location of the commemorative forest monument report, external relations and investment attraction plan coming forward, a summer recreation programmememes 2025 wrap up, a report on municipal response to Provincial Bill Number Five,

00:14:12 Speaker 07: and the monthly building activity update.

00:14:15 Speaker 07: In case you missed it, generally our comms team puts out about 15 to 20 or 20 to 25 different media advisories between council meetings in one month.

00:14:26 Speaker 07: Over the past six weeks, though, I'm not going to read these, but we've got actually 39 different media advisories that have gone out.

00:14:34 Speaker 07: And I bring that again: this is one.

00:14:36 Speaker 07: Go to owensound.ca/news.

00:14:37 Speaker 07: You can sign up to have media advisories sent right to your inbox and email to stay abreast of everything going on at the City.

00:14:46 Speaker 07: Some engagement opportunities coming up.

00:14:48 Speaker 07: Discover Your City, Owen Sound Community Open House is scheduled for Monday, October 20th, from 4:30 to 7 pm at the Bayshore Community Centre.

00:14:56 Speaker 07: And as the slide notes, it's free.

00:14:58 Speaker 07: It's a family-friendly event.

00:14:59 Speaker 07: It offers residents a unique opportunity to connect directly with city council and staff, learn more about essential city services, and engage with community organisations and stakeholders that play a vital role in daily life.

00:15:12 Speaker 07: There will be new this year a dedicated kids space.

00:15:15 Speaker 07: So for families with young children, there'll be an opportunity that they can have their children there and spend time actually visiting with staff as their children are engaged with fun activities.

00:15:25 Speaker 07: And then finally, a tourism opportunity also: Salmon Discovery Day, Saturday, October 4.

00:15:30 Speaker 07: Tourism is partnering with Grey Sauble Conservation for Salmon Discovery Day, which will take place from 11 am to 3 pm.

00:15:38 Speaker 07: It's designed as a self-guided adventure that takes you along the Sydenham River to watch the salmon on their journey upstream.

00:15:44 Speaker 07: Along the way, you can collect stamps in a Salmon Discovery Passport for a chance to win prize.

00:15:49 Speaker 07: This family-friendly event again starts at the Westside Boat Launch and ends at English Falls Arboretum.

00:15:55 Speaker 07: And then finally, I wanted to spend some time on this side.

00:15:59 Speaker 07: Our year-to-date building activity, the construction value this year thus far is two hundred and fourteen million five hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, and in no. In note, our average year, I'd say on average,

00:16:12 Speaker 07: is about 35 to 40 million dollars.

00:16:15 Speaker 07: So this is four years of construction activity thus far this year, and it's just an amazing stat because construction activity turns into future assessment for the city.

00:16:24 Speaker 07: And we've talked a lot about growth, and this really talks about the staff that are working together,

00:16:33 Speaker 07: bringing a culture of a get-to-yes to move things along and to get construction going on in the city.

00:16:38 Speaker 07: I know this council, Mayor Boddy, for years have talked about putting the right, essentially, ingredients for the recipe to get growth here in the city, and it's really all coming to fruition right now.

00:16:50 Speaker 07: So, in addition to that, $214 million of construction value equates out to 264 building permits issued, 920 building inspections, and from building permit fees, just over $900 thousand in building fees collected this year.

00:17:05 Speaker 07: And as far as we can tell, going back to at least 2001, the closest year in construction value was about $72 million in the 2010 timeframe with the Julie MacArthur Regional Recreation Centre.

00:17:17 Speaker 07: These numbers don't constitute or have a large public project within it.

00:17:22 Speaker 07: This is mostly residential construction and additional commercial construction.

00:17:27 Speaker 07: So again, there's not one large public project within this, which really makes it a fabulous number.

00:17:33 Speaker 07: And I want to thank staff so much for working towards this.

00:17:37 Speaker 07: And with that, I'll just encourage everybody again to stay connected.

00:17:39 Speaker 07: And here are the various options to stay connected with the city: our main website at owensound.ca, ourcity.owensound.ca for surveys and engagement tools, owensound.ca/report-a-concern again, where if you see something you'd like to report it,

00:17:56 Speaker 07: you can also upload pictures to that site, and that gets directed to the appropriate staff division to take care of it.

00:18:03 Speaker 07: And then two other sites with a lot of events: the Owen Sound River District CA and Owen Sound Tourism CA.

00:18:09 Speaker 07: With that, Mayor, conclude the update.

00:18:12 Speaker 07: Questions?

00:18:12 Speaker 07: Comments?

00:18:15 Speaker 07: John.

00:18:16 Speaker 08: Through the Mayor to the City Manager: Just a question about the traffic counting devices.

00:18:20 Speaker 08: Are those rolling?

00:18:21 Speaker 08: I may have missed what I assume is an operations report about that.

00:18:25 Speaker 08: Are they rolling out all over, or are they just specific places as we track who's moving where and how?

00:18:32 Speaker 07: Through the Mayor.

00:18:32 Speaker 07: I'll ask our Director of Public Works to answer that.

00:18:37 Speaker 09: Thank you.

00:18:39 Speaker 09: Thank you to the City Manager for passing this one to me.

00:18:43 Speaker 09: Through you, Your Worship, these—they're mobile traffic counting devices.

00:18:49 Speaker 09: They're not for enforcement of any kind.

00:18:53 Speaker 09: They're strictly for us to monitor speed and volume of traffic.

00:19:01 Speaker 09: We can monitor the demographic of traffic, so it'll sort from heavy trucks from passenger vehicles,

00:19:09 Speaker 09: and the main impetus for that is so that we can ensure that we are meeting our minimum maintenance standards for our road classifications.

00:19:17 Speaker 09: Make sure that our road classifications are accurate based on the volume of traffic that they're receiving, and also there was a couple years ago now I did a report on neighbourhood traffic calming,

00:19:31 Speaker 09: so they could be used to confirm whether or not there is a speeding issue in a particular area.

00:19:39 Speaker 09: So, if the neighbourhood wanted to pursue any of the traffic calming measures or initiatives that we have in the policy, there's a number of.

00:19:57 Speaker 09: It's sort of not really the time to get into all of that, but there is a report and a policy on our website that talks about all about traffic calming and neighbourhood speed limits.

00:20:10 Speaker 09: It also feeds into the report that I've provided to council about the school zones, the speed reductions in our school zones that was recently implemented.

00:20:21 Speaker 09: So, it's all part of the same plan.

00:20:29 Speaker 08: Thank you.

00:20:29 Speaker 08: Just through the Mayor to clarify, so these are only counting vehicular traffic.

00:20:35 Speaker 09: There, we did get one unit that is able to count a broad variety of modes of traffic, including bicycles and pedestrians.

00:20:46 Speaker 09: But I think we received four of our standard units that are primarily for vehicles, but we did get one that can do a variety of things.

00:21:02 Speaker 09: Tim, go ahead.

00:21:03 Speaker 07: Mayor, threw you on a completely different subject.

00:21:05 Speaker 07: I forgot one item in my update because it just came in this afternoon.

00:21:09 Speaker 07: I'm excited to share that.

00:21:12 Speaker 07: Well, not excited, but Heather Hiscox, our own Owen Sound Heather Hiscox with CBC, is retiring this year, and they are going to be bringing the Heather Hiscox on a road show,

00:21:22 Speaker 07: live broadcast from Owen Sound.

00:21:24 Speaker 07: They've now advertised this and brought it out to the public on October 28th.

00:21:29 Speaker 07: The more details will be following, but we'll be hosting Heather Hiscox and CBC Morning Live here in Owen Sound on October 28th.

00:21:38 Speaker 07: Kid out of the neighbourhood.

00:21:41 Speaker 10: I want to go back to those development numbers.

00:21:51 Speaker 11: Never in a million years that I think I would see a number that high.

00:21:54 Speaker 11: Like I knew we were making good progress with that, but over $200 million is eye-watering, especially when you consider what's going on in the world.

00:22:05 Speaker 11: And you know, I think in other municipalities you'll see these numbers slowing, and ours are increasing more and more.

00:22:11 Speaker 11: And it's just incredible to see, and it's a great job, great work, Tim, Pam, Lara, Kate's not here, but all your teams are just hammering away,

00:22:21 Speaker 11: and we're starting to see all the good work over many, many years.

00:22:28 Speaker 06: If I can just add to that, you know, site plan approvals are done by Planning and Engineering, and well, maybe not the Building people,

00:22:36 Speaker 06: but all three of those departments are working on things like that.

00:22:39 Speaker 06: And we'll get the site plan approval through here, but there will be months involved in that before we see it, and it goes back out, and then the developer, once they get that,

00:22:51 Speaker 06: starts to put together their money and starts to put together their plans, and maybe finishes up a project somewhere else.

00:22:58 Speaker 06: And this is starting to come.

00:22:59 Speaker 06: That again, as Tim indicated, there's no public money, there's no government money in there.

00:23:03 Speaker 06: The 2010 would have been the recreation centre that would have been involved.

00:23:10 Speaker 06: I've noticed that they've started to prepare the land and the ground for the high school is going to go not in here.

00:23:17 Speaker 06: I've noticed they're chopping down trees over in Blacklock and Kennedy property to start to prepare it.

00:23:21 Speaker 06: I don't think that's in here.

00:23:24 Speaker 06: It is in here.

00:23:25 Speaker 06: Good.

00:23:28 Speaker 06: We went out for sod turning, ground turning, whatever it was at Skyline a few weeks ago,

00:23:35 Speaker 06: and speaking to them into a microphone into media and everybody talked about how great it is working with staff in the City of Owen Sound to get-to-yes and moving things forward,

00:23:47 Speaker 06: and I know that's sometimes not what we hear in emails from certain people.

00:23:52 Speaker 06: But that was from them;

00:23:53 Speaker 06: they actually quit moving ahead on something in Guelph and another one down in that area to move ahead with this one because they're getting progress from staff more rapidly up here.

00:24:03 Speaker 06: So that's all important.

00:24:06 Speaker 06: Our water and our wastewater system was built out in the '60s for this type of growth.

00:24:13 Speaker 06: We didn't get there before, and we know that there are other municipalities that have run into problems not having the infrastructure to be able to build out.

00:24:22 Speaker 06: Certainly, some of this council would have been after 2015 went ahead with the investment of putting in the infrastructure up into Sittenham Heights on Eighth Street to start getting investment in that area.

00:24:38 Speaker 06: We will get paid back hopefully through development charges specific development charges for that, but all this has been working to try and get to this point.

00:24:49 Speaker 06: Tim, your next one, I'd love to hear some updates on the water treatment plant.

00:24:54 Speaker 06: That I know every time I go past there,

00:24:56 Speaker 06: I see a lot of things going on there that'd be fun to get an update on that and everything that's going on that also helps provide clean water that people don't think about when they

00:25:06 Speaker 06: turn on their water—that it's coming from somewhere.

00:25:09 Speaker 06: Big infrastructure investments, so investment.

00:25:11 Speaker 06: So, Scott, go ahead.

00:25:15 Speaker 03: I just asked you to hold your enthusiasm two weeks because we had a presentation at Operations Committee that updated us on the status of that project.

00:25:23 Speaker 03: So, I'll be reporting back to Council on that within the minutes.

00:25:30 Speaker 01: About the development charges, keeping a positive.

00:25:36 Speaker 01: Thanks to staff and Tim.

00:25:38 Speaker 01: Thank you for your report.

00:25:42 Speaker 01: Next public forum, number eight.

00:25:43 Speaker 01: If there's anyone that's got any questions, please step up, state your name, which municipality you reside in, and go ahead.

00:26:01 Speaker 12: Good.

00:26:02 Speaker 12: Good evening, Mayor Boddy and members of council.

00:26:05 Speaker 12: My name is Pat Kelly.

00:26:07 Speaker 12: I live here in downtown Owen Sound.

00:26:10 Speaker 12: thank you for inviting me.

00:26:13 Speaker 12: I think I want to address a process and timing as they relate to Vision 2050 and tonight's item on the July 28th River District stakeholder meeting.

00:26:25 Speaker 12: I had asked that my recommendations from that meeting be considered before tonight's related report.

00:26:32 Speaker 12: The clerk has confirmed the agenda was already set, and my correspondence will appear October six.

00:26:43 Speaker 12: My original hope was to have them included in the discussion for tonight, in particular, to constructively offer another perspective and identify gaps in the reporting from Tim, Joel, and Rebecca,

00:26:59 Speaker 12: all of whom have humbly acknowledged they are new to the field of public engagement, a fact also noted in the Vision 2050 consulting report.

00:27:11 Speaker 12: My intent was to bring an evidence-informed perspective, but the late release of the report and the agenda made it difficult to meet the submission deadlines.

00:27:22 Speaker 12: With due respect, it raises a larger concern: when materials are laid late and discussion happens immediately, public participation risks being symbolic rather than real, and trust erodes when residents feel the deck is stacked.

00:27:45 Speaker 12: This pattern isn't new.

00:27:47 Speaker 12: In my June 20th letter to you, I called for stronger accountability.

00:27:53 Speaker 12: At the July 7th meeting, Deputy Mayor Greig responded that my phrase "small town thinking" was bordering on discrimination, troublesome, injurious to others, and he questioned whether such a lever even belonged on the agenda.

00:28:12 Speaker 12: The letter was received.

