May 14, 2024 amherstburg2

Monday May 13th Regular town council meeting

I went to watch Monday night’s meeting in person. I wasn’t sure how full the gallery may be since there were three delegations added to the agenda, so I got there early. While the gallery was full up to capacity by 6:00, it was not standing room only, although I don’t think there were any empty seats. Overall, it was a generally boring meeting. That means don’t expect too much from this blog LOL. I didn’t have a lot to work with. This time. There’s always a next time right?

Council met at 4:00 for an in-camera meeting to discuss :

SPECIAL IN-CAMERA MEETING

That Council move into an In-Camera Meeting of Council pursuant to Section 239 of the Municipal Act, 2001, as amended for the following reasons:

Item A – Legal Advice regarding Development Agreements and Contractual Obligations

Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board.
Section 239(2)(f) – advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Item B –Advice and Information regarding the disposition of Industrial and Economic Development Lands in the Town of Amherstburg

Section 239(2)(c) a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board
Section 239(2)(f) – advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Council then had a 5:00 planning meeting. When I arrived shortly after 5:30, the planning meeting was already adjourned.

The regular meeting scheduled for 6:00, had a revised agenda.

Here is the link (with the video) for the revised agenda https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=f31a6b64-fd6e-4410-88e0-80b79e97a7d1&Agenda=Merged&lang=English

And here is the PDF format for the revised agenda https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-05-13-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/31c5e92f-92e7-4ccf-82e9-b16c01534fad

***Councillor Courtney was absent tonight*** The Mayor said that there had been a death in the family and asked that everybody keep Councillor Courtney and his family in their thoughts

DISCLOSURE OF PECUNIARY INTEREST & GENERAL NATURE THEREOF

Councillor McArthur declared a conflict of pecuniary interest for item 14.2 which was to waive the bylaw and fees for the Legion for music on their patio. He explained that while he is a member of the Legion, what puts in conflict that he is also in a band that has played music on their patio and their band is booked to play there this year.

Councillor Pouget declared a conflict of pecuniary interest for item 19.4, which was a drainage board issue. It seems that her daughter’s home drains into the drain that is on the agenda.

Mayor Pruepassed the gavel. He said that it was suggested that he has a conflict of interest regarding item 14.2, which is the music on the Legion patio. He said that he does not have a conflict, since he does not receive money from the legion, he’s not in a band that plays at the Legion, he is an ordinary member that does not sit on the board or any committees of the Legion. He wanted it noted for the record that he does not have a conflict of interest in regards to the Legion and this item.

Delegation: Item 14.2 – Noise By-law Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157 – Gary & Carmelina Wellman (supplementary agenda)

Mr Wellman addressed council first. He explained that he had been before council many times due to the excessive noise from the patio at the Legion. He noted that not all performances were excessively loud, but most were. He felt that some of the performances were okay and he wondered why the noise level could not be controlled consistently. He noted that the Legion had received noise exemptions in the past. He felt that if they received it this year that they should not be able to abuse that exemption. Mr Wellman spoke about when the acoustical engineer had presented results of a noise study to the previous council, they were shocked to see the noise levels. He said that at times the levels exceeded 100 dB and that it had been suggested that the noise levels be kept at 70 dB or less. He said that this situation had been going on for years, that the request was now being expanded to three days from two and that increased aggravation has been the result. Mr Wellman felt that it would be appropriate for council to grant the exemption if the Legion could keep the volume down and suggested a maximum of 70 dB. He also requested that rather than give an exemption for the entire season, to only give it for the month of June and that if all goes well, the Legion could come back and extend it at that time.

Councillor Allaire asked out of pure curiosity if other areas caused noise since the building is so closed to the Open Air footprint. Mr Wellman replied no. He said that they enjoy Open Air and that it is the volume at the Legion that is high. He felt that other venues do not have high volume.

Delegation: Item 14.2 – Noise By-law Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157 – David Beneteau (supplementary agenda)

Mr Beneteau addressed council next. He noted that he had last spoken to council in 2019 regarding waiving the sound bylaw. He said that he had put all of the details about this in his submission that was in the revised agenda. Here is the link to that information for those that want to read it https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=15054

Mr Beneteau noted how noise exemptions are sometimes published in the RTT when it affects people within 60 meters. He also noted that he had seen letters in the RTT from people that live further south and how they are affected by the noise. He felt that the root issue was that the Legion is given an exemption and then there is absolutely no control over the noise levels. He did acknowledge the Legion for trying but noted that as the evening goes on, the crowd gets louder, the noise gets louder and everything gets excessively loud. Mr Beneteau said that he would not be letting the issue go now and that if a blanket exemption were granted by council that he would follow up. He also responded to Councillor Allaire’s question about other events. He noted that during the Cars Gone Crazy there was excessive sound from music being played. He noted it was so loud that people couldn’t even talk but that it was not the Legion that had caused the issue. He also felt that this year, during the True Fest, that things were fantastic but that last year it had been too loud.

CAO Critchley spoke since there had been reference to the town’s policy. She said that noise exemption applications are printed and advertised if it’s for a private event on private property, such as a wedding or party. She said that this particular decision about the Legion does not fall under that authority since it is a public event and publicized as an agenda item.

Delegation: Item 14.2 – Noise By-law Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157 – Ernie Gazdig (supplementary agenda)

Mr Gazdig addressed council next. He said he was there representing the Legion membership, which has over 420 members, 107 of which are veterans. He said that he appreciated the opinions shared and respected the input given. He said that their special request was for a noise exemption for Open Air weekends 2024. He felt that an exemption for the season would be best since otherwise, they would have to apply repeatedly which would also generate excessive fees. He noted that they are a non profit organization and that during the summer, their primary revenue generators are the bands. He felt that they do try to monitor the noise levels but that the bands do not play at a constant volume. He felt that there were issues with the Queen Charlotte building itself not having proper insulation or being properly constructed and that the Legion was not responsible for that. Mr Gazdig said that if phone complaints are received about excessive noise levels, that the bar stewards do go outside and have the band lower the volume. He talked about changing the direction of the speakers to mitigate the problem but that sound travels. He felt that the Legion needs to book bands at least one month in advance, especially in the summer.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that he feared that if they can’t get this neighbour dispute settled, that everyone will lose, in the end, the Legion and the residents. He asked Mr Gazdig if there were anything he could tell us that they will keep the sound levels under 70 dB. Mr Gazdig said that he did not understand where the 70 dB was coming from. He said that they will do everything with the bands to control their noise levels and will deal with any issues immediately. He mentioned that they have been hiring bands with 3 members or less. Mr Gazdig mentioned that some time in the future, they would be looking to acquire a new sound system.

Councillor Pouget asked where the 70 dB number came from. Mr Gazdig said that he did not know. Mayor Prue explained that at one time, with the previous council, that number had been suggested to incorporate into the bylaw but the bylaw was never passed.

There was a motion to receive the delegations.