00:28:14 Speaker 12: The meeting moved on.

00:28:17 Speaker 12: While his remarks may have been just overstated, they show how high the bar is set for residents like me who are willing to put themselves in the line of fire right here.

00:28:30 Speaker 12: More recently, Councillor Merton's Facebook post highlighted threats to public officials, which is real, and I acknowledge that.

00:28:43 Speaker 12: But the problem isn't outside; it isn't only outside.

00:28:48 Speaker 12: What council sometimes frames as threatening can also reflect a culture of containment and dismissal.

00:28:55 Speaker 12: When constructive input is met with defensiveness or delay, mistrust deepens.

00:29:01 Speaker 12: My asks are simple: publish reports and attachments at least ten days before meetings, so residents can provide input before decisions.

00:29:13 Speaker 12: Pair the submissions with the related agenda item, not weeks later.

00:29:18 Speaker 12: On October six, receive and respond in writing to my recommendations and allow delegations.

00:29:26 Speaker 12: Reaffirm that Vision 2050 isn't just a document, but a standard of engagement.

00:29:32 Speaker 12: Its implementation must offer a fulsome approach to engagement, accountability, and collabouration.

00:29:42 Speaker 12: Thank you.

00:29:44 Speaker 12: Thank you.

00:29:46 Speaker 06: Is there anyone else that wishes to speak during the public forum?

00:29:50 Speaker 06: Yep, go ahead.

00:29:54 Speaker 06: Hello, my name is James.

00:29:55 Speaker 06: I'm a resident in Owen Sound.

00:29:58 Speaker 06: My concern—it's more not a concern.

00:30:03 Speaker 06: It's more of a suggestion about the water usage in Owen Sound, more so for next season for the plants and stuff that are hanging on downtown.

00:30:16 Speaker 06: I've been timing them at almost a minute of being watered.

00:30:20 Speaker 13: That is way too much, and the water is just being wasted, and the chemicals in that are hitting the ground or coming down and maybe hitting somebody.

00:30:30 Speaker 13: That's not healthy.

00:30:32 Speaker 13: And the plants on the bridges that are being watered with the same water with the chemicals on it is going directly right into the river.

00:30:40 Speaker 13: And unnecessary, really unnecessary.

00:30:46 Speaker 13: Yeah, it's harmful to nature itself and the wildlife here, like the fish; it's polluting the water a little bit at a time, but it's still polluting it.

00:31:02 Speaker 13: And that the water that's conserved from that can easily go to water if it's already bought and paid for.

00:31:09 Speaker 13: It can easily go to the water that's used for cleaning in the summer downtown streets.

00:31:13 Speaker 13: So it's not being totally wasted.

00:31:16 Speaker 13: It's putting back, being put back into good use.

00:31:20 Speaker 13: And I would also like to know how much money we got from the Folk Fest, because from what I observed, it wasn't the best one we've had so far.

00:31:37 Speaker 13: And I've even heard some of that from the volunteers that were helping out.

00:31:42 Speaker 13: That they said it was nowhere close to last year.

00:31:45 Speaker 13: And I would love to know what the rent was that you guys got for that land, that would be nice,

00:31:52 Speaker 13: and for the public to know because this year's was not even close to last year's.

00:31:59 Speaker 13: So that's all I got to say.

00:32:03 Speaker 13: Thank you.

00:32:06 Speaker 13: Go ahead.

00:32:08 Speaker 03: Just if I could ask a question to the clerk related to the first resident's question about the agenda being published, is that backed by current city policy?

00:32:20 Speaker 03: That like, what is the background just for everyone's transparency and the process there?

00:32:28 Speaker 03: Because it's, as I see it, we want something that provides equal opportunity and access for all residents equally.

00:32:36 Speaker 03: So I'm just wondering, what is the process?

00:32:40 Speaker 03: I guess that staff referred to.

00:32:46 Speaker 14: Through your Worship, I noticed.

00:32:47 Speaker 14: Your Worship, notice provisions are outlined in our procedural bylaw, which is approved by Council, and does require that the agenda be published on Wednesday prior to the meeting,

00:32:59 Speaker 14: with the republish occurring on Friday with any outstanding items that may have been missed in that original agenda.

00:33:09 Speaker 14: Thank you.

00:33:10 Speaker 14: Anyone else?

00:33:11 Speaker 06: Seeing no others, there's no one else.

00:33:15 Speaker 06: That go to the microphone, please.

00:33:24 Speaker 06: Maryann Alton, Owen Sound.

00:33:26 Speaker 15: I had no intention of speaking this evening, but somebody just spoke about my beloved Summerfolk that I've been attending for forty-five years, and Summerfolk Fifty was phenomenal.

00:33:39 Speaker 15: And I'd like to commend this council for everything you've done to ensure that that remarkable festival within our city continues, thank you.

00:33:51 Speaker 06: Good, thank you.

00:33:52 Speaker 06: I think yeah, I think last year it got totally rained out.

00:33:55 Speaker 06: Okay, anyone else?

00:33:57 Speaker 06: Public forum, seeing no one else going.

00:34:03 Speaker 06: No, okay.

00:34:04 Speaker 06: Some instructions going on, but number nine correspondents receive which direction if council is required, and we have none.

00:34:12 Speaker 06: At ten a, we have a report from Mr. Simonds with regard to update following the July 28 community stakeholders discussion to foster a vibrant River District.

00:34:25 Speaker 07: Thank you, Mayor, and through you to Council.

00:34:27 Speaker 07: Just as the title indicates, this is an update following that July 28 stakeholder discussion.

00:34:34 Speaker 07: The original catalyst for this was a communication date at May six from the Owen Sound Police Service Board, asking Owen Sound asking Owen Sound City Council to convene a meeting with the River District Board,

00:34:44 Speaker 07: Chamber of Commerce, and downtown businesses, and also legal prosecutors to discuss current business conditions in the downtown or the River District.

00:34:54 Speaker 07: That was discussed at council on May 26th, and council supported that and convened,

00:35:00 Speaker 07: passed a motion to have staff convene a meeting with River District stakeholders and broaden that out to include social service providers as part of the invite group.

00:35:13 Speaker 07: Further to that motion, staff then came back to council on June 30th and outlined how we would convene that stakeholder meeting,

00:35:23 Speaker 07: and council passed a motion directing staff to organise and plan the meeting regarding the river district as outlined in that report.

00:35:30 Speaker 07: Through that, we engaged with professional facilitator Joel Pennington to coordinate the meeting, and he followed a pattern.

00:35:39 Speaker 07: called Respect, Connect, Reflect, and Direct community engagement model, and in his experience with groups that have very diverse interpretations or they're coming at things diversity on a topic,

00:35:53 Speaker 07: that this would be a very good approach to that meeting.

00:35:57 Speaker 07: At the meeting, we reached out to a number of different people.

00:36:00 Speaker 07: We had more than a hundred people sign up for the meeting.

00:36:03 Speaker 07: We tried to work with local catering.

00:36:07 Speaker 07: Fresh Roots Cafe and Catering in the River District as a River District business to supply food for that and refreshments for that meeting.

00:36:17 Speaker 07: We also specifically hosted that at the Harmony Centre because again it's location within the River District.

00:36:24 Speaker 07: There are other places I know and people have asked, well, why didn't you host it at the Bayshore or somewhere else?

00:36:28 Speaker 07: But we felt it most appropriate to try to host the meeting in the River District itself.

00:36:34 Speaker 07: We're actually with invites and reservations to come, we had to move it from one room within Harmony Centre to the larger auditorium so we could accommodate a larger crowd.

00:36:46 Speaker 07: As I mentioned, we had a total of 108 individuals pre-register for the event, and I think this is an important statistic within that as we look at data.

00:36:56 Speaker 07: 55.6, so over 50 percent identified as small business or property owners, and 21 percent identified as stakeholders from the social service sector, so we had a really good cross representation of people there.

00:37:10 Speaker 07: I know sometimes when you get into a larger group, you can't identify who is really speaking.

00:37:16 Speaker 07: Does one side have a stronger voice than another side?

00:37:19 Speaker 07: And that was an issue I think that we dealt with at a previous town hall style meeting that the Chamber of Commerce hosted the year prior.

00:37:27 Speaker 07: But at this one, there was good equal representation and actually a little bit stronger representation from the small businesses within the River District.

00:37:35 Speaker 07: What we learned through that and the facilitator's report is attached to this document.

00:37:42 Speaker 07: Staff will use that facilitator's report and his recommendations as a foundational piece as we approach additional engagement and additional actions within the River District.

00:37:54 Speaker 07: I note within this report that this is the first in a series of reports, so we will be bringing back a more action-oriented report, October sixth.

00:38:03 Speaker 07: Within that, we're going to outline what I like to call as a project management approach.

00:38:10 Speaker 07: We've had great success with our service review this year and over the past two years, setting those projects up with a team lead, a project lead, a project team,

00:38:20 Speaker 07: and moving things forward with a project charter.

00:38:23 Speaker 07: Also, and why that's successful is because, like the River District, it's cross-functional.

00:38:28 Speaker 07: We have staff from every department working on things within the River District, but bringing this sort of project management approach to it, I think will bring better clarity, accountability, make things more efficient,

00:38:41 Speaker 07: and make sure things quite honestly just don't slip through the cracks when we need to get things done.

00:38:46 Speaker 07: That first report will focus on that.

00:38:48 Speaker 07: We're also going to focus on there is an opportunity for a regional Ontario Development grant right now, so we're going to look to see if there's some grant opportunity.

00:38:57 Speaker 07: There's some grant opportunities to maybe accommodate a little bit of a physical work surge.

00:39:01 Speaker 07: I mentioned earlier in the report we have compiled an infrastructure needs database and put that into a GIS layer to track known issues.

00:39:11 Speaker 07: And those known issues deal with sidewalk repairs, missing tree pods, benches, things that need to be painted.

00:39:18 Speaker 07: So we've already started to work on that, but this GIS layer captures all of those needs,

00:39:23 Speaker 07: and we'll look at potentially applying for a grant to accommodate a little bit of a work surge for next spring,

00:39:29 Speaker 07: moving forward because that's the other thing we learned in speaking with everybody that one of the key themes was a shared sense of urgency and the importance of timely action.

00:39:38 Speaker 07: So, I think the overall facilitated meeting achieved a great leveling of conversation between a wide variety of stakeholder thoughts, whether from social service stakeholders or business owners.

00:39:54 Speaker 07: There's still much to be done, but I think it sort of set a more level conversational points, and then moving forward again.

00:40:01 Speaker 07: My report on October sixth in two weeks from now will focus on the first actions, which will be setting up a project management overview, creating that strong project foundation,

00:40:13 Speaker 07: speaking to potential grant through regional the Regional Ontario Development Fund, and moving forward.

00:40:20 Speaker 07: The financial implications noted in this report, the entire event had a cost of approximately fifteen hundred dollars.

00:40:26 Speaker 07: That will be put into my budget, so there may be some overage there at the end of the year, when budgets come back forward.

00:40:33 Speaker 07: And with that, I will take any questions, Councillor Farmer.

00:40:38 Speaker 08: Thank you, through the Mayor, two questions.

00:40:41 Speaker 08: The first, and just to start off, it seems like there was great engagement, and like folks were able to have difficult conversations in a way that were respectful and deep.

00:40:52 Speaker 08: The discussions about comfort and safety and the vibrancy of the River District, however, don't exclusively impact business owners.

00:40:59 Speaker 08: And the facilitators' report identifies the need to invest in relationship structures to connect residents, business owners, service providers, and city staff in future conversations.

00:41:10 Speaker 08: While we've got the River District Board, which is responsible for promoting local businesses, Council and the Corporation are responsible for every one and Owen Sound.

00:41:19 Speaker 08: So I'm curious to hear from the City Manager what steps, if any, our staff considering to also engage the residents of the River District, in addition to the business owners or property owners,

00:41:29 Speaker 08: in conversations about their neighbourhood, its safety and vibrancy.

00:41:36 Speaker 07: The Mayor to Councillor Farmer, yeah.

00:41:39 Speaker 07: So part of the group that was invited to this were property owners, residential property owners.

00:41:43 Speaker 07: A few of the property owners own a large number of rental units, housing within the River District.

00:41:49 Speaker 07: So my hope would be that those landlords, for lack of a better term, would be bringing forward concerns that their residents bring forward to them also.

00:42:00 Speaker 07: But there's lots of opportunity for residents to engage with the City, whether it be here at Council or committee meetings, through our citizen satisfaction survey, through our forthcoming community open house.

00:42:12 Speaker 07: We'd hope that those people will show up to those.

00:42:14 Speaker 07: As far as specific actions to the River District, we'd like to engage in some more conversation with the River District Board also before we start to launch out in that.

00:42:23 Speaker 07: I could see this type of engagement being subject of a further report, as I mentioned.

00:42:28 Speaker 07: We'll have a series of reports coming on River District.

00:42:32 Speaker 01: And there was somebody from the Sittingham Condominiums there as well, representing them.

00:42:38 Speaker 01: We will need to put the motion on the floor if we're going to discuss it.

00:42:42 Speaker 08: Go ahead, through the Mayor, I'll put the motion on the floor to receive the report for information purposes.

00:42:48 Speaker 08: I do have a separate question.

00:42:50 Speaker 08: If this is an appropriate time, we've heard in the past when ideas have come up mid-year that staff are at work capacity,

00:43:00 Speaker 08: and that if anything is going to be added or changed in work plans, that something needs to be removed from the plate.

00:43:06 Speaker 08: It seems like this report is generating a number of suggestions and ideas that are being incorporated immediately, and I'm curious with that previous context.

00:43:15 Speaker 08: What if anything then is staff removing from work plans, or is this reprioritizing or deprioritizing to make what seemed like a number of action items possible?

00:43:28 Speaker 08: Also, conscious that might be an October sixth report question.

00:43:34 Speaker 07: Thank you, and through you, Mayor, to Councillor Farmer.

00:43:36 Speaker 07: Yeah, that's a great point because we are always my expression is there's not much slack in the system, so when things like this come forward,

00:43:44 Speaker 07: it's how do we organise and how do we sort of tackle it?

00:43:48 Speaker 07: This particular, the facilitator's report in speaking with attendees, there were more than 60 ideas that came forward.

00:43:55 Speaker 07: Some of them are closely related, some of them are not, but there were 60 more than 60 ideas that came forward.

00:44:01 Speaker 07: A lot of the ideas I found after reviewing them, staff are already undertaking through core service work and through daily work.

00:44:09 Speaker 07: So it's identifying what those ideas find what those ideas are to these, and thus why that first report we'll deal with on October sixth is setting up the project management scope of this.

00:44:23 Speaker 07: Because really, there are so many things.

00:44:24 Speaker 07: It could be painting the decorative fencing in the River District that you see around.

00:44:29 Speaker 07: That's now happening, but those are the small things that if we have a project lead and a team put together, they'll be tracking those type of projects to get done.

00:44:40 Speaker 07: So my hope is with the project management system in place that we won't be requesting additional resources, but we'll be identifying what needs to happen,

00:44:49 Speaker 07: and then have one person effectively organising and making sure the various departments, their annual work plans, the budgets are put together and addressing those needs.

00:45:00 Speaker 07: So that person won't be building the work plans or the budgets, but they'll have the needs of the River District at hand, and then be reviewing work plans and budgets, et cetera,

00:45:10 Speaker 07: from the various departments, and identifying, well, here wasn't something that we needed to get done.

00:45:14 Speaker 07: I don't see it as part of the Public Works operations team.

00:45:17 Speaker 07: Where does that fit in?

00:45:19 Speaker 07: And so I think that type of project management tool will bring a lot to this action.

00:45:25 Speaker 16: Councillor Kucera, through your mail body, just a couple of questions to the City Manager.

00:45:32 Speaker 16: Tim, you mentioned that we would have a project management report coming up in the future.

00:45:38 Speaker 16: Would the report include some possibility of collabouration with Grey County, since some of the action items and some of the concerns they are directly linked with county,

00:45:51 Speaker 16: as some of our social services are under county?

00:45:53 Speaker 16: So, would there be that element of collabouration with the county at some point?

00:45:59 Speaker 07: Yeah, with all of sorry, through Mayor to Councillor Kugrasya, with all of the elements, whether it's Grey County or another stakeholder.

00:46:04 Speaker 07: Whether it's Gray County or another stakeholder, we'll absolutely be looking for that participation by other people involved in this.

00:46:11 Speaker 07: This can't be a City only handling of the actions that are needed.

00:46:15 Speaker 07: Whether it's for social services or certain repairs, operational matters, if there's an appropriate stakeholder or partner that should be involved, we'll be involving them in that.

00:46:27 Speaker 16: And you mentioned about the grant funding opportunity to deal with some of the sidewalks and the benches.

00:46:33 Speaker 16: What's the timeline that we are looking at that grant funding to be available?

00:46:39 Speaker 07: Through you, Mayor.

00:46:40 Speaker 07: Again, some of the work has already begun.

00:46:42 Speaker 07: I know staff have replaced six to eight benches already downtown.

00:46:48 Speaker 07: They've already started painting decorative fencing.

00:46:52 Speaker 07: So other work is already happening.

00:46:55 Speaker 07: Our hope is through, as I mentioned, the urgency that people are asking for, and I think this is, if I could put the context of somebody's house, you know,

00:47:04 Speaker 07: the inside of the house might be beautiful, but that street appeal shows that there's activity going on, and people care and take care of things.

00:47:11 Speaker 07: So we're going to bring that same urgency to these various infrastructure needs, and hopefully, again, be able to address that through a work surge into the spring,

00:47:23 Speaker 07: and getting tackling as many things as we can at once.

00:47:30 Speaker 07: Through you, Mayor.

00:47:32 Speaker 07: Who was missing at the table?

00:47:34 Speaker 17: Do we have a plan to include the voices who were not present during that engagement session?

00:47:41 Speaker 17: That's my first question.

00:47:46 Speaker 07: Through you, Mayor.

00:47:47 Speaker 07: We had extended invitations to the legal community of which we didn't hear back from, so that was a voice that potentially was missing.

00:47:54 Speaker 07: But we can't control who comes or doesn't come through the invitation.

00:47:59 Speaker 07: I think from a residential point of view, I've responded, Councillor Farmer, about that—that there could be opportunities in the future.

00:48:05 Speaker 07: But we certainly hope that those building owners, landlords that own large residential amounts of residential units, will bring the voice of their tenants to the table also.

00:48:17 Speaker 07: And they were at that meeting.

00:48:20 Speaker 17: Through you, Mayor, we have heard from the public that the voices of those with lived experience.

00:48:27 Speaker 17: Of those with lived experiences who use our downtown as their community, we had social service agencies present, but they bring a perspective.

00:48:38 Speaker 17: They're not the voice, and so perhaps as we move forward, we may think of opportunities to be able to create a safe forum where those with lived experiences might offer their perspective,

00:48:53 Speaker 17: because downtown is their home.

00:48:56 Speaker 17: And so I would offer that as a suggestion.

00:48:59 Speaker 17: I'm glad you mentioned about the urgency because sometimes there can be a bit of a different understanding between urgency from the community's perspective and urgency around process.

00:49:11 Speaker 17: And thank you for clarifying.

00:49:14 Speaker 17: The other, as I was reviewing the report and reviewing the Vision 2050 document, and I went through the strategic plan refresh document.

00:49:23 Speaker 17: Fresh document.

00:49:26 Speaker 17: I believe there is an opportunity for us to connect dots between all of them as we move forward with the project management plan.

00:49:36 Speaker 17: I would really appreciate, since we have the Vision 2050, and we have this engagement, that we start to look at tying the pieces together as we move forward,

00:49:49 Speaker 17: because I do believe that there are opportunities.

00:49:52 Speaker 17: We have more work to do on the 2050.

00:49:55 Speaker 17: Obviously, that's going through the process, but it is important that we consider all pieces of information to create the vision for the City moving forward.

00:50:07 Speaker 17: Thank you.

00:50:09 Speaker 06: Before I go to Melanie, I'll just note that we have not passed and approved the Council table Vision 2050, so it's hard to tie things to it until we get to that point,

00:50:20 Speaker 06: get it approved, and to staff approved and staff starts to flesh it out, Councillor Middlebro.

00:50:26 Speaker 18: Thank you, Your Worship.

00:50:27 Speaker 18: I guess it's kind of a question to the City Manager.

00:50:31 Speaker 18: I have intention of bringing a notice of motion tonight, kind of having to do with this report, and I'm wondering if, in the interest of time, it might make more sense to do it now.

00:50:44 Speaker 18: If you're bringing reports back to Council on October 6th, from a timeline perspective, and I would be looking for a report back on the potential of washrooms in the River District,

00:50:57 Speaker 18: whether they would be rental, permanent, self-cleaning.

00:51:03 Speaker 18: So my question would be, does it make more sense to make the motion tonight to give you enough?

00:51:10 Speaker 18: Is that enough time for you to come back on October 6 with that report?

00:51:14 Speaker 18: And my question is in relation to the Mayor's budget: is that enough time to get the report, get it into the budget for a 2026, to get this established?

00:51:25 Speaker 18: I'm glad she asked you that.

00:51:28 Speaker 18: Go ahead.

00:51:30 Speaker 07: Thank you, Mayor, and through you to Councillor Middlebro.

00:51:32 Speaker 07: The report October 6th, I would say, would be tight.

00:51:37 Speaker 07: I don't know exactly your full motion and the wording of that, but if you're seeking greater insight or a report dedicated to public water.

00:51:47 Speaker 07: Public washrooms, self-cleaning washrooms, whatever it might be, I would say we could shoot for the second meeting in October for that.

00:51:55 Speaker 07: But the October sixth report may have a paragraph or two within it about public washrooms, but maybe not to the level of detail that you might be looking for.

00:52:07 Speaker 07: And as far as sorry, as far as budget, I'll leave the timing of your motion with the Clerk.

00:52:12 Speaker 07: I'd ask her to comment on that.

00:52:14 Speaker 07: But as far as the timing for submission for the Mayor to consider as part of his budget, I'd say if we meet the October timelines report-wise, it should be okay to go to that.

00:52:28 Speaker 06: Ms. Bloomfield, does Councillor Middlebrooks' motion need to have a notice, or can she move her motion now, tied on the corner of this report?

00:52:37 Speaker 06: We'd have to wrap up this report, this motion that's on the table first, before we'd come with another one, but which would be more appropriate.

00:52:44 Speaker 14: Through your Worship, I would suggest it is seems to me it's sort of coming out of this discussion.

00:52:53 Speaker 14: So perhaps it could be made now as a subsequent motion.

00:52:59 Speaker 06: Okay, so the report is before us.

00:53:01 Speaker 06: There's a motion to accept the recommendation.

00:53:05 Speaker 06: Is there more to discuss on this report before we move?

00:53:09 Speaker 06: I am seeing none.

00:53:10 Speaker 06: I will call the question.

00:53:11 Speaker 06: All in favour?

00:53:12 Speaker 06: And that is carried.

00:53:13 Speaker 06: I'll go back to Councillor Middlebrooks.

00:53:20 Speaker 06: Thank you, through your Worship.

00:53:22 Speaker 18: So I would make a subsequent motion that, in consideration of staff report CM 25-027 respecting the community stakeholders discussion,

00:53:35 Speaker 18: that Council direct staff to bring back a report to Council at the second meeting in October.

00:53:45 Speaker 18: Is that the timing?

00:53:51 Speaker 18: Yes, October 22nd.

00:53:52 Speaker 18: Outlining options for washroom facilities, including rentals and self-cleaning options in the River District, and include estimates of capital and operational expenses.

00:54:06 Speaker 18: Good.

00:54:09 Speaker 18: Anyone say no?

00:54:09 Speaker 18: Anyone say that's good?

00:54:11 Speaker 06: That's good.

00:54:11 Speaker 06: Okay.

00:54:12 Speaker 06: And I think anyone else, go ahead.

00:54:16 Speaker 08: Through the Mayor, just for clarification.

00:54:19 Speaker 08: There are so many potential options for washroom solutions.

00:54:25 Speaker 08: And I'm just wondering about like what level of detail we're hoping for from staff regarding the breadth and depth of information coming back a month from now.

00:54:39 Speaker 08: There are lots.

00:54:39 Speaker 08: The municipal community of practice from the Community Safety and Well-being Plan that I'll be speaking to.

00:54:45 Speaker 08: The topic this month was washrooms, and so my brain is deep down that rabbit hole.

00:54:50 Speaker 08: And I'm wondering what's realistic, knowing that we could do a lot of different things.

00:54:58 Speaker 18: I am open to any and all options.

00:55:02 Speaker 18: I know that at AMO, Councillor Kugrasya and myself, and Councillor Gracia and myself, and the City Manager, as well as the Mayor, saw different options that were available from vendors for the self-cleaning options.

00:55:17 Speaker 18: They can be a bit pricey, so I'm looking in the report to have a range of options presented to Council that we could choose from.

00:55:29 Speaker 04: Councillor Gracia, to you, Mr. Mayor, and I totally echo Councillor Middlebrooks' comments on that.

00:55:36 Speaker 04: From the past two years that we've attended AMO, I think one of the most innovative things that we witnessed was the self-cleaning washrooms.

00:55:44 Speaker 04: And I think two years back when we visited, the prices were two times higher.

00:55:49 Speaker 04: And this year when we went, I think Mr. Simmonds was there with us, and we did get quotes from all the possible vendors.

00:55:57 Speaker 04: There were I think two of them, so we do have quotes for different layouts where they can be placed, how they can be cleaned, and there was even a mobile washroom.

00:56:09 Speaker 04: So I think we do have the context behind it, and it is the right time to do it.

00:56:14 Speaker 04: And whatever it takes, we should be going ahead and doing it.

00:56:20 Speaker 04: Go ahead.

00:56:22 Speaker 17: Thank you, Mayor.

00:56:23 Speaker 17: At a recent meeting that some of us attended with Lee Greaves facilitating, the concepts of the variety of washrooms.

00:56:33 Speaker 17: I know the City Manager and Pam Coulter was there.

00:56:37 Speaker 17: There were a few other City staff as well.

00:56:40 Speaker 17: Rebecca, in addition, and I'm pleased that you've brought this forward.

00:56:45 Speaker 17: And I believe that one of the other options was offering incentives to businesses to open their washrooms for a certain remuneration.