Noise By-law Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157

Since there were delegations about this agenda item, it was brought forward for discussion at this point. The Legion had requested an exemption to the noise bylaw during Open Air weekends as well as a waiver for the fee. For context, here is the recommendation that was given to council :

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The report from the Manager of Licensing and Enforcement dated April 27, 2024 regarding a noise exemption for Legion Branch #157 BE RECEIVED for information;

2. THAT a Noise Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157 BE APPROVED until September 2, 2024 from Noise By-law 2001-43, table 3-1, section 2 with the respect to the operation of any electronic device or group of connected electronic devices incorporating one or more loudspeakers to allow for music on Friday from 1800hrs to 2200hrs, on Saturday from 1800hrs till 2200hrs and on Sundays from 1400hrs till 1800hrs at the Royal Canadian Legion #157; and,

3. That the request for the waiver of the Noise Exemption fee of $61.00 BE RECEIVED and FILED for information

Councillor Pouget asked about the 70 dB number and where it had come from. Mr Tetler, the Manager of Licensing said that there was not any wording in the current bylaw regarding decibel levels. He referenced that it had been debated on May 24th 2022 but it was not passed into a bylaw. Councillor Pouget asked that since there was no noise limit right now, what could be done to resolve this. Mr Tetler said that the way the bylaw is structured right now, that if the noise is disrupting the quality of life of a resident then it can be dealt with. He used an example, if a garbage truck were going around before 6 AM, that would be an increment on the noise bylaw and could be dealt with. Councillor Pouget noted that everyone has different levels of noise that would be tolerable to them. She wondered what can be done to compromise. Mr Tetler agreed that thresholds were different for everyone and that complaints are dealt with on an individual basis.

CAO Critchley explained that the way the noise bylaw is enforced currently is if a complaint is given. She noted that often complaints happen after hours and that generally, the bylaw officers work until 8PM. She said that if it’s after hours, residents can call the police and that they will deal with it. She spoke about keeping a lot of any issues and what is happening and that that can be used if necessary to testify in court.

Councillor Crain asked if any other municipalities measure sound levels by decibel readings. Mr Tetler said that some do however many are like the Town of Amherstburg, with no set decibel level. Councillor Crain asked what the reasoning was in 2022 when this was discussed. (Councillor Courtney was absent, Councillor McArthur had declared a conflict about this agenda item, so he could not speak at all about it, but Mayor Prue was on that council yet did not speak to it. It would have been helpful I think if he had offered some context to the history of this debate.) The Clerk believed that enforceability had been a consideration in the debate two years prior. The noise levels would have to be monitored, measured and the data would have to stand up in court. He said that the town did not have the resources to do all of that day and night. Mr Tetler added that the bylaw department is not always an “on demand” service and that they typically look into complaints the next day. A decibel reading the next day would be of no use. CAO Critchley noted that often, if bylaw is able to get there in short order, often the volume has been turned down by the time they arrive.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that he had been reading the reports and minutes of the 2019 meetings when the sound engineer presented to council and that is where he saw the 70 dB reading referenced. He noted that the sound engineer had reported that 70 dB was the upper limit of an acceptable level of noise. He noted that the reports had referenced the 70 dB as an upper limit frequently while he was reading. He explained where he had found that number.

Councillor Allaire was just curious if the town had received any complaints about music at Open Air. Mr Tetler replied that no, no complaints were received regarding noise from Open Air.

Mayor Prue asked how many complaints had been received specifically about the Legion. That was also zero complaints for 2022 and 2023.

Councillor Allaire then made the motion to move the staff recommendation and to waive the fee. Councillor Pouget seconded it.

Mayor Prue wondered if everyone was charged the $61 fee to apply to waive the noise bylaw. Mr Tetler said that yes, that is the case. CAO Critchley also concurred about the fee being a one-time fee for an event. She again used the example of a wedding or private party requesting to waive the noise bylaw and would pay the fee. She also noted that it would depend on how council wanted to treat Open Air, as one event or each weekend. Would they want to waive $61 based on a one-time event for the Legion or $61 per weekend? Mayor Prue asked why the fee was being waived and the CAO said that the Legion had requested that.

Councillor Pouget felt that it was not clear if council should waive the fee or receive it and file it. The Clerk pointed out that Councillor Allaire had said in her motion to waive the fee and Councillor Pouget had seconded the motion. (Sometimes I really do wonder if I’m the only one in the room that is actually paying attention?….) CAO Critchley said it would be up to council if they wanted to treat Open Air as one event or charge a fee for every weekend.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that Councillor Allaire’s motion to waive the fee was clear. He noted that there had been no noise complaints in 2022 or 2023. He said he would not oppose the motion. However, he did say that he is very concerned that if the noise levels are not controlled, that this problem will eventually go beyond Amherstburg town council. He said he was trusting that the Legion will handle this issue with utmost seriousness.

It went to a vote. It wasn’t recorded but I watched it. Everybody (Deputy Mayor Gibb, Councillors Pouget, Crain and Allaire) all voted in favour.

Presentation – Aphasia Friendly Canada – University of Windsor

Two professors from the University of Windsor presented to council about Aphasia. It was explained that it is a communication disorder that typically is a result of a stroke or can also be the first step of dementia. It is a cognitive disability that results in problems communicating. They said that it is very common and the numbers are increasing. The professors want Amherstburg to be the first city that would be Aphasia Friendly. They noted that the training program would be free to every business that wants to participate. They said that they chose Amherstburg since we have a lot of tourism and also have many locally owned businesses. It seems that if you receive the training, you receive a type of postcard/symbol to put up so that people know that it is an Aphasia friendly environment. They noted that many cities around the world are on board with this initiative. They also noted that their first stop was Amherstburg and that they had already talked to the Accessibility Committee.

Mayor Prue shared that he had already done the course and had learned that sometimes people with Aphasia can not speak but have other ways to communicate. Councillor Pouget asked how a person could get the training. They explained that it is done on-line and that they will send brochures with the information. They also said that in-person training is offered if required. They gave an example that an organization like the Sportsmen’s Club could host an event and businesses could attend to get the training.

Councillor Allaire noted that inclusivity is part of the strategic plan. Councillor Crain hoped that businesses and staff would get involved since there was no cost to the town.

A motion was made to receive the presentation and endorse a friendly Aphasia Environment in Amherstburg. The motion carried.

2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower Replacement

Councillor Pouget had a question for the Director of Engineering. She asked about a part of the report that talked about issues with a confined space. Ms Gioffu replied that that information was in the next report on the agenda about the backhoe. Councillor Pouget then felt it was good news that the tractor and wide area mower had come in $24,000 under budget. While that is good news, it had actually come in $42,000 under budget. Even better news I guess.

Anyway, after this short misunderstanding about the reports, Councillor Allaire made the motion for the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. An expenditure for the purchase of a 2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower BE APPROVED for a total cost not to exceed $197,914.52 including net HST;

2. The purchase of the 2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower BE AWARDED to Colvoy Equipment.

3. Net proceeds from the sale of the current Unit 607 Tractor BE DIRECTED to the Fleet Reserves, along with any surplus funding, to help replenish the reserves for future Fleet purchases.

2023 Case Backhoe Improvements

It looks like some improvements are needed for the backhoe. This is from the discussion portion of the report : “During recent operations, the water/wastewater operators identified a safety concern with the new backhoe. The rear excavating bucket would be safer to operate with a quick disconnect system for switching attachments and buckets. During a watermain and sewer repair project, the backhoe operator could switch buckets and attachments multiple times throughout the course of the work. With the current setup, the ground crew would need to be in communication with the backhoe operator and in contact with the backhoe to assist in pulling and installing pins to swap buckets and attachments as needed. This could cause potential safety issues within the confined work area and would add additional time to perform the work which can be critical during water main repairs. The inclusion of the quick-disconnect equipment will allow the backhoe operator to switch equipment without assistance of the ground crew and in a more timely manner. The cost to install the quick-disconnect function of the excavating bucket is $14,500 excluding HST.”

Councillor Pouget started asking questions about the confined space and safety. My pen ran out of ink…..(I was already on my second pen of the meeting as it was….)….I dug in my purse to find a third pen. By the time I got back to note-taking, the Q&A session was almost over. I guess in the end it didn’t matter much anyway. Councillor Allaire made a motion for the recommendation, Deputy Mayor Gibb seconded it and it carried.

Cultural Heritage Risk Mitigation – Student Placement Opportunity

With the new provincial legislation looming about heritage properties, it seems that not all potential heritage properties lie in the Heritage Conservation District. It is being recommended to hire a University student in the fall to help with looking at other properties of interest in Amherstburg. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Administration BE DIRECTED to hire a university student during the fall semester of 2024 to help designate Properties of Cultural Heritage Value or Interest to meet the legislated timeline of Bill 23.

Councillor Allaire mentioned that during budget deliberations it was mentioned that it’s not always enough to hire a student for a job. She was curious if hiring a student would be enough for this position. Somebody from administration explained that in this particular case, it was a low skilled position and that the student would help with administrative duties in regards to heritage properties.

Councillor Crain mentioned that this issue had been brought to the Heritage Committee. He noted that there are 17 properties outside of the Heritage Conservation District that have to be evaluated before January 1 2025. He appreciated the extra support with this position.

Mayor Prue passed the gavel. He talked about a letter that had been sent to the Premier and to the Minister about a 5 year extension. It seems that there has been no response from the Premiers office.

The motion was made and it carried.

Digital Gateway Signage

Ms Osborne, Deputy CAO explained that when administration was reviewing the age of the digital gateway signs, they found that the warranty would be expiring in a few months. She noted that the signs are not part of the Asset Management Plan and that there is not enough in reserves to sustain them. She felt a different way to handle this would be to hire a third party and allow them to sell advertising for the signs and that this could generate some annual revenue.

Councillor McArthur had quite a few questions. He wondered if the town could be giving up control and also wondered how we can ascertain local advertisements. Ms Osborne said the policy could be revisited in regards to advertising. Councillor McArthur felt that right now it was someone on town staff that hit the button to confirm what’s on the signage. Ms Osborne said that the policy would protect the town and that our events and non profit organizations would still be advertised on the sign. She noted that there are different ways to write agreements with assurances. Councillor McArthur wondered how much would be local advertising. Ms Osborne said it would all be local and divulged that Starbucks, Taco Bell and Burger King are three of the tenants for the new plaza going up on Sandwich Street near Tim Horton’s. She said that a policy could be made that it must be businesses that are located in Amherstburg, including local franchises.

Finally Deputy Mayor Gibb made the motion as per the staff recommendation and Councillor Allaire seconded it. Deputy Mayor Gibb felt it was a great idea and that if the signs could pay for themselves, that they would have to try and hopefully generate some revenue. He gave kudos to staff for thinking outside the box.

The following motion carried :

It is recommended that:

1. Administration BE DIRECTED to issue a Request for Proposal for third party partnership on the digital gateway signs as outlined in this report;

2. Administration BE APPROVED to proceed with the extended 5-year parts warranty for the digital signs, at a cost of $4,430 USD, plus taxes, with all revenue and expenditures to be captured under the Economic Development Division; and,

3. Administration BE DIRECTED to bring back any changes to the Municipal Digital Signage Policy which may be required as a result of the RFP.

Designate 179 Victoria Street South as a Municipal Capital Facility

This report is in regards to the building at the corner of Victoria Street and Richmond Street (the former ACS building). It is being recommended that council declare the building a municipal building for public use. Just a side note here folks….just like the Libro arena, this building will not generate a profit either…..it will be a building for all of the public to use and enjoy. So next time a member of council complains about the Libro Centre budget and wanting it cut…..well, this building too, will have a budget that can be cut, no?

Councillor Allaire wanted to know, out of curiosity, that this would not affect the Golden Age Club. CAO Critchley explained that this designation would make the building exempt from taxation and then the town would not have to pass on the taxation expense to the tenants.

Councillor Pouget wondered if the town had been paying taxes on it before. The Clerk said that the building was being currently returned into service and that this exemption was probably in place before.

Councillor Allaire made the motion for the recommendation and Councillor Pouget seconded it.

Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The community centre at 179 Victoria Street South BE DECLARED a municipal capital facility for the purposes of the municipality and Council affirms that its facilities are for public use;

2. By-law 2024-035, being a by-law to designate 179 Victoria Street South as a Municipal Capital Facility, be taken as having been read three times and finally passed, and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same;

3. Administration BE DIRECTED to negotiate a Municipal Capital Facility Agreement with the lessee of 179 Victoria Street South; 4. The Mayor and CAO BE AUTHORIZED to execute a Municipal Capital Facility Agreement with the lessee of 179 Victoria Street South; and, 5. Administration BE DIRECTED to pursue changes in the Property Tax Classification of 179 Victoria Street South, as appropriate.

It carried.

Motion from Amherstburg Accessibility Advisory Committee Regarding Funding Source for Downtown Sidewalk Repairs

It is recommended that:

In accordance with the Administrative Report of May 13, 2024, the Amherstburg Accessibility Advisory Committee recommendation regarding reconsideration of the funding source for sidewalk rehabilitation work BE RECEIVED.

For those that have been following, you’ll know that some sidewalk repairs are (finally) being scheduled for downtown Amherstburg. I believe two trees will also be cut down. (They’re growing out of the middle of the sidewalks.)

This discussion got a little bit long and sometimes hard to follow, so I’ll try to be brief and explain it to the best of my understanding.

Councillor McArthur spoke first since he is the council representative on this committee. He said that the committee was willing to pay half, $16,000 from the AODA reserve but wanted the town to pay the other half from another reserve such as the capital reserve off the tax stabilization reserve. It seems that the committee felt that the AODA compliance fund was not just for sidewalk repairs, since these repairs would be making the sidewalks accessible for everyone. It seems that the committee also felt that the repairs were not just for accessibility concerns. He said that the vote was unanimous at the committee level to pay 50% from the AODA compliance fund and the other half from reserves.