00:56:55 Speaker 17: And I'm wondering if, in the information that was provided at that meeting, if that might be something we need to be open to a variety of suggestions and potential.

00:57:07 Speaker 17: And my understanding is there may be some downtown businesses that might be open to that concept as well.

00:57:16 Speaker 17: So, keeping available other options besides just the physical washrooms would be helpful, I think, so that when we make the decision, it's based on a variety of choices.

00:57:29 Speaker 17: Okay.

00:57:35 Speaker 06: We vote on it.

00:57:37 Speaker 06: Call the question.

00:57:38 Speaker 06: Oh, Marion, your hand been up late to vote?

00:57:41 Speaker 19: Question.

00:57:41 Speaker 19: Go ahead.

00:57:42 Speaker 19: Is it possible to have a draft of that on the screen so we know what all it includes?

00:57:49 Speaker 19: Because I thought you did say other options in it, or can you just read it again or something?

00:58:09 Speaker 14: Through your Worship, I have that in consideration of the staff report: City Council direct staff to bring back a report respecting washrooms in the River District, including options and costs for the October 27th meeting.

00:58:28 Speaker 14: Okay.

00:58:37 Speaker 06: So just, Briana's microphone was on.

00:58:40 Speaker 06: The microphone wasn't in front of Councillor Middlebrooks, and she said capital and operational costs.

00:58:45 Speaker 06: Just to fill in for anyone that's watching online.

00:58:50 Speaker 06: So call the question: all in favour, and that is carried.

00:58:55 Speaker 06: Thank you.

00:58:57 Speaker 06: If we can go to 10B, which is a report from Miss Allardium with regard to a proposed hydrogen peaking plant.

00:59:25 Speaker 20: Hello, everyone.

00:59:27 Speaker 20: I believe that this is my first before you now as the Senior Advisor on External Relations and Investment Attraction.

00:59:35 Speaker 20: As part of this role,

00:59:36 Speaker 20: I'm very excited to present this opportunity for our community to expand our clean energy sector with an opportunity that I think fits very much within the types of investment opportunities that we are looking to

00:59:56 Speaker 20: attract and grow.

00:59:59 Speaker 20: This is a proposal for a new long-term capacity services project for Owen Sound.

01:00:07 Speaker 20: Now, what that is is that the Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario has recently initiated its second long-term capacity procurement process.

01:00:20 Speaker 20: I explained it in more detail in the report.

01:00:23 Speaker 20: In June, the Province of Ontario released its first-ever Integrated Energy Plan,

01:00:29 Speaker 20: which looks at multiple different forms of energy generation as a way to address projected long-term energy needs that are expected to grow significantly over the coming decades.

01:00:55 Speaker 20: As part of that report, one of the forms of energy production that were highlighted was the potential to increase the commercial viability of hydrogen.

01:01:06 Speaker 20: The Province has taken steps to make hydrogen projects more viable through the Hydrogen Interruptible Rate Pilot Programmememe, the Hydrogen Innovation Fund, and again through this long-term capacity procurement process.

01:01:25 Speaker 20: Public Energy, through its Special Purpose Vehicle, Current H2, has approached the City of Owen Sound through Hydrogen Optimized, our current corporate citizen,

01:01:47 Speaker 20: to propose a 100% hydrogen peaker plant that would be located on vacant industrial land that is privately held.

01:01:58 Speaker 20: It would be right across the street from Hydrogen Optimized.

01:02:01 Speaker 20: So you would have Hydrogen Optimized, which is producing the electrolyzers that can convert water into hydrogen and oxygen,

01:02:12 Speaker 20: and right across the street you would have a facility that can demonstrate the potential of this brand new, fully hydrogen-powered turbines that are currently being used elsewhere.

01:02:23 Speaker 20: But this would be potentially a first-of-its-kind project for North America.

01:02:30 Speaker 20: The way that these projects work with peaker plants is that energy is drawn off of the grid during periods of low demand, such as overnight, using primarily, ideally, renewable energy sources—wind, solar,

01:02:47 Speaker 20: also nuclear power—and then during periods of high demand, the hydrogen that is generated overnight and stored on-site would then be used to power these 100% hydrogen turbines to feed energy back into the grid.

01:03:04 Speaker 20: And the reason why this is so interesting right now is that currently we use gas-powered plants, so natural gas or other carbon-intensive energy sources,

01:03:17 Speaker 20: to provide that kind of peak energy demand and to cover those kinds of bumps in the energy demand.

01:03:28 Speaker 20: So, with this, we have an opportunity to help support the expansion of these new technologies to bring more of this type of hydrogen expertise into our community, and to essentially play a role in,

01:03:47 Speaker 20: you know, as part of the clean energy frontier, in growing the Province's abilities and capacity as a clean energy provider, not just for our own community, but kind of to the world as well,

01:04:05 Speaker 20: and to demonstrate the capacity for this technology.

01:04:07 Speaker 20: So before you today is a municipal support resolution.

01:04:14 Speaker 20: Essentially, the IESO, the Independent Electricity System Operator, in order to consider projects like this before they are able to bid, they must demonstrate municipal support.

01:04:27 Speaker 20: I would like to note that this is not a project that requires municipal funds or municipal lands.

01:04:33 Speaker 20: They just want to know if we want it to be here.

01:04:37 Speaker 20: It would produce, as estimated by the proponent, up to 400 construction jobs and 20 operational positions that would be long-term.

01:04:47 Speaker 20: Their estimates were between $80 million and $400 million in investment.

01:04:52 Speaker 20: But most importantly, and in terms of like the long-term thinking for our community, centralizing hydrogen expertise in our community really supports our goals.

01:05:04 Speaker 20: We have the people here.

01:05:06 Speaker 20: We have the skilled trades development here to support growth in the hydrogen sector, and we are fully aligned in regional collabouration within the clean energy sector, through these strategic partnerships with our regional municipalities,

01:05:22 Speaker 20: and with our corporate partners such as Hydrogen Optimized and other companies that might be looking to invest in our community.

01:05:31 Speaker 20: So, oh, and I would like to also assure.

01:05:34 Speaker 20: You stated that the passing of this municipal support resolution will not circumvent our normal development approvals process.

01:05:43 Speaker 20: If this project is selected to proceed by the ISO, it will still continue to go through our regular development and planning process as well.

01:05:53 Speaker 20: All right.

01:05:54 Speaker 20: Well, that's everything that I have to explain about that, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

01:06:00 Speaker 20: Thank you, Councillor Kukreja.

01:06:03 Speaker 04: Through UMErBody, I'm happy to move the recommendation as it is, but I do have a few comments on this one.

01:06:09 Speaker 04: Thank you, Rebecca, for updating this.

01:06:12 Speaker 04: I think it's an excellent project; it puts us in alignment with some of the strategic vision that the City of Owen Sound has.

01:06:19 Speaker 04: So, number one, it's clean energy advancements, and this project, I feel, when I read the report, does have the capacity to put Owen Sound as one of the leaders in this innovation.

01:06:31 Speaker 04: You just mentioned the creation of jobs, economic development.

01:06:34 Speaker 04: So 400 jobs during operations and 20 full-time positions, which is great.

01:06:40 Speaker 04: So it also strengthens our goal of advancement in manufacturing and technology.

01:06:46 Speaker 04: Another one, energy reliability.

01:06:47 Speaker 04: So it will assist in reduction of the carbon footprints that we have.

01:06:52 Speaker 04: Not the least, you also mentioned partnerships and innovations.

01:06:56 Speaker 04: We do have hydrogen optimised and public energies.

01:06:57 Speaker 04: So this public energy; so this project can leverage with that as well, and also it puts Owen Sound as one of the regional and community hubs for innovations.

01:07:08 Speaker 04: So I'm happy to move this recommendation as it is.

01:07:11 Speaker 04: Thank you.

01:07:13 Speaker 04: Thank you.

01:07:13 Speaker 04: Questions, John?

01:07:15 Speaker 08: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

01:07:16 Speaker 08: I agree that this makes a lot of sense.

01:07:19 Speaker 08: That helping to fire up a local industry is a benefit to us.

01:07:23 Speaker 08: We know the grid needs battery storage of different shapes and forms.

01:07:27 Speaker 08: We know that we have industrial land that could be put to better use than vacancy.

01:07:35 Speaker 08: I have an admittedly nitpicky comment to staff around that, and the report and the attachments from the proponent.

01:07:47 Speaker 08: As we talk about hydrogen and we talk about energy,

01:07:50 Speaker 08: there's a real push within the industry to make things look as good as possible that don't always match marketing terminology being used with more specific industry language,

01:08:04 Speaker 08: and the proponents' letter and attached documents repeatedly call this development green hydrogen.

01:08:11 Speaker 08: My understanding is that within the industry, green hydrogen is specifically connected to renewables,

01:08:17 Speaker 08: and that a more accurate term for a development like this that is going to draw nuclear power for the electricity is pink hydrogen,

01:08:24 Speaker 08: recognizing that there is a difference in the impact and waste produced by different forms of energy, and I think that we're accidentally, maybe not accidentally, but like not as critically as I would like,

01:08:41 Speaker 08: questioning the broad and kind of on the industry or technological level, like meaningless claims of cleanliness as we report on that.

01:08:53 Speaker 08: And I would really, I guess, appreciate more nuance going forward as we, as council, try to clearly measure the pros and cons of different proposals,

01:09:07 Speaker 08: and knowing that proponents are always in the position of making their projects look the best that they can look.

01:09:14 Speaker 08: So, just as I guess that would be my request that we adopt language in our own reports that are more specific, less greenwashy, and especially for hydrogen,

01:09:25 Speaker 08: look at the spectrum of hydrogen that the industry uses to better communicate the impact of that technology.

01:09:33 Speaker 08: Small and nitpicky point, perhaps, but I think that's it; it's in our benefit to be specific and objective when we're weighing information.

01:09:41 Speaker 08: And yeah, thanks.

01:09:45 Speaker 08: Happy to support the motion.

01:09:48 Speaker 08: Anyone else?

01:09:50 Speaker 08: I'm going to call the question.

01:09:53 Speaker 01: So, the motion is the recommendation that is before us.

01:09:57 Speaker 01: All in favour?

01:09:59 Speaker 01: Sorry.

01:10:03 Speaker 01: Sorry.

01:10:04 Speaker 01: Oh, you're all good.

01:10:05 Speaker 01: Okay.

01:10:07 Speaker 01: I'm going to call the question.

01:10:08 Speaker 01: Do you need to speak to it?

01:10:09 Speaker 01: No. I'm going to call the question.

01:10:10 Speaker 01: All in favour?

01:10:11 Speaker 01: That's carried.

01:10:12 Speaker 01: That's unanimous.

01:10:13 Speaker 01: Thank you very much.

01:10:18 Speaker 01: Ms. Coulter, you've got a report with regard to high priority tree removals.

01:10:26 Speaker 21: Thank you, Worship.

01:10:27 Speaker 21: My colleague, the Director of Corporate Services, had advised a few weeks ago that the 2025 year is tracking toward a surplus at year end,

01:10:36 Speaker 21: and had asked staff about high priority projects that may be considered for part of these funds prior to the year end.

01:10:43 Speaker 21: So the purpose of this report is to present to Council a tree removal project.

01:10:48 Speaker 21: for your consideration.

01:10:51 Speaker 21: In 2014, the city started an inventory of municipal trees, and in 2023, this inventory was expanded and updated, reflecting the advance of the emerald ash borer invasive species or pest.

01:11:10 Speaker 21: Like other assets, an up-to-date inventory is a critical tool toward managing this resource.

01:11:14 Speaker 21: In terms of the number of trees inventoried, this includes all the street trees and trees that are in areas of parks and open spaces that are proximate to areas that are used by the public.

01:11:28 Speaker 21: And we've inventoried just over 22,000 trees.

01:11:32 Speaker 21: Each tree has a bunch of data associated with it, including a unique ID number and characteristics.

01:11:40 Speaker 21: Part of the inventory is also the hazard rating of the tree, and you can see the table on page four of the report.

01:11:50 Speaker 21: There are 250 very high hazard trees, and 1,194 high hazard trees.

01:11:59 Speaker 21: So, given the updated tree inventory and the increasing volume of high and very high hazard trees identified as the ash borer disease progresses, there is a clear,

01:12:09 Speaker 21: pressing need to accelerate removals to mitigate risk and public safety.

01:12:11 Speaker 21: Mitigate risk in public safety and reduce the city's liability exposure.

01:12:16 Speaker 21: The current staffing and budget are insufficient to address the backlog of these high-hazard trees in a timely manner.

01:12:24 Speaker 21: Allocating additional funds from the projected 2025 year-end surplus will enable the removal of approximately 288 of the most dangerous very high and high-hazard trees.

01:12:36 Speaker 21: This proactive investment supports responsible asset management, aligns with council's previous commitments to urban forest health and significantly reduces potential costs associated with future tree-related claims.

01:12:50 Speaker 21: My colleague can speak to the finances, but this surplus comes from the WSIB surplus, and the report notes that that surplus is aligned with this work.

01:13:06 Speaker 21: The recommendation, Your Worship, is that council would authorise the allocation of $180,000 of the anticipated 2025 operating surplus to remove very high and high hazard trees in the fall of 2025.

01:13:26 Speaker 11: Councillor Hamley, I'm definitely curious what the rest of council thinks on this, but I'm just kind of looking at this problem.

01:13:35 Speaker 11: It's a problem that we're going to be chasing, no matter how many dollars we throw at it.

01:13:39 Speaker 11: You know, like we'll get through the fall and we'll clean up these 288 trees, and then I'm pretty confident the next day there will be 288 more trees that need to come down.

01:13:48 Speaker 11: So I'm just putting the question to council: like, is there something we can maybe have more impact with these dollars?

01:13:55 Speaker 11: I, I just, it was just a thought I had.

01:13:59 Speaker 01: Heard for council to answer, and there isn't a motion on the floor to answer by voting.

01:14:04 Speaker 01: Councillor Dodd, thank you, Worship.

01:14:06 Speaker 22: I'll move the recommendation as it's noted within the report.

01:14:09 Speaker 22: I think, as we've known for multiple years, going through our budgets, you know, I think the original request multiple years ago was a higher amount,

01:14:18 Speaker 22: and we settled at a lower amount to do an annual tree inventory and cutting out some of those trees that were going to be high hazard.

01:14:32 Speaker 22: Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, that giant windstorm, I think, showed.

01:14:36 Speaker 22: I know it showed in my front lawn, how much that ash borer has really progressed.

01:14:43 Speaker 22: Cored-out trees falling everywhere, and all of a sudden, when the city recognizes that we have that many high hazard trees in our public spaces, I think is opening us up for a huge liability claim.

01:14:57 Speaker 22: To go back to Councillor Hamley saying, "Well, we do this now, and then you know it'll be there again, waiting for us more."

01:15:03 Speaker 22: We don't do anything, then we've just got two times as much.

01:15:07 Speaker 22: This is an issue that we have to face at some point.

01:15:10 Speaker 22: They will naturally fall down.

01:15:13 Speaker 22: Sure, they will.

01:15:14 Speaker 22: But what does that lead to?

01:15:16 Speaker 22: Where does that go?

01:15:17 Speaker 22: Who's going there to clean up the waste of that tree?

01:15:20 Speaker 22: Rather being proactive and taking it away, as we know, that falls down on a hydro line and takes out a neighbourhood's hydro for a week or a few days until hydro gets there.

01:15:30 Speaker 22: Who's going to get those phone calls a lot more quickly than making an approval for being proactive and reducing them.

01:15:36 Speaker 22: So I would say I do agree with it.

01:15:38 Speaker 22: I don't, you know, years ago I think it was two years ago we had a discussion at budget about what the amount we were going to pay for it.

01:15:47 Speaker 22: Would I?

01:15:47 Speaker 22: Does anyone want to see $180,000 go here, or we could apply it to a reserve, apply it to a deficit elsewhere?

01:15:54 Speaker 22: Of course we would.

01:15:55 Speaker 22: But that's the business that we're in.

01:15:57 Speaker 22: It's of trying to do that.

01:15:58 Speaker 22: So I'm going to agree with the motion and I'll put the motion on the floor.

01:16:03 Speaker 22: Thank you, Worship.

01:16:06 Speaker 22: Councillor Kukreja.

01:16:08 Speaker 16: Through you, Mayor Boddy.

01:16:10 Speaker 16: Just a quick question: If the trees are on a property, like on somebody's property other than the municipal land, would the city staff notify them?

01:16:20 Speaker 16: Because I think in the past we've heard a tree taken down from an owner's property, and it wasn't communicated very well.

01:16:29 Speaker 16: So even though the intent.

01:16:29 Speaker 16: So even though the intentions were correct, it was safety issues.

01:16:31 Speaker 16: But like, would we inform the owner?

01:16:40 Speaker 21: Thank you for that question.

01:16:41 Speaker 21: Our goal would be to identify the trees and make sure we're proactive in our communication.

01:16:47 Speaker 21: Most of them are in public spaces, but you're absolutely right.

01:16:49 Speaker 21: That public space might be the boulevard in front of someone's house, and it feels like their front yard.

01:16:54 Speaker 21: So, I haven't covered that often in the report, but it would be our intention to do our best to communicate.

01:17:02 Speaker 21: Marion, Councillor Capke.

01:17:05 Speaker 19: Thank you, Your Worship.

01:17:07 Speaker 19: Through you, I agree with Councillor Dodd's comments, and I think it's very important to stay ahead of this.

01:17:14 Speaker 19: In the report, it identifies one line that was my convincing line.

01:17:20 Speaker 19: This one-time investment would significantly reduce the city's exposure to tree-related claims and public safety risks.

01:17:28 Speaker 19: So for me, that I think we need to stay ahead of the game, knowing that there is a lot more on the list.

01:17:35 Speaker 19: Anyone else?

01:17:36 Speaker 19: Go ahead.

01:17:37 Speaker 18: Thank you.

01:17:39 Speaker 18: I don't have a problem spending the money on the trees because I know that it is something that we have to do, eventually, regardless.

01:17:49 Speaker 18: But in the report, it said that because we had this surplus, that it went to staff to ask about high priority things that they're looking to be able to spend this money on,

01:18:00 Speaker 18: so I'm just curious: were there any other high priority initiatives that we had options on?

01:18:09 Speaker 23: And I will note this report.

01:18:11 Speaker 23: The timing there's actually is a financial update coming to Corporate Services at the next meeting.

01:18:15 Speaker 23: But in order to get this work done, it was important that we bring it ahead of that report in order to get into any contracts in order to complete the work by year end.

01:18:23 Speaker 23: Whereas if we hadn't brought the request forward until we brought the financial report, council wouldn't be seeing those minutes until the end of October,

01:18:30 Speaker 23: and that is one of the big factors in how we address these funds.

01:18:35 Speaker 23: When we looked at what the priorities are, are they things that we can do this year?

01:18:40 Speaker 23: Because it's a one-time surplus as a result of this WSIB money.

01:18:44 Speaker 23: It's not a surplus that we're going to have every year.

01:18:46 Speaker 23: And so, alternatively, if we did nothing with the funds, they would be available at year end and ultimately put into a reserve or our tax stabilization reserve,

01:18:54 Speaker 23: but potentially there is something one-time in nature that we could recommend to council that we move forward with, and so we thought this would be a good option to bring forward to you.

01:19:04 Speaker 23: There was nothing else of this significance on the list that came up that we thought of bringing forward.

01:19:09 Speaker 23: There are other needs you brought up the washrooms, things like that tonight, but there will be an opportunity to budget for those when the time is right.

01:19:16 Speaker 23: This is dealing with the one-time surplus that we have this year as a result of that WSIB rebate that we received, Councillor Merton.

01:19:27 Speaker 17: Through your worship, absolutely the liability issue almost makes this something we cannot ignore.

01:19:35 Speaker 17: My question is to the director of community services.

01:19:39 Speaker 17: We have a plan to replace our tree inventory.

01:19:41 Speaker 17: We're trying to always have a green canopy, recognizing these trees will be removed if it's passed tonight, is there a plan to accommodate for the fact that we've lost this number of trees,

01:19:56 Speaker 17: or is that something that we need to think about for the mayor's budget request?

01:20:04 Speaker 21: Through your worship to Councillor Merton, I would never tell you you shouldn't consider more money for trees at budget, but actually the time is great for this question.

01:20:15 Speaker 21: The two arborists are planting street and boulevard trees right now, and we do have a plan.

01:20:23 Speaker 21: We certainly will be planting probably close to 288 trees.

01:20:27 Speaker 21: But if you think about the DBH or the diametre of trees removed versus the trees we're planting, we won't be replacing like for like.

01:20:37 Speaker 21: But it will, in time, replace that canopy.

01:20:43 Speaker 06: Councillor Farmer, and then Councillor, did I skip you before, Marion?

01:20:45 Speaker 06: Did I skip you before, Mayor?

01:20:46 Speaker 06: No.

01:20:47 Speaker 06: Okay, Councillor Farmer, and then Councillor.

01:20:50 Speaker 08: Thank you, through the Mayor.

01:20:51 Speaker 08: I'm in support of this motion, and I think that we can control what we do preventatively for cost.

01:20:57 Speaker 08: That when we can't control the surge of cost when a windstorm blows through and things come down, let alone the damage associated with that.

01:21:05 Speaker 08: And just to speak to a point that Councillor Hamley brought up, that there will be another 200 or some trees still needing support the day after we cut down the 280 identified in this report.

01:21:16 Speaker 08: I agree, and the report lays that out as well.

01:21:19 Speaker 08: But those trees will be among the 1,100 that are classified as high hazard rather than very high hazard,

01:21:25 Speaker 08: and I think that that helps us to justify addressing the things that are the most acute risk,

01:21:33 Speaker 08: rather than feeling like we're never going to get to the bottom of the tree maintenance and canopy maintenance needs that we have.

01:21:41 Speaker 08: I've certainly had a resident over the past several years repeatedly talk to me about her frustration that the arborist team hasn't gotten to the tree in front of her house,

01:21:48 Speaker 08: even though she's brought it up again and again and again.

01:21:51 Speaker 08: And it's because it's not on that higher, very high hazard list.

01:21:54 Speaker 08: And so I think using the one-time surplus for this kind of thing helps us to provide the core level of service that folks are asking for.

01:22:03 Speaker 08: Councillor Capk.

01:22:05 Speaker 19: Thank you, Your Worship.

01:22:06 Speaker 19: I just wanted to identify that not all of these trees are sitting singular on a boulevard or on someone's lawn.

01:22:14 Speaker 19: A lot of them are in forested areas.

01:22:15 Speaker 19: If the Director could just confirm that, I don't have a map in front of me.

01:22:23 Speaker 21: Some of them are individual trees, and some are definitely in groupings.

01:22:28 Speaker 21: They're not generally bigger forested areas.

01:22:31 Speaker 21: They're...

01:22:32 Speaker 21: We did limit.

01:22:32 Speaker 21: I think the limit is 20 metres to the sort of a public space.

01:22:38 Speaker 21: Okay.

01:22:38 Speaker 21: So can I call the question?

01:22:41 Speaker 06: All in favour.

01:22:43 Speaker 06: That is carried.

01:22:44 Speaker 06: Thanks, Pam.

01:22:46 Speaker 06: Ms. Bloomfield, election report already.

01:22:53 Speaker 14: Through your Worship, Council is elected to a four-year term, with the current term of Council set to expire on November 14th, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six.

01:23:01 Speaker 14: While the Clerk is responsible to conduct the election, Council is the approval authority where issues require authorization by bylaw.

01:23:09 Speaker 14: The report notes that should Council wish to pursue a bylaw to place the question on the ballot, or offer contribution rebates, or include election forms in French or other languages, or create a recount policy,

01:23:21 Speaker 14: a resolution requesting a staff report will be required.

01:23:25 Speaker 14: In the 2022 election, Council approved a standalone election sign bylaw.

01:23:30 Speaker 14: In reviewing notes from the 2022 election, staff proposed housekeeping updates to the bylaw, which are outlined in the report.

01:23:37 Speaker 14: The recommended recommendation in the report is to direct staff to bring forward a bylaw to amend the election sign bylaw, as outlined in the report.

01:23:45 Speaker 14: Councillor Capkey, I'll motion the approval of the report.

01:23:51 Speaker 14: Any other discussion?

01:23:53 Speaker 14: Seemed, Councillor Farmer.

01:23:56 Speaker 08: A question to the Mayor and to the Clerk.

01:23:59 Speaker 08: The election sign bylaw update includes the addition of a provision that election signs are not permitted in Owen Sound for candidates in municipal races that do not include electors from within the city.

01:24:11 Speaker 08: That jumps out to me because I know certainly that there are people who would be able to vote in Georgian Bluffs who would also be able to vote in Owen Sound.

01:24:24 Speaker 08: Our municipal election rules allow us to do that, and if somebody owns a property in Owen Sound and also owns property in Georgian Bluffs,

01:24:33 Speaker 08: they are consequently an elector from within the city who can vote in a separate race.

01:24:45 Speaker 08: I don't know why we would limit that, especially knowing that there are people who might want to place a sign proximate to the boundary of Owen Sound.

01:24:56 Speaker 08: And I would like to see that particular piece removed.

01:24:59 Speaker 08: I don't know that that's been a problem in the past, although some signs have appeared, and I've got a subsequent question about signs, but I'll leave that comment to start with,

01:25:10 Speaker 08: and whether staff want to comment on what problem this is addressing in terms of complaints or otherwise, or if other Council members have a thought on that.

01:25:19 Speaker 22: Travis, thank you, Worship.

01:25:21 Speaker 22: I have no problem responding to this one.

01:25:23 Speaker 22: I think the purpose of it is to provide clarity for the electorate.

01:25:27 Speaker 22: We want the individuals who are driving down the street to know exactly who they're voting for; we don't need to see X, Y, Z, Georgian Bluffs signs in their city.

01:25:36 Speaker 22: That's going to cause confusion.

01:25:37 Speaker 22: They're going to say, "Hey, get to that ballot.

01:25:39 Speaker 22: Where's this person's name?"

01:25:40 Speaker 22: I don't think that provides any benefit to the resident of Owen Sound to have external election campaign signs in the city.

01:25:50 Speaker 22: I don't think that does anyone any good.

01:25:52 Speaker 22: Even if that person has the right to vote in another municipality, that's fine.