Councillor Pouget asked about public consultation in regards to AODA. The Clerk said that a requirement for consultation would be necessary if money were being used to create rest areas, for example, but was not required for sidewalk repair. Councillor Pouget continued to talk about rest areas instead of planters. CAO Critchley said that what Councillor Pouget was talking about was a bigger project and was not in the budget that council had approved.

The discussion went on and on and on…..I’m not even sure why to be honest.

Finally it went to a recorded vote to use 50% of the money from the AODA account and 50% from the tax stabilization reserve to repair the Richmond Street sidewalks. Everybody voted in support.

Then suddenly, it seemed that the wrong reserve had been chosen. They needed a motion to reopen the motion that had just been passed unanimously. This was done while one member of council typed on their computer and smiled at it. So the motion was reopened, then modified to take 50% from the life cycle fund instead of the tax stabilization fund. That carried. It was unanimous but not recorded.

Councillor Request for Information re. Resident Concern on Encroachment Matter

OK. This is a strange one. If you recall, two meetings ago, there was much discussion about a letter that was given to Councillor Pouget for her to give to council. But it seems that she gave it to the Mayor and the CAO and they acted on it. I think a report was requested, so the report was on Monday night’s agenda.

From what I can gather from this report, it seems that a resident was encroaching somehow on town property. Members of administration spoke on the phone with the resident and even attended the residence. It seems that the resident wanted just to assume ownership or rights of the town-owned property since they had been maintaining the property and had also erected a gate to close it off to public access. It appears that the resident wants the property “grandfathered” to them. However, the report goes on that this would incentivize others to illegally use town property for their own personal gain.

It’s hard to make sense of the report since the property in question isn’t specified. I guess that’s to protect whoever the homeowner is ? I don’t know. Anyway, for those of you that want to read it and try to make sense of it, here’s the link https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=15032

As soon as this item was on the floor, Councillor Pouget raised her hand. She started talking about being concerned that information had been withheld from council, that things were inaccurate,…..(it was spiraling downwards and fast….) Mayor Prue interrupted Councillor Pouget and started saying that in the Strategic Plan, one of the pillars is treating staff with respect. (Basically, Councillor Pouget was not. Not even a little bit….) Deputy Mayor Gibb called a point of order. He wanted to close debate on the item. He mentioned that a letter had been given to a councillor, not to council. (I do recall that from the meeting where this “issue” was aired out….I believe a resident had given a letter to Councillor Pouget, it was addressed to all of council and she gave it to the Mayor and CAO…..) CAO Critchley then spoke and said that when the item was raised at the last meeting, she had apologized then about the oversight and that it was not intentional. She then apologized AGAIN. Mayor Prue made a comment to Councillor Pouget that if she wanted to speak again, she could not malign staff. So, Councillor Pouget didn’t speak. (That says a lot doesn’t it??? Wow….no pun intended….)

Councillor Allaire asked a couple of questions about certificates of insurance. Finally a motion was made to receive the report. It carried. (That closes Chapter #482 of As Amherstburg Turns….I guess….)

Ontario Ombudsman Report

It looks like somebody filed a complaint against the town regarding several council meetings and a committee meeting. Here is the full report for those that want the nitty gritty. https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=15023

Here are the recommendations for the consent correspondence :

The report by the Ombudsman of Ontario, Paul Dube, BE RECEIVED for information;
Members of Council continue to adhere and BE VIGILANT with regards to obligations and responsibilities noted in the Municipal Act;
Members of Council ensure that all resolutions to proceed in camera BE PROVIDED in a way that provides the general nature of the matter to be considered in the closed meeting, as required by the Municipal Act;
Council and Committee training sessions shall BE DELIVERED in a way to prevent a meeting from taking place by not materially advancing the business or decision-making of Council or the Local Board.

Councillor McArthur spoke first. He felt that there was a lot of gray in the report. He felt that the town does want to give information but not too much information that could put the town at risk. He felt that it was a fine balance to protect the town as well as share information.

CAO Critchley felt that Councillor McArthur had hit the nail on the head about the balance required. She noted they want to give enough information but not breach confidentiality. She gave some examples, spoke of always taking advice, how the processes are always evolving and sticking with best practices.

Councillor Pouget wanted to thank the person that complained. She felt that it helps to keep council on their toes. She felt that the person would have had to exhaust all options. She spoke of the August 8, 2022 meeting that most on the current council weren’t present for that one. She then referenced the February 14th meeting and how she had refused to go in-camera and that council had agreed to stay in session but there was a problem with the audio.

Deputy Mayor Gibb made the motion as noted above. He felt that any feedback would be taken seriously and that he had full confidence in council and staff. He felt it was time to move on.

Councillor Crain agreed that there was a lot of gray. He does not want to jeopardize the business of the town. He also said that there can be technical glitches at times.

Mayor Prue then spoke. He noted that the Ombudsman in his report did give 3 or 4 kudos to Amherstburg. He felt that it is a very difficult thing to do, to run meetings perfectly. He felt that 2 or 3 words could have changed it all and made it perfect. He felt that council hadn’t done anything wrong and that the reports were very minor in nature. He talked about the set up for the Ombudsman in Ontario and that he didn’t want to guess how much this investigation and report had cost. He mentioned probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said he would take the slap on the wrist for the 2 or 3 words and then commented about how we wonder why the government doesn’t have any money. (Basically, I feel he was insinuating that a huge investigation was done, with a huge report to go along with it…..for some very minor violations…and some things that weren’t found to be violations at all….)

The motion carried.

The meeting continued on….very little discussion, if any at all on the next group of items…..until…..

NEW BUSINESS

Councillor Allaire said that a resident had reached out regarding Big Creek. She was asking for a report about what the town is doing for Big Creek. The Clerk asked if she were speaking about the phragmites. He mentioned that a report could be written regarding the phragmites. Ms Gioffu, Director of Engineering concurred that a report could be brought back about what is involved.

Councillor Crain asked if this couldn’t be addressed in an email rather than a full report. He wondered if this report would be stretching staff thin. (I get it….asking for reports constantly is what created that huge unfinished business list…..just sayin’…..and they take time, which costs money…..but I digress….)

Councillor Allaire didn’t want an email sent. She said that the person would like to speak, therefore they need a report so that the person can delegate.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said he wouldn’t oppose getting the report but felt that this item should have gone to the Environmental Committee first.

(It’s funny how certain members of council want things first to go to the Audit and Finance Committee, or the Accessibility Committee…..but not this item? This should skip straight to a delegation to council? hmmmm)

Councillor Pouget felt that once council heard this gentleman’s presentation, that they could then send it to the Environmental committee and ERCA. She felt it was important that council hear it.

Anyway, it carried. There will be a report about phragmites. And when it’s on the agenda, somebody will be delegating about it.

Councillor Pouget then brought up the naming of the old ACS building (179 Victoria Street). She wanted to name it after H. Murray Smith. She said she had spoken to the Golden Age Club and their support was unanimous. The Clerk mentioned that naming buildings and streets goes to the Heritage Committee.

Councillor McArthur said that it was important to remember TWO names. He noted that H. Murray Smith already had a park named after him. He then mentioned how the S. Ralph McCurdy Track was now closed and there was a motion from the previous council that if a new track isn’t built, the building would be.

Councillor Pouget said that she had spoken with the Smith family and that they would be honoured to have the building named after their father. Mayor Prue made a comment that the McCurdy family would be honoured too. Councillor Pouget felt that Mr McCurdy was dedicated to sports and that perhaps a basketball court could be named after him. She then spoke about Mr Smith and said he had donated the land where the park is now. Deputy Mayor Gibb then spoke and said he must correct the record about that statement. He noted that according to the Marsh Collection documents, the land was acquired from a farmer (Bell farms) and then later named after Mr Smith because he was the citizen of the year. Councillor Pouget accepted the correction and went on about Mr Smith’s donations and how they speak for themselves. (She didn’t specify what the donations were, so I’m really not sure what they were, not sure if any of my readers may know?) Councillor McArthur noted that the two names were already sent to the Heritage Committee.

Then the subject changed. Councillor Allaire asked a question about traffic calming measures. It seems there will be a report about that at the May 27th meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 8:32 PM. Overall, not too exciting. I hope this blog wasn’t too boring for you.

The agenda for the next meeting will be out in a few days….but it’s a long weekend this weekend! Hope everyone takes the time to enjoy it! Before we get back to the next episode of As Amherstburg Turns….

May 7, 2024 amherstburg2

In preparation for Monday May 13th Regular town council meeting

The agenda came out ten days before the meeting as per the new procedural bylaw. I skimmed through it and here are the highlights. The agenda is 364 pages and doesn’t appear too heavy.

Here’s the link to the PDF version https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-05-13-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/e7f75713-5ebe-4fd8-b147-b165011f8c24

And if you prefer the HTML format (I am getting used to this one, I like being able to click individually on reports rather than scroll through a very long PDF version) https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=f31a6b64-fd6e-4410-88e0-80b79e97a7d1&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

PRESENTATIONS

Presentation – Aphasia Friendly Canada – University of Windsor

This appears to be a presentation from the University of Windsor about Aphasia. I found this on the powerpoint that they will be presenting : “What is Aphasia? Aphasia is a broad term for communication disorders ranging from word finding problems to complete inability to produce and understand speech and print.”

I’ll keep my ears open Monday night to see what the group has to offer and what I can learn.

2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower Replacement

Looks like the new tractor and wide area mower replacement went out for tender and came in about $42,000 under budget. That’s good news! Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. An expenditure for the purchase of a 2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower BE APPROVED for a total cost not to exceed $197,914.52 including net HST;

2. The purchase of the 2024 Tractor and Wide Area Mower BE AWARDED to Colvoy Equipment.

3. Net proceeds from the sale of the current Unit 607 Tractor BE DIRECTED to the Fleet Reserves, along with any surplus funding, to help replenish the reserves for future Fleet purchases.

2023 Case Backhoe Improvements

2024 Road Repairs Program – Tender Award

The town put out a Request for Tender for various road repairs to be done this year. They received ONE bid. Yikes. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The 2024 Road Repairs Program Tender BE AWARDED to Nasci Construction Services Ltd. in an amount of $176,400 plus applicable taxes; and,

2. The Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Nasci Construction Services Ltd. for the completion of the 2024 Road Repairs Program.

Fraserville Outfall Liner Project Tender Awarded

It appears that a storm sewer failure occurred in 2021 on Sandwich Street near Duff Avenue. The situation was assessed and the required repairs were outlined. It seems that since the approval of the 2022 budget, administration prepared the RFP in order to get clear specifications for the work required.

The Request for Tender for the project work went out and three bids were received.

From the report :

The tender results are as follows: Bidder Tender Amount (excluding HST)

1. Clearwater Structures Inc. $ 314,309

2. 2274084 Ontario Ltd/GMP Contracting $ 314,662

3. Jones Group Ltd. $ 479,380

Since the time that submissions were received,the consulting firm reached out to the lowest bidder and they were able to reduce the cost from $314,309 to $257,031.

It’s still over budget, but at least it’s better I guess. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Fraserville Outfall Liner Project (#722025) BE AWARDED to Clearwater Structures Inc. in an amount not to exceed $261,555 inclusive of HST;

2. The shortfall in funding for the Fraserville Outfall Liner Project (#722025) in the amount of $144,800 BE FUNDED by a reduction of $144,800 (General Reserve 0400) from the approved Annual Bridge Maintenance Project (#724038) and those funds redirected to the Fraserville Outfall Liner Project (#722025); and,

3. The Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Clearwater Structures Inc. for the completion of Fraserville Outfall Liner Project.

Brittany’s Gate Subdivision Agreement File No. 37-T-23005

This small subdivision has been in the works for a while. Looks like the town is ready for a subdivision agreement. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Corporation of the Town of Amherstburg ENTER INTO a Subdivision Agreement with 1109152 Ontario Limited for Brittany’s Gate Subdivision; and,

2. By-law 2024-034 being a By-law to authorize the signing of a Subdivision Agreement for Brittany’s Gate Subdivision be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Cultural Heritage Risk Mitigation – Student Placement Opportunity

It is recommended that:

Digital Gateway Signage

This report outlines how the digital gateway signage came to be in 2018. It discusses the advertising that is done and can be done. This part of the report gives the current status of the signs : “On June 30, 2024 the signs will be 5 years old and as a result will fall out of warranty. The Town has inquired about an extended warranty, which would provide for parts, not labour. We can secure a 5-year parts warranty for $4,430 USD, and there is a local company which can provide the labour as and when needed. At this time, there is insufficient revenue from the signs to cover the cost of this agreement. Should Council approve the recommendation to RFP for a third party to take on the advertising, the one time lump sum fee should be more than enough to cover this cost. If we do not proceed with the RFP a funding source will be required. Administration strongly recommends that regardless of whether the RFP is issued or not, the 5-year extended warranty on parts be approved to avoid any significant down time and costs related to part failure.”

Here is the recommendation from the report :

It is recommended that:

1. Administration BE DIRECTED to issue a Request for Proposal for third party partnership on the digital gateway signs as outlined in this report;

3. Administration BE DIRECTED to bring back any changes to the Municipal Digital Signage Policy which may be required as a result of the RFP.

Designate 179 Victoria Street South as a Municipal Capital Facility

Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The community centre at 179 Victoria Street South BE DECLARED a municipal capital facility for the purposes of the municipality and Council affirms that its facilities are for public use;

Noise By-law Exemption for Royal Canadian Legion Branch #157

Looks like the Legion wants to reap the benefits of Open Air too!!! Why not right? Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people in our beautiful downtown all summer long! For those of you that have been following for a while you may remember there were some noise complaint issues in regards to music from the Legion patio. This time though, I noticed the time frames to exempt the noise by-law are shorter and more clear cut. Hopefully this will allow the Legion to benefit from the crowds at Open Air and will also allow the neighbours to benefit knowing there is a clear start and end time to the music.