01:25:56 Speaker 22: They can provide that signage on the other property that they're entitled to in the neighbouring municipality.

01:26:02 Speaker 22: It has been an issue when you get up on top of Nicholls Gully and go that way, heading there over to Grey Road One.

01:26:09 Speaker 22: That has been an issue for where you've had Georgian Bluffs signs move their way into the town.

01:26:20 Speaker 22: So the reason why I think that's important is to ensure that the general electorate have a clear, precise idea of who they're voting for,

01:26:27 Speaker 22: and not having anything that's going to confuse them on making their decision.

01:26:33 Speaker 22: And I do believe election signs sometimes can cause confusion.

01:26:36 Speaker 22: So I would highly stress that I think that provision is extremely important to ensure that again,

01:26:42 Speaker 22: someone doesn't think it's funny to take a sign from the City of Toronto and pop it up into their front lawn.

01:26:48 Speaker 22: Well, again, that's not what this purpose is for.

01:26:50 Speaker 22: There are already complaints about the election signs causing visual garbage, visual clutter.

01:26:55 Speaker 22: We don't need individual clutter.

01:26:56 Speaker 22: We don't need to allow others to add to that as well.

01:27:00 Speaker 22: So I think that's a way for us to ensure that bylaw staff have an exit route if they do see a municipal councillor for the City of Toronto sign parked up in someone's front of

01:27:11 Speaker 22: their house.

01:27:12 Speaker 22: They can get away from it.

01:27:13 Speaker 22: But also, I think mostly there's no reason to have any other municipalities' candidates within our borders.

01:27:22 Speaker 22: Okay.

01:27:22 Speaker 22: Second question.

01:27:24 Speaker 08: I guess to that,

01:27:27 Speaker 08: if I think that it would then the language of "do not include electors from within the city," that we could clarify that language to be for a race outside of the municipality of Owen Sound,

01:27:38 Speaker 08: because whether you're an elector there or not is beside the point, given the reasoning that we've heard.

01:27:44 Speaker 08: My second question is around the general provisions as laid out in the election sign fact sheet.

01:27:50 Speaker 08: Under general regulations, it says no more than two signs advertising the same candidate are allowed on each side of the city road between two consecutive intersecting roads,

01:28:01 Speaker 08: as well as there being constraints around location from driveway.

01:28:05 Speaker 08: I would just like clarity with whether that applies to private property; where if I want to put up one of Councillor Koepke's signs, but there's already one on the boulevard on my street,

01:28:14 Speaker 08: can I still do that on my own yard, or is this only for boulevards and public spaces rather than the number within a particular block.

01:28:27 Speaker 14: Through your worship, that is specific to public property.

01:28:31 Speaker 14: Of course, you can contact individual property owners and have signs erected on their lawn.

01:28:40 Speaker 19: So, just to clarify, this is on boulevards or city property.

01:28:44 Speaker 19: They can't go and stack signs in a row all along that boulevard.

01:28:48 Speaker 19: Thank you.

01:28:54 Speaker 19: Okay, I'm going to call the question.

01:28:55 Speaker 19: All in favour?

01:28:56 Speaker 19: That's carried.

01:29:01 Speaker 19: Deputy Mayor Greig, report from Grey County.

01:29:05 Speaker 03: Thank you, and I would report for Council this evening that at the last County Council meeting, Council received a presentation from Bright Shores Health on a one-year update on the Bayview Treatment and Wellness Facility.

01:29:17 Speaker 03: It was an outstanding update, and great for Council to hear that detail provided by leadership from Bright Shores.

01:29:26 Speaker 03: The facility has contributed to a reduction in returns to the hospital emergency department.

01:29:31 Speaker 03: It has seen 100% occupancy,

01:29:34 Speaker 03: with 58% of the clients from Grey County. 80% of individuals on the wait list are attending virtual treatment or in-person electives. 31 clients that are homeless have been discharged with stable housing,

01:29:47 Speaker 03: and 202 clients have finished their individualized treatment plan.

01:29:52 Speaker 03: There was significant good news shared during the presentation, which makes it very easy to see whether provinces embark upon replicating the model in other communities across the province.

01:30:02 Speaker 03: Grey County Council directed staff to prepare a bylaw to support the city request for heritage property tax relief.

01:30:10 Speaker 03: This contribution supports 16 eligible heritage properties with $5,077 in county portion tax reductions.

01:30:19 Speaker 03: Staff received a report to forward to the Ministry of Health on ambulatory response times.

01:30:24 Speaker 03: A lot of measurable data is contained within the report, but the summary illustrates a 2024 call volume increase of 4.23%, which is increasing dramatically so far in 2025.

01:30:35 Speaker 03: Patient call volumes have increased 30% over the last five years.

01:30:41 Speaker 03: For 2024, county paramedic responses exceeded the target of six minutes or less for sudden cardiac arrest 46.79% of the time, and a five-year average of 48.83%.

01:30:58 Speaker 03: Across five call type categories beyond sudden cardiac arrest, response times all exceeded the performance targets.

01:31:06 Speaker 03: County Council supported an MTO request to prohibit a future east leg at the intersection of the new Catholic High School.

01:31:11 Speaker 03: A new Catholic high school on 28th Avenue East, Council approved a design speed of 80 kilometres per hour for the roadway,

01:31:21 Speaker 03: and a future report to consider a speed reduction to 60 kilometres per hour for that portion of County Road Five.

01:31:28 Speaker 03: Council received a report regarding a new multi-residential property tax subclass with no further action or consideration, and County Council authorised Garland Canada to complete roof repairs on a portion of the administration building.

01:31:41 Speaker 03: And I will just ad lib.

01:31:43 Speaker 03: I didn't have this in, but last Friday night at Grey Roots, they launched.

01:31:48 Speaker 03: There is a great turnout presenting the new gallery, and it walks through a lot of great, great Grey County history, a lot of Indigenous content, informing the public of our roots in this area,

01:32:07 Speaker 03: and various demographics that have all contributed to developing Grey County.

01:32:15 Speaker 03: So it was great to be able to be out there and enjoy the redesigned gallery.

01:32:21 Speaker 03: It's been a long time coming, and I would encourage anyone in the public to get out to Grey Roots in the near future and check it out.

01:32:29 Speaker 03: It looks great and is a great thing to do in the autumn when we hit one of these rainy days or a sunny day.

01:32:39 Speaker 03: And with that, I ask for Council's endorsement of the verbal report.

01:32:47 Speaker 03: Any questions?

01:32:48 Speaker 06: Seeing none, I will call the question.

01:32:50 Speaker 06: All in favour?

01:32:51 Speaker 06: That is carried.

01:32:53 Speaker 06: Through down to number eleven, the consent agenda, Miss Bloomfield.

01:32:57 Speaker 14: Through your worship, on the consent agenda this evening is a report respecting an emergency purchase for water treatment plant intake and zebra mussel chlorine line repairs.

01:33:05 Speaker 14: There are minutes for receipt from the River District Board, and business licences were issued to La Chia Liquidation, Afro Caribbean Groceries at 1006 Second Avenue East.

01:33:19 Speaker 14: There is a new owner of Powerade Golf at 299th Street East, and Hawker and Pedlar licences were issued for Ribfest and the Fall Fair.

01:33:27 Speaker 14: The last item on the consent agenda is the information package; full listing is available at 11D.

01:33:33 Speaker 14: Councillor Cucuracha.

01:33:37 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, that in consideration of the items listed on the September 22nd, 2025 consent agenda, City Council number one receives item eleven a to eleven d,

01:33:49 Speaker 04: and number two approves the recommendations contained in item eleven a.

01:33:57 Speaker 04: All in favour?

01:33:58 Speaker 01: That is carried.

01:33:59 Speaker 01: I can pull out eleven b, which is the report from the River District Board of Management, July 9th, Councillor Dodds.

01:34:08 Speaker 01: Thank you, Worship.

01:34:09 Speaker 22: These minutes are from July, so the two main highlights I would say that came from that was there was 131 hours of foot patrol, police foot patrol traffic in the month of June,

01:34:19 Speaker 22: and also the second piece was that the short-term rental component, which as Councillor has already made a formal decision on that matter, but I just noted that it supported the inclusion into the C1 zones.

01:34:32 Speaker 22: Thank you.

01:34:33 Speaker 22: Good.

01:34:33 Speaker 01: Thanks.

01:34:33 Speaker 01: Now, has anyone wanted anything pulled out of correspondence, Councillor Farmer?

01:34:38 Speaker 08: Through the Mayor, I just want to highlight that one of the items is the Conservation Ontario 2025 and 2026 federal pre-budget submission document, which was shared with the GSCA board,

01:34:50 Speaker 08: and I asked to be forwarded for the correspondence package because I think it really succinctly speaks to the community and economic benefits of appropriate watershed management and flood prevention,

01:35:03 Speaker 08: and we conservation authorities and flood prevention is working best when it's invisible because our basements aren't flooded, and this document really succinctly shows what we need,

01:35:18 Speaker 08: kind of collectively as communities to continue that good work because it is important work, so wanted to highlight that.

01:35:26 Speaker 08: Good, thank you.

01:35:28 Speaker 01: Okay, so down to sit down to twelve committee minutes recommendations for approval.

01:35:33 Speaker 01: I think that's me for service review.

01:35:35 Speaker 01: So I'll pass the hammer over to.

01:35:40 Speaker 01: Yeah, we voted on before.

01:35:41 Speaker 01: Yes, before I started to ask.

01:35:43 Speaker 01: Yep, yep.

01:35:47 Speaker 03: And the first item under committee minutes is minutes of the Service Review.

01:35:51 Speaker 03: So I will pass it over to Mayor Boddy to introduce those to committee.

01:35:56 Speaker 03: So.

01:35:58 Speaker 06: Mr. Chair, Service Review Implementation Ad Hoc Committee, September 10, 2025.

01:36:04 Speaker 06: I've got 2024 written down, but it doesn't matter.

01:36:07 Speaker 06: We confirmed three sets of minutes and considered two reports.

01:36:11 Speaker 06: First report was the Director of Corporate Services providing an update report regarding current state assessment and M365 optimization roadmap, 2024 comprehensive review of the city's information management environment.

01:36:27 Speaker 06: Was completed, identifying areas for improvement in governance, compliance, and usability.

01:36:33 Speaker 06: Phase two proposed for 2026.

01:36:35 Speaker 06: Staff recommends proceeding with foundational improvements, including IM governance, SharePoint cleanup, staff training, Microsoft Purview implementation, workflow automation for contract bylaw management.

01:36:52 Speaker 06: The committee recommends that City Council receive the report for information.

01:36:56 Speaker 06: Second report was from the City Clerk, providing a report regarding the provision of bylaw services staffing.

01:37:04 Speaker 06: The committee recommends that City Council direct staff to include bylaw enforcement supervisor and a part-time bylaw enforcement officer in the Mayor's 2026 budget for consideration by the Mayor.

01:37:17 Speaker 06: So those are additional positions to what we currently have.

01:37:22 Speaker 06: The addition of a bylaw enforcement supervisor provides the greatest benefit to the city by reducing administrative responsibilities for bylaw officers, enabling greater focus on proactive enforcement, improving operational efficiencies, and increasing revenue opportunities.

01:37:41 Speaker 06: A part-time permanent position would be year-round position working three days a week, and that the days and hours would be determined as needed operationally.

01:37:52 Speaker 06: And so I therefore move approval of the recommendations contained in the minutes of the Service Review Implementation Ad Hoc Committee held on September 10, 2024.

01:38:03 Speaker 03: Thank you for that.

01:38:04 Speaker 03: And are there any questions specific to those recommendations contained, Councillor Kukreja?

01:38:11 Speaker 16: Thank you, Acting Chair.

01:38:14 Speaker 16: Just a quick question to the City Manager regarding the recruitment of the bylaw officers.

01:38:19 Speaker 16: So would they be on rotational basis on Saturdays and Sundays or late evenings?

01:38:25 Speaker 16: Because currently, I think the police services look after the after-service calls.

01:38:34 Speaker 16: Through the Mayor, to Councillor Kukreja,

01:38:36 Speaker 07: we'll be determining the schedule of how those officers that would be on foot patrol in the down in the River District would make sure we coordinate so we're not doing double duty with police or

01:38:48 Speaker 07: others.

01:38:48 Speaker 07: Police, rather.

01:38:51 Speaker 07: Now, did you have anything to add, Mayor?

01:38:54 Speaker 24: No, I just want to do my job that you're going to do.

01:38:56 Speaker 24: Not seeing any other questions to be asked.

01:38:58 Speaker 24: All those in favour, those recommendations, carrying, and that's carried unanimously.

01:39:02 Speaker 24: Thank you, and back to Mayor Boddy for the next item.

01:39:06 Speaker 01: Thank you, Deputy Mayor Greig.

01:39:08 Speaker 01: Next on the list is minutes of Corporate Services Committee meeting held on September 11, 2025.

01:39:13 Speaker 01: Councillor Middlebro'.

01:39:17 Speaker 18: Thank you.

01:39:17 Speaker 18: Through your words.

01:39:17 Speaker 18: Thank you, through your worship, the Corporate Services Committee met on September 11, 2025.

01:39:24 Speaker 18: We confirmed the minutes of the July 10 meeting.