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The report from the Manager of Licensing and Enforcement dated April 27, 2024 regarding a noise exemption for Legion Branch #157 BE RECEIVED for information;

3. That the request for the waiver of the Noise Exemption fee of $61.00 BE RECEIVED and FILED for information

For all of my fellow Open Air fans, just a few more weeks and a few more sleeps! And then let the fun begin!

INFORMATION REPORTS

Quarterly Fire Department Activity report-1st Quarter 2024

The quarterly report about the fire department’s activities will be presented to council for information.

Building Activity Report for Month of January to March 2024

And the quarterly report for the building department will also be presented to council for information.

2024 Community Risk Assessment (O. Reg. 378/18) Requirement

This seems to be a provincially legislated requirement for a report from the Fire Chief regarding the community risk assessment. It’s to be received for information only.

Councillor Request for Information re. Resident Concern on Encroachment Matter

Ontario Ombudsman Report

Here are the recommendations for the consent correspondence :

The report by the Ombudsman of Ontario, Paul Dube, BE RECEIVED for information;
Members of Council continue to adhere and BE VIGILANT with regards to obligations and responsibilities noted in the Municipal Act;
Members of Council ensure that all resolutions to proceed in camera BE PROVIDED in a way that provides the general nature of the matter to be considered in the closed meeting, as required by the Municipal Act;
Council and Committee training sessions shall BE DELIVERED in a way to prevent a meeting from taking place by not materially advancing the business or decision-making of Council or the Local Board.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Council can ask questions about any unfinished business items.

NEW BUSINESS

Council can ask about any random items……and the laundry list of random items will likely be read out. One after the other after the other. Maybe we should start a small betting pool (just for fun, maybe for a coffee?) about which random items will be brought up? Make things interesting anyway LOL

And there’s the highlights folks! Enjoy the rest of the week! Happy Mother’s Day to any readers that are moms or play the role of Mom in somebody’s life. Have a great weekend!

April 24, 2024April 24, 2024 amherstburg2

Monday April 22nd Regular Town council meeting

Well Monday night’s meeting was packed with inconsistencies, some may even say hypocrisy. The meeting lasted just over three hours…..Councillor Courtney spends hours at every budget session talking about “wants” and “needs” yet he put forth a motion for a boat ramp at Ranta Park. Is that a “want” or a “need”? Councillor Pouget voted to waive over $4,800 for fees at the Libro and then an hour later made a motion to cut the Libro Centre budget because it “loses” money every year. Somebody please help me make sense of that? I wonder how much money the new boat launch that Councillor Pouget voted for will lose every year? Councillor Allaire had declared a conflict for the events section of the meeting, yet spoke to another councilor during the meeting across the room about the motion on the floor. Councillor Courtney complained about members of council speaking to the media. What did he do after the meeting was over? He spoke to the media. Councillors Allaire, Pouget and Courtney consistently vote against Open Air. Yet two of them voted to close an extra street and a parking lot for Rib Fest! LOL What the what? I think the only person that remained true to themselves and their fiduciary responsibility was Councillor Crain. He stood alone against the others during the boat ramp vote. The amount of “chit chat” between a few members of council during the meeting was quite unprofessional and some seem to think it’s a social hour instead of a council meeting. The behavior was mind boggling. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s dig down a little bit deeper…..

There was a revised agenda for the addition of two delegates.

Here is the link to the PDF version https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-22-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/b5df0ae0-8111-4a48-9edf-b15700ee399c

And the HTML version (it’s easier to find individual reports with this link and it includes the video now too ) https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=128884cf-2d66-4ad7-b91f-eb4bd677a060&Agenda=Merged&lang=English

I decided to attend Monday night’s meeting in person. And so did Councillor Courtney! LOL The rest of council were present in person, as usual. The gallery was packed with firefighters and what appeared to be members of the AMA Sportsmen’s Club.

DISCLOSURE OF PECUNIARY INTEREST AND GENERAL NATURE THEREOF

Councillor Allaire declared a conflict of interest for all of the events listed and mentioned that she was on a board for one of them. Councillor Crain declared a conflict on item 20.1.8 since he mentioned that the broker he works for is directly affected by that drain.

RECOGNITIONS

Award Presentation: District Chief Jason Durocher – Professional Qualification of Fire Officer IV

Fire Chief Montone spoke. He explained the significant recognition that would be bestowed on District Chief Durocher. The Fire Chief felt that the achievements were significant not only for the individual but also for Amherstburg’s fire service. He noted that District Chief Durocher had recently completed 30 years of service with AFD. He gave a history of his career and his recent accomplishments and the many abilities that District Chief Durocher had shown during his career. The Fire Chief asked that the Mayor and the CAO come forward so that he could present him his certification. There was lots of applause and some photos were taken. Congratulations!!!

DELEGATIONS

Delegation Item #16.1 K. Walter Ranta Park Proposed Boat Ramp – Rodney Ferriss (Supplementary agenda)

Mr Ferris addressed council about the proposed boat ramp. He noted that he had read the report and addressed the two options. He felt that council should proceed but that there needs to be more parking available for the trailers. He spoke about the need to build a breakwall and that the town should contact Walter Aggregate to see if they would donate boulders for this portion. He also noted that the town will need various approvals such as ERCA and other government approvals. Mr Ferris also noted that it made sense for administration to recommend not moving forward with the boat ramp due to the expense. He then referred to the Strategic Plan that talked about providing access to the water. Mr Ferris suggested that council reconsider looking forward to see how a ramp could be made doable. He felt that with this in the works for two years was not enough time for all of the information and to set up the finances for the project. He asked that council take the time they need to think more and look at different ways that a boat launch could be achievable. He appreciated the work that had been done thus far but asked that council not say “no” outright at the moment. He felt it was too soon to give up now.

Councillor Allaire asked, out of curiosity, if the boat ramp were to be approved, if it would go to public consultation. She asked Mr Ferris which was his preferred boat launch, since there are several in Essex County. Mr Ferris said he had been a resident of Amherstburg for 28 years and used Ranta Marina in the past. He said he now lives west of Amherstburg and uses the Colchester boat launch now.

Councillor Courtney asked if there were any other stakeholder groups that would have an interest in a boat launch, other than the AMA Sportsmen’s Club. Mr Ferris mentioned the former Ranta Marina Boaters Association. He asked that council start small and build on the project over 5, 6 or 7 years.

Councillor McArthur thanked Mr Ferris for the way he was approaching the issue. He noted that the numbers don’t lie and that it would be an expensive project. He asked Mr Ferris if he felt that this location would be a good location for a boat launch. Mr Ferris felt that it was an awesome location with fishing nearby and easy access to Crystal Bay. Councillor McArthur noted that it is a large area and that the park is under-utilised. He wondered if the boat launch would add to the location and the possibility of a picnic area etc. Mr Ferris felt that lots could be done and that Amherstburg needs a hall and that a hall could be built for weddings.

Councillor Pouget asked about the possibility of organizing fishing tournaments since it was mentioned. It had been mentioned that 600 people could sign up for a tournament and she asked if that meant that 600 people would use the ramp. Mr Ferris mentioned that there had been discussion about river only tournaments and that the LaSalle boat launch does not have enough parking. He also mentioned that people are buying boats, even in this economy. Councillor Pouget talked about paddle boats being launched there and wondered if it would be beneficial for parking.

Councillor Crain asked if the Mr Ferris’ Association would be comfortable with the $20 launching fee. Mr Ferris felt that was the going rate and that if boaters could afford gas for their boats that they could afford $20 to launch their boats. Councillor Crain noted that if the town were to build a boat launch, the cost to launch a boat would be similar to other boat launches.

Mr Ferris said that he was there to get the town a public boat launch and that he understood why questions were being asked. He was asking the town to secure a future. He felt that the marina could be sold and condos could be built. He felt that the ramp was not about cost but about the future of the town to secure public access to the water.

The delegation was received.

Then, somebody standing near the door said that he wanted to speak. Mayor Prue explained the procedural bylaw to the person, that he would have had to sign up in advance to speak, as did Mr Ferris. The person mentioned not having a computer (since they won’t be reading this blog I guess, anybody can go in person to town hall, or make a phone call and they will provide you the paperwork to delegate, just putting that out there. It’s quite accessible to delegate to council if procedures are followed.) Well, all of a sudden, Councillor Pouget raised her hand to waive the rules of order…..Councillor Allaire seconded it. (Speaking of pillars in the Strategic Plan…..I believe staff / council relations are part of that and there was something in there about counting how many times the rules of order are waived…..???) Deputy Mayor Gibb spoke that processes must be followed. There are delegates that apply, follow the process and are allowed to speak. He felt that waiving the rules of order is unfair to the people that follow proper procedure (like Mr Ferris) and that it is especially unfair to the people at home watching, since they can not just raise their hand to speak on the spur of the moment, since they are not physically at town hall, for whatever reason.

Councillor Pouget then argued that the “procurement bylaw”, I believe she actually meant the procedural bylaw, but whatever….had been changed to a unanimous vote to waive the rules of order. She felt that it was her right to make the motion to waive the rules of order.

Mayor Prue pointed out that it was also the Deputy Mayor’s right to say no.

Councillor Pouget asked for a recorded vote. (LOL!!!) There was a back and forth between Councillor Pouget and the Mayor…..Mayor Prue said that it was not a substantive motion and that unanimous consent is required and they already knew that the Deputy Mayor did not agree to waive the rules of order. Councillor Pouget argued some more and the Mayor said it was not a substantive motion and that he would not allow a recorded vote. He asked the Deputy Mayor to confirm his “no” vote and he did.

(Small tangent time from me…..the agenda comes out 10 days in advance, which allows ample time for people to register to delegate to council…..Mr Ferris had just spoken very well on behalf of the AMA Sportsmen’s Club and had followed proper procedure, kudos to him! In the past, when motions were made to waive the rules of order, all order went out the window! It created chaos and extremely long meetings, since things were being repeated over and over and over again which created extremely inefficient meetings……Why bother even having a procedural bylaw if members of council are going to be quick to waive it? Why not just make it a big free for all every two weeks, with no procedures, no rules, just a big gong show? If people want to delegate, it’s an easy process and the process should be followed in my opinion. It’s almost like some members of council want the long drawn-out unproductive meetings……)

Information Report for K. Walter Ranta Park Proposed Boat Ramp

Since the delegation had been about this item, it was pulled forward on the agenda. In the report, there are two options and two prices. The recommendation is simply to receive the report.

Here’s a link to the report for those who are interested (it provides the history of the property as well.) https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14850

There are two options included in the report. Option #1 – Boat Ramp at the far West End of the Park along the River . The costs are outlined in the report and the final price tag is $1.6 Million.

Option #2 – Boat Ramp Located Closer to Road using the Existing Canal. Again, the costs are broken down in the report but this option totals $5.6 Million.

Councillor McArthur spoke first. He thanked staff for the well-written report and noted that the costs were sobering. He felt that the report showed the project is feasible (although costly) and that is how politics come into play. He noted that the report had not included overriding costs and felt that the project would likely be in the $2.5 Million range. He wondered if the launch could also accommodate kayaks and paddle boards. Ms Baillargeon, Director of Parks and Facilities felt that any craft could be launched but that perhaps those may be in a separate area of the park. Councillor McArthur felt that the parking would be inadequate and wondered if more spots could be created and if that could affect trees. Ms Baillargeon said that there are trees in the way but that the soil conditions are all fill. She mentioned that the old shoreline is where the parking lot sits now. The area is a former swamp area and has a lot of topsoil. There would be a need for stone, since the soil is like toothpaste and that access for fire trucks would be necessary, since boat fires can happen. She also noted that there is no servicing there at all at the moment, no hydro etc.

Councillor Courtney spoke about public access to the water being a pillar in the Strategic Plan. He asked if there were any other viable areas in Amherstburg for a boat launch. Ms Baillargeon felt that there were a lot of ways to provide access to the water, with fishing piers etc but that area would be the only feasible area for a boat launch. She again mentioned the high cost to put one in and that council would have to decide which projects to put on hold should they want to put in a boat launch. (Interesting….since council ultimately voted for the boat launch, which projects will have to be put on hold to fund the boat launch? Centennial Park? Another park? The transient marina at Duffy’s? The fire hall? Roads? Bridges? Exactly which projects will council put on hold in order to fund this boat ramp????)

CAO Critchley spoke about the Strategic Plan and that Pillar 2 was not just about a boat launch. She mentioned to delve down to page 22 and explained it to Councillor Courtney. So, I, myself delved down to page 22 of the Strategic Plan and this is what I found :

■ GOAL #4 Create public access to the water and waterfront

⬤ INITIATIVES

1. Complete the extension of the Kings Navy Yard Park onto the former Duffy’s property

2. Identify and develop plans for access to water through town owned land

3. Investigate the feasibility of a boat launch at Ranta Park

⬤ MEASURES

0 No. of public access points to the water

0 No. of meters of new or refurbished public waterfront

Councillor Allaire asked, out of curiosity, whether council chose option 1 or option 2 for the boat launch if there would first be public consultation.

Ms Baillargeon said that yes, there would be a lot of steps to the process, including public consultation and Ministry approvals etc.

Mayor Prue passed the gavel. He felt that he was sensing the mood to proceed with the boat launch but move forward with it at a later date. He mentioned that it is a 2 Million dollar PLUS project and that council could either debenture it (borrow the funds), raise taxes 8% just to pay for the boat launch, or raise taxes 4% this year and 4% next year to pay for the boat launch or to just say no. He asked administration, if council were to proceed, what would they recommend.