01:39:28 Speaker 18: We had a report from the Fire Chief regarding FireMark Inc. update.

01:39:33 Speaker 18: The Fire Chief updated committee on a trial period of using FireMark Inc. service to recover fire department costs from insurance companies following structure fires in the city.

01:39:44 Speaker 18: The city began using the service in September 2021, and since that time, 21 fire calls have been submitted to FireMark, and 11 of those were successful in recouping some fire department costs.

01:39:56 Speaker 18: To date, the city has received $4,630 in revenue from the service.

01:40:02 Speaker 18: There is no out-of-pocket cost associated, as FireMark recoups their costs from a 30% service charge, that is only paid when monies are collected.

01:40:11 Speaker 18: And this report was received for information purposes.

01:40:14 Speaker 18: We had a report from the Purchasing and Claims Coordinator regarding biannual summary of awarded purchases between $50,000 and $249,999 from January 1 to June 30, 2025.

01:40:29 Speaker 18: The coordinator gave an outline of the report, and there were two purchases of note.

01:40:33 Speaker 18: The first was an emergency purchase to do with zebra mussel and sediment damage to a water intake pipe, damaged intake screen, and chlorine line,

01:40:43 Speaker 18: which was actually covered in a report on the consent agenda this evening, and a non-standard procurement of computer laptop replacements.

01:40:52 Speaker 18: This was a standardized replacement on the five-year cycle, and it was non-standard as it was a cooperative purchase through the OECM programmememe, and that was in the amount of $76,750.

01:41:04 Speaker 18: And that report was received for information purposes.

01:41:08 Speaker 18: Then we had a report from the Tax Collector regarding M-PACS revised.

01:41:10 Speaker 18: Regarding MPA's revised rule for Section 357 applications, which refer to cancellation, reduction, or refund of property taxes.

01:41:21 Speaker 18: Now, bear with me.

01:41:21 Speaker 18: This was a very lengthy report, and I'll do my best to summarise it.

01:41:27 Speaker 18: The Deputy Treasurer presented the report to committee.

01:41:31 Speaker 18: As of July 2, 2024, MPA no longer revalues or adjusts assessment values for subsections 357, 357.1D2, which are substantially unusable buildings damaged by fire or demolition, and 357.1G,

01:41:50 Speaker 18: which are active repairs and renovations in full or portion that have prevented normal use of the land for a period of at least three months of the year.

01:42:00 Speaker 18: So, MPA now, instead of providing a reassessment, provides a notional value or estimated portion of the overall assessed value of the impacted structure for those two subsections,

01:42:12 Speaker 18: to allow the municipality to quantify the amount of tax relief to be provided.

01:42:17 Speaker 18: So, because of this, the city now must establish a clear and consistent framework to determine the tax relief provided,

01:42:25 Speaker 18: and the report was seeking to establish a formal policy and procedure for administering applications under Section 357, those two subsections of the Municipal Act.

01:42:37 Speaker 18: Staff have consulted with other municipalities to make sure that our policy framework and formulas for calculating tax relief are in line with what other municipalities are doing.

01:42:46 Speaker 18: Staff are recommending assessing application on a case-by-case basis with a maximum threshold of relief to be applied at a rate of 75% for the substantially unusable buildings and 25% for the repairs and renovations.

01:43:02 Speaker 18: There were two current Section 357 applications attached to the report that committee were asked to approve.

01:43:09 Speaker 18: One was for Rockview Apartments that was submitted under Section 357.1D2, the substantially unusable building.

01:43:19 Speaker 18: There was fire damage to the building, and all 20 units were damaged in the fire, and they remain unusable.

01:43:25 Speaker 18: So, with the notional value from MPA, which was $841,000, staff recommended a maximum tax relief of the 75%.

01:43:33 Speaker 18: Seventy-five percent to be applied.

01:43:35 Speaker 18: This would result in a levy reduction of $8,636.70 for that property.

01:43:42 Speaker 18: The other application was for Parkway Plaza, which has active ongoing repairs and renovations.

01:43:48 Speaker 18: And applying the formula and the twenty-five percent threshold would result in a tax reduction of four thousand nine hundred and two dollars and thirty-five cents, reducing their taxes from approximately ninety-one thousand to eighty-six thousand.

01:44:02 Speaker 18: Of no note, tax reductions under this section 357 are valid only for the taxation year in which the change event occurred.

01:44:11 Speaker 18: They cannot make subsequent applications the following year.

01:44:14 Speaker 18: Committee asked a number of clarifying questions, and in the end, they approved the recommendations in the report, which are that, in consideration of staff report CR 25-111, respecting MPEX revised rule for section 357 cancellation,

01:44:29 Speaker 18: reduction, or refund of property tax: Reduction or refund of property taxes.

01:44:32 Speaker 18: Corporate Services Committee recommends that City Council direct staff to bring forward a policy and procedure for administering applications under Section 357 of the Municipal Act, 2001, including:

01:44:45 Speaker 18: A) a case-by-case approach for applications made under subsection 357(1)(d) for substantially unusable buildings where thresholds for tax relief will be established through the forthcoming policy and will guide the amount of tax relief provided;

01:45:01 Speaker 18: B) a standardized approach under subsection 357(1)(g) for repairs/renovations, where property tax relief will be determined using a percentage reduction capped at twenty-five percent,

01:45:13 Speaker 18: based on the vacant portion notional value and deemed unusable square footage returned, provided by MPA; and C) maintaining existing processes for all other subsections of section 357.

01:45:27 Speaker 18: Number two: approve the current S 357 applications as outlined in the report for Rockview Apartments and Parkway Plaza; and three,

01:45:39 Speaker 18: direct staff to bring forward a bylaw to amend the delegation of authority bylaw to delegate authority to the treasurer or designee to administer and approve future applications consistent with the finalized S 357 policy.

01:45:54 Speaker 18: And with that, I move receipt of the Corporate Services minutes of September 11, 2025, and the recommendations contained within, and I will attempt to answer any questions.

01:46:05 Speaker 18: Great, thank you.

01:46:05 Speaker 18: Questions, Ms. Marion Koepke.

01:46:08 Speaker 19: Thank you, Your Worship.

01:46:09 Speaker 19: Through you, not a question, just a comment.

01:46:12 Speaker 19: I find it really hard to believe that you actually did all of that business in 32 minutes in your committee meeting.

01:46:21 Speaker 06: Took her that long to read it.

01:46:23 Speaker 06: I was going to ask you: what was your third point?

01:46:28 Speaker 06: Anyone else?

01:46:29 Speaker 06: Call the question: all in favour.

01:46:31 Speaker 06: That's carried.

01:46:31 Speaker 06: Thank you.

01:46:35 Speaker 06: Thirteen matters postponed.

01:46:36 Speaker 06: Ms. Bloomfield.

01:46:42 Speaker 14: Through Your Worship, this sorry, this report was presented at the September 8 meeting, and Council requested that the January 19 special budget meeting be moved to Friday, January 16,

01:46:53 Speaker 14: and that staff review whether the interval between meetings could be shortened during the election period.

01:46:58 Speaker 14: Staff have rescheduled the budget meeting in the calendar, which is attached to the report,

01:47:02 Speaker 14: and included in the staff recommendation a revised budget amendment period and override of the Mayor's veto period to reflect the new budget meeting date.

01:47:11 Speaker 14: Staff reviewed the options for shortening the time between meetings, and the only possible adjustment would be to move the September 28 meeting to October 5.

01:47:19 Speaker 14: Staff are not recommending this change, and it is not included in the calendar attached to the report.

01:47:25 Speaker 14: Preparing for and following up from a Council meeting requires significant time and resources,

01:47:29 Speaker 14: and the demands of the October election period do not allow staff to fully support both Council business and the administration of a well-run election.

01:47:37 Speaker 14: Keeping the final pre-election meeting on September 28 also helps to ensure a level playing field for all candidates leading into the voting period, which begins October 16.

01:47:47 Speaker 14: The September 28 Council meeting will include recognition of members who are...

01:47:49 Speaker 14: The recognition of members who are not seeking re-election, and if an urgent matter arises during the election break, a special meeting can be called.

01:47:57 Speaker 14: The recommendation in the report is that Council approves the 2026 Council and Committee meeting calendar attached to the report, shortening the 2026 budget amendment period from 30 days to 25 days,

01:48:09 Speaker 14: and shortening the override of the Mayor's veto period, if required, from 15 days to 14 days.

01:48:13 Speaker 14: Deputy Mayor Craig.

01:48:17 Speaker 14: Thank you, Mayor Craig.

01:48:20 Speaker 14: Move the recommendation that's in the report.

01:48:23 Speaker 14: Any other discussion?

01:48:28 Speaker 06: Just a couple of quick questions.

01:48:30 Speaker 06: The province has moved the inauguration date back about two weeks from previous years.

01:48:37 Speaker 06: And the Chief is indicating yes, and that kind of changes everything.

01:48:44 Speaker 06: And then lame duck, we can't make any...

01:48:47 Speaker 06: We can make limited decisions, and that's going to start in about August 21, 2025.

01:48:54 Speaker 06: So after that point, it's pretty hard to accomplish much anyway.

01:48:57 Speaker 06: So it doesn't really matter if we do need to do something.

01:49:00 Speaker 06: We can call a meeting, Councillor Farmer.

01:49:03 Speaker 08: Thank you, through the Mayor and to the Mayor, for highlighting that change.

01:49:08 Speaker 08: That just brought back to mind for me that in the last election, in that period between the election and when...

01:49:16 Speaker 08: We had our first meeting; was it Bill 29 or like one of the bills that really changed things?

01:49:24 Speaker 08: Had a consultation period that fell neatly when there was no one here to answer those questions.

01:49:32 Speaker 08: Maybe I'll look to the Director of Community Services.

01:49:35 Speaker 08: Was it Bill 2392?

01:49:37 Speaker 08: One of the ones that's really changed our ability to comment on land-use planning and all of that.

01:49:43 Speaker 08: I'm wondering if we could specifically request of staff that, if there is a major piece of legislation that conveniently has a consultation period that falls when we would not otherwise be meeting in this calendar,

01:49:59 Speaker 08: that be noted as grounds for a special meeting for feedback, because if it happened last time, it might happen again.

01:50:06 Speaker 06: I'd be very nervous of putting that into the motion because I think you want to leave it to discretion, depending what it is, and whether staff can answer it.

01:50:16 Speaker 06: Is that what you're going to say?

01:50:20 Speaker 03: Yeah, I was just going to say I think it was a calling wood that had a special meeting for an MZO.

01:50:24 Speaker 03: Was likely one of the most important meetings they had as a council in the four-year term, and it was the very first time together.

01:50:31 Speaker 03: It can happen.

01:50:32 Speaker 03: I think you just want to leave it to the discretion of the Mayor, the head of council, runs for the position,

01:50:37 Speaker 03: and that should be within their discretion to evaluate any items like that that come up.

01:50:44 Speaker 03: They can call those meetings, or a councillor can still petition.

01:50:49 Speaker 06: Okay, I'm going to call the question.

01:50:53 Speaker 06: All in favour?

01:50:56 Speaker 06: So that is carried.

01:51:00 Speaker 06: So at 14, we have no motions which were previously given.

01:51:04 Speaker 06: Discussion of additional business starting with Councillor Farmer.

01:51:07 Speaker 06: He has four items.

01:51:10 Speaker 02: Thank you, and I may add a fifth at your leave to promote an event coming up as well.

01:51:17 Speaker 02: So my first item is, as I've mentioned previously,

01:51:19 Speaker 02: the Community Safety and Wellbeing Planning Table has a municipal community of practice that meets every month to talk about something that's in our kind of collective municipal jurisdiction,

01:51:30 Speaker 02: and it met earlier this month around the topic of access to public washrooms and water.

01:51:35 Speaker 02: We talked about the differences in service levels across our municipalities.

01:51:37 Speaker 02: Best practice: Our municipalities' best practices in universal washroom design for accessibility, and examples of municipalities like Guelph that are actively partnering with community organisations to assess their level of service,

01:51:49 Speaker 02: make information about washroom access available on their website, and which also includes maps of washroom locations and hours, and compiling best practice notes and recommendations.

01:51:59 Speaker 02: They benefit from having UGuelph there.

01:52:00 Speaker 02: They've done a lot of partnership there, and that was one of the things that struck me as an opportunity for us as well to, as we're talking about expanding washroom access,

01:52:10 Speaker 02: also partner with third parties that can do this kind of research and support us that way.

01:52:16 Speaker 02: And it was a timely conversation, given the discussion of washrooms already mentioned.

01:52:21 Speaker 02: The second item was about an event at the Rumpus Room last week, the Ready to Run event, the first of a new series.

01:52:28 Speaker 02: So last Thursday there was an event at the Rumpus Room, No Sound, the former Bean Seller location, co-hosted by a new grassroots organisation called We Vote Local,

01:52:37 Speaker 02: as well as by the well-established Elect Her Now organisation, which is dedicated to getting more folks running and more diversity on elected positions all over.

01:52:47 Speaker 02: It featured speakers about local government and systems, and a handful of elected officials from across Grey Bruce,

01:52:52 Speaker 02: sharing resources and perspectives with folks who are curious about running for office or volunteering with a campaign in 2026.

01:53:00 Speaker 02: As folks in this room know, it's a big decision to put your name on a ballot, and it can be a steep learning curve.

01:53:05 Speaker 02: Many of the speakers described the value to a community of having multiple perspectives and voices represented during both an election and a term of council.

01:53:13 Speaker 02: And although the election is more than a year away, municipalities are already planning.

01:53:17 Speaker 02: And the speakers that night highlighted that that makes this a good time for people who are council curious, quote unquote,

01:53:22 Speaker 02: to learn more about how their municipalities work and how they might want to be involved.

01:53:27 Speaker 02: And I meant to bring this up in response to the election report, but I did grab one of the speakers: was Dave Meslin, who lives in Grey Highlands now,

01:53:35 Speaker 02: but is also the author of Tear Down, a book all about reinvigorating democratic engagement.

01:53:42 Speaker 02: And he was the prime mover behind the Grey Highlands Municipal League,

01:53:46 Speaker 02: and they managed to set a record for the number of people running for office in Grey Highlands by doing a couple of public outreach campaigns.

01:53:54 Speaker 02: One of which was with this flyer, which is also on the screen, which was mailed out to all the households in Grey Highlands and was visually appealing,

01:54:04 Speaker 02: had really accessible information for folks who might not realize all that's involved in running,

01:54:13 Speaker 02: and I again meant to during the report maybe ask staff if it's possible as we work to communicate about our own election to incorporate maybe a similar strategy around accessible design and language to make

01:54:29 Speaker 02: sure that we're being as transparent as possible,

01:54:33 Speaker 02: where folks might not, as was noted at this event, might not know that the nominations period opening that you can nominate yourself.

01:54:40 Speaker 02: If you've never done that before, you might think that you need a party or something to do that.

01:54:44 Speaker 02: So, to the I guess theme that folks watching this meeting might be interested in learning more, I want to highlight that Electra is also hosting an online event tomorrow, Tuesday the 23rd,

01:54:54 Speaker 02: on Zoom to share information with folks, and they're partnering with organisations across the province.

01:55:00 Speaker 02: There's also going to be another We Vote Local event at the Rumpus Room on the third Thursday in October.

01:55:05 Speaker 02: And as the City Manager mentioned, that event that the city is hosting on October 20th is a great way for folks to learn more about what this is and how that works.

01:55:14 Speaker 02: My third point was around the Sweetwater Music Festival, which wrapped up their 22nd festival this weekend.

01:55:23 Speaker 02: I want to extend congratulations and thanks.

01:55:26 Speaker 02: I was able to take our kids to one of their free events, which was a Music for Munchkins thing, on the Saturday morning.

01:55:34 Speaker 02: And on Sunday, I was chatting with someone who works at a local downtown restaurant, and he was talking about how crammed they were over the handful of days that the festival was happening.

01:55:43 Speaker 02: Just, I'd bring that up to highlight that arts events downtown boost the local economy as well as the cultural fabric.

01:55:52 Speaker 02: And two final comments about upcoming events: Safe and Sound is hosting an educational series or a session in their Sound Ideas series, and the next one of those is on Tuesday, October 14th,

01:56:03 Speaker 02: on the topic of harm reduction.

01:56:05 Speaker 02: There are professional and public presentations planned, one in the afternoon and in the evening, respectively.

01:56:11 Speaker 02: So folks can get more information about that by contacting Safe and Sound or finding the event on their Facebook page.

01:56:17 Speaker 02: And I was wondering specifically if our representatives on the Police Board could share that information with the board, considering that harm reduction has been a topic of interest for the board this year.

01:56:27 Speaker 02: And lastly, coming up on the 28th, folks will have seen again through the City Manager's highlighting of the news releases: Owen Sound is a city participating in the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Cities Initiative,

01:56:43 Speaker 02: Great Lakes Coastal Cleanup, and there are volunteers from Summerfolk and local like the city and Owen Sound partnering to help clean up our waterfront,

01:56:52 Speaker 02: so there's more information about that on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative website.

01:56:58 Speaker 02: But we're doing good stuff here, and folks can participate.

01:57:02 Speaker 02: That's all.

01:57:03 Speaker 06: Good, thank you, Tim.

01:57:05 Speaker 06: Anything you want to add on the Great Lakes Cities Initiative?

01:57:08 Speaker 06: I forgot that John just mentioned it.

01:57:12 Speaker 06: I'm throwing you under the bus here.

01:57:16 Speaker 07: Through you, Mayor.

01:57:17 Speaker 07: Let me get out from under the bus.

01:57:20 Speaker 07: No, I think it's being organised through our Supervisor of Environmental Services.

01:57:26 Speaker 07: We're one of about five communities that were selected for shoreline cleanup, and they're offering a grant for that to cover the costs.

01:57:33 Speaker 07: I'd also like to extend thanks to Miller Waste, who is providing refreshments and stuff for that day.

01:57:39 Speaker 07: But the volunteers through Summerfolk, they have a really well-organised volunteer system, are helping out with that shoreline cleanup, and then the funds through the grant will go back into Summerfolk for that use,

01:57:50 Speaker 07: but we're looking forward to that Saturday morning cleanup.

01:57:55 Speaker 01: Good, thank you.

01:57:56 Speaker 01: It's Sunday, the 28th of September, at 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., starting at the Bayshore Community Centre gazebo, if people want to come out.

01:58:08 Speaker 01: Great Lake City's initiative was started by Mayor Daly Jr.

01:58:12 Speaker 01: from Chicago and Mayor from Toronto, and now involves a lot of municipalities around the Great Lakes trying to keep the lakes clean.

01:58:21 Speaker 01: They arranged for grants from the Canadian government, and there are five or six of us being involved.

01:58:27 Speaker 01: So it's a good organisation for us to be involved with.

01:58:32 Speaker 25: Deputy Mayor Greig, question to staff: One of the most important documents that we, as Council, contribute to during our term is zoning and official plan updates.

01:58:44 Speaker 25: A couple of months ago, we had an open house at the Bayshore,

01:58:49 Speaker 25: and I'm just wondering where we are in terms of timeline and what are the next steps and opportunities for contribution from Council to that process.

01:59:02 Speaker 21: Thank you for that question.

01:59:03 Speaker 21: And through the Mayor, the survey closed, as you likely know, June 13.

01:59:09 Speaker 21: The open house was at the Bayshore on July 17.

01:59:12 Speaker 21: Since that time, staff, along with the consultant, have been working to sort of refine the official plan and zoning bylaw based on the input we've received.

01:59:22 Speaker 21: All of the information is on ourcity.ownsound.ca.

01:59:24 Speaker 21: There's a great project page there.

01:59:30 Speaker 21: All the reports, the draft documents, etc. One of the first jobs on the Deputy Clerk's job list when she gets back is to do a notice of the formal public meeting,

01:59:41 Speaker 21: which will be held in November.

01:59:43 Speaker 21: Following that public meeting, I expect there'll be one more report through Community Services, and then hopefully the document will be ready for Council to consider.

01:59:54 Speaker 21: So that's sort of the next steps.

01:59:56 Speaker 21: But there is a great project page, or certainly contact staff if you have more questions.

02:00:04 Speaker 21: Good.

02:00:05 Speaker 21: Okay.

02:00:07 Speaker 21: I think I'm the only one that's left.

02:00:09 Speaker 01: One wants to say congratulations and thank you to Chris Webb, engineer here at the City, who long-term retired a couple of weeks ago, and we wish him the best of luck moving forward.

02:00:25 Speaker 01: Next item: I participated Saturday with a stair climb for 9/11, recognizing September 11th, 2001, with approximately 50 firefighters around Graham Bruce.

02:00:41 Speaker 01: It was at the Arena, at our Arena, at our Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.

02:00:46 Speaker 01: It was down one set of stairs, up another, so it was ten flights of stairs per lap, times ten laps.

02:00:54 Speaker 01: So if you see him hobbling, there's a reason for it.

02:00:56 Speaker 01: I'm still in pain.

02:00:58 Speaker 01: I was in a T-shirt and really light pants and running shoes.

02:01:07 Speaker 01: The fun: the firemen started off wearing their bunker gear, and their bunker gear is designed not to get heat through it.

02:01:14 Speaker 01: So it also means you're not getting heat out of it.

02:01:16 Speaker 01: Helmets, air tanks in their back, extra weight.

02:01:24 Speaker 01: A couple of them, like our Mark Young, went past me twice that are in great shape in their bunker gear.

02:01:29 Speaker 01: Naturally, others that you need on a fire department to carry people out are a little bit bigger guys that aren't necessarily runners.

02:01:37 Speaker 01: It's very, very hard job, and I didn't appreciate it when I started it until I got to the end, knowing what kind of pain I'm in,

02:01:47 Speaker 01: watching men and women in fire departments from across Grey-Sable, fifty in total, going through that.

02:01:54 Speaker 01: So each set of stairs represents one flight of stairs in the World Trade Centre.

02:02:01 Speaker 01: So approximately a hundred flights of stairs.

02:02:06 Speaker 01: Our ice was in, making the room nice and cool.

02:02:10 Speaker 01: We had beautiful new lighting in the Bayshore Community Centre; that's nice and bright.

02:02:17 Speaker 01: We had water, Gatorade, bananas, snack bars in each of two corners to keep us fed and keep us going.

02:02:33 Speaker 01: People were getting sick.

02:02:34 Speaker 01: People were going down.

02:02:36 Speaker 01: So going back to September eleventh, twenty-twenty-one, those firefighters going up those stairs had masks on because of the gases and the fumes.

02:02:45 Speaker 01: There is people coming down.

02:02:47 Speaker 01: There is no air conditioning in those stairs.

02:02:49 Speaker 01: There is no lighting in those stairs.

02:02:50 Speaker 01: There is no water, or Gatorade being handed out every fifth floor, and some of them would be big guys to move people up.

02:03:01 Speaker 01: To move people out, going up those stairs, I cannot imagine.

02:03:06 Speaker 01: And as I'm going around, getting more tired and getting more sore, I started to understand, appreciate what those firefighters went through, and certainly what firefighters continue to go through, and police officers and ambulance,

02:03:26 Speaker 01: that just you know out of the 50 that are there, maybe aren't going up 100 stairs, but they're going up a lot with heavy equipment in heat and working hard.

02:03:34 Speaker 01: So it was nice to participate and be able to learn and start to appreciate more what they're doing.

02:03:42 Speaker 01: So it was a pretty special day.

02:03:44 Speaker 01: Coming up on oh yeah sure.

02:03:53 Speaker 01: Coming up on the thirtieth is National Truth and Reconciliation Day.

02:04:03 Speaker 01: I closed out the web page that I had that I wanted to read some things off of.

02:04:09 Speaker 01: But it's pretty important annually.

02:04:12 Speaker 01: The ceremony will be held in Owen Sound at the Gitche Gumee Wiikwedong Reconciliation Garden at Kellsle Beach and Nawash Park on the south end, starting at ten to about eleven thirty.

02:04:23 Speaker 01: Recognizing children that maybe didn't come home from residential schools, or came home and were greatly affected by it, and their childhood is taken away.

02:04:38 Speaker 01: So that's the whole idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Day.

02:04:42 Speaker 01: And I encourage everyone to come out to the ceremony.

02:04:45 Speaker 01: You will learn something, and it's something that I think everybody has to do at least once.

02:04:50 Speaker 01: And Council, looking around, that's why we're wearing the orange ribbons.

02:04:53 Speaker 01: That's why we've got the orange flags up behind.

02:04:56 Speaker 01: Please come out to it.

02:05:04 Speaker 01: So next, number sixteen is motioned that Committee of the Whole rise and report.

02:05:12 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, that a Committee of the Whole rise and report.

02:05:16 Speaker 04: All in favour?

02:05:17 Speaker 01: That is carried.

02:05:18 Speaker 01: So we're back into the formal session.

02:05:20 Speaker 01: Motion to adopt proceedings in Committee of the Whole.

02:05:23 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, seconded by Councillor Mutton, that the actions taken in Committee of the Whole, in considering public meetings, deputations, and presentations, public forum matters arising from correspondence, reports of the City staff, consent agenda,

02:05:40 Speaker 04: committee minutes, matters postponed, motions for which notice was previously given, and additional business be confirmed by this Council.

02:05:49 Speaker 06: All in favour.

02:05:50 Speaker 06: That is carried at number eighteen.

02:05:52 Speaker 06: Or the: At number eighteen, are there any notices of motion being given?

02:05:56 Speaker 06: Not seeing any hands come up.

02:05:59 Speaker 06: We do not have a closed session at nineteen, so not moving in, and at twenty, not reporting out.

02:06:05 Speaker 06: Twenty-one bylaws.

02:06:08 Speaker 14: Through your Worship, the only bylaws for approval on tonight's agenda is the confirmatory bylaw.

02:06:15 Speaker 14: Great, thank you, Councillor Kukreja.

02:06:17 Speaker 04: Moved by myself, seconded by Councillor Merton, that bylaw number two zero two five, Law Number Two Zero Two Five One Zero Nine be passed and enacted.

02:06:26 Speaker 04: Great, all in favour?

02:06:28 Speaker 06: That is carried.

02:06:29 Speaker 06: So that completes our work to be done tonight.

02:06:32 Speaker 06: It is seven thirty-six.

02:06:34 Speaker 06: We're adjourned.

02:06:35 Speaker 06: Thanks.