Ms Osborne, Deputy CAO, said that the whole process would take a couple of years and mentioned funding for 2027. She also mentioned that council had a 5 year capital plan in place at the moment and they would have to return to council to see which projects council would want to push out further into the future in order to move forward with the boat launch. ( So again, council, which projects will have to be put on hold to fund the boat launch? Centennial Park? Another park? The transient marina at Duffy’s? The fire hall? Roads? Bridges? Exactly which projects will council put on hold in order to fund this boat ramp????

Things got interesting here…..suddenly the Mayor asked if the AMA Sportsman’s Club could do some fundraising. Councillor Courtney wondered if there was grant money available, there is not at the moment. Councillor Courtney wondered why two more years of planning would be necessary. Ms Baillargeon explained that a fish study would have to be done, sensitive habitats are in the area and that various Ministry approvals would be necessary. Ms Baillargeon also spoke about how it took 5 years to get the Duffy’s project moving since appropriate approvals are required and take time. She mentioned that with the boat launch sooner could be possible but the tendering process itself takes about 2 years.

Councillor Allaire asked about the capital projects for this year. Ms Osborne said that if council wants to push out or change capital projects to instead do the boat launch that would be up to them. She mentioned a June report was coming about capital projects. (Which park will council decide to push down the road in order to fund a boat ramp? I can hardly wait….)

Councillor Courtney then made a motion to support option #1 (the 1.6 Million plus option) and that staff continue with public consultation, look for funding opportunities and conduct further studies. He felt that the boat launch was a “no brainer” and that it’s vital since nobody knows what Amherstburg Yacht Club may do in the future. He felt that we don’t need to build the TajMahal but that residents can at least see a future for this boat launch. (I always love the look for funding opportunities….i.e. Grants….town administration is always looking for grant money….and often we get some….but ultimately, who is going to fund the boat ramp? The taxpayers will…..all of us….Mayor Prue was right, either taxes will need to go way up to fund this OR council will have to set aside another project in order to fund this…..which project will get set aside Councillor Courtney? Centennial Park? The Skate Park? Another park? Ball diamonds? Tennis courts? Basketball courts? Because if we’re going to pull money to fund a boat ramp, that falls within parks budget…..would council pull funding for roads to do a boat ramp? I hope not!)

Councillor Pouget expressed her support and wanted an amendment about public consultation to happen as soon as possible. Mayor Prue noted for her that public consultation was already included in the motion.

Councillor McArthur spoke at length about his support for the project. He talked about the strategic plan but also noted the project is expensive and that council will have to budget for this. He suggested possibly putting $500,000 into a reserve each year and not use reserves to whittle down the tax rate. He mentioned how there is no money set aside at the moment for a boat launch. He also mentioned that council would have to save the money and/or put it on people’s tax bills. He felt that putting a ramp at Ranta Park would be best for Amherstburg in the long term. He felt that the $1.6 Million estimate was low, seeing that there are issues with the soil but that it was the best option. He talked about the long term future and the importance of a public boat launch. He felt that we needed one but noted that it would be expensive.

Councillor Crain spoke and said that with the motion as presented he could not support it. He felt that the cost to build a boat launch was just too high and he could not justify that the town would be competing with a business right next door. He felt that it was a lot of money to spend ($2.5 Million) to save $5 each time a boat is launched. He said that he was all for access to the water and had supported the motion to investigate the feasibility of a boat launch (which is what got us to this point). He felt that there could be access for fishing, kayaks and canoes. Councillor Crain noted that Amherstburg has the lowest amount of reserves in the municipality and among the highest in debt per capita. He also mentioned that council had invested $3 Million in the Duffy’s property and that they weren’t finished with that project yet. (And I wanted to stand up and clap. That, right there, is taking one’s fiduciary responsibility seriously. He hit it spot on. Low reserves, high debt, a HUGE infrastructure deficit, but let’s take on more infrastructure with no way or plan to pay for it? Some serious food for thought here folks…..)

Councillor Allaire said that she ran her campaign on saving green space and that she would support this project. She was hopeful that public consultations would begin right away.

Councillor Pouget spoke in support. She mentioned how Councillor McArthur mentioned that council would have to raise taxes but that she had a motion for new business that would help reduce taxes. (Don’t get your hopes up folks. I did. I regret that. The motion was a dud. More on that later.) Councillor Pouget then addressed Councillor Crain, that he had mentioned that the town shouldn’t compete with others yet she felt that the “we” do that all the time with Open Air, that the downtown businesses compete with others. (Sigh……someone help me out here….what is the correlation between a public boat ramp being built a few meters away from a private one and businesses doing business during Open Air? There is no logic to be found here. Second…..why do certain members of council address Councillor Crain directly – regularly – and he NEVER gets a chance to reply? Later in the meeting, the Mayor afforded this right to Councillor Pouget when another member of council addressed her directly, yet it seems that Councillor Crain is never afforded the same rights. It almost, almost, seems like certain members of council are targeting him in their comments. It’s getting out of hand and gross.)

Deputy Mayor Gibb spoke next. He said that the cost of the project had floored him. He felt that something Mr Ferris had said had really hit him. He had said that it had only been two years and that it was too soon to give up. He felt that staff was right and that they gave fearless honesty by recommending not to proceed because of the high expense. Deputy Mayor Gibb felt that nothing good happens overnight, it takes time and that the boat launch might not even happen during this term of council. He felt that council shouldn’t give up yet, that they had just started the journey but he also noted that the $1.6 Million price is probably low and that the end price would likely be at least $2.5 Million plus. He mentioned reading old Amherstburg Echo’s and how people were against the construction of the Kings Navy Yard Park but that it is now a jewel of our community. He hoped that everybody could be patient and that he would support the motion.

Mayor Prue spoke and said that he always felt that dreams should be nurtured. He felt that this was about more than dollars and cents. He said that he would support option #1 but that he expected the AMA Sportsman’s Club to beat the bushes, find donations and fundraise as well. He felt that they have to get the cost down since it will likely be a $2.5 Million project. He felt that the $139,000 in the Ranta Park reserve should be used toward the studies. He felt that it was a difficult debate and an enormous amount of money. He felt that this is a long term goal and what Amherstburg needs as a river town. He said he would support the motion as amended.

Councillor Courtney was allowed to speak again. He mentioned Councillor Crain was exercising his fiduciary responsibility. (Councillor Crain was not offered to address this direct comment.) Councillor Courtney felt that it would be a team effort for the boat launch and that it will be a while. He also spoke about the dredging nightmare and the costs of that.

It went to a recorded vote : (I take my notes by hand, here’s what I caught) a motion to support option #1 (the 1.6 Million plus option) and that staff continue with public consultation, look for funding studies and conduct further studies.

Support : Councillor Allaire, Councillor Courtney, Deputy Mayor Gibb, Councillor McArthur, Councillor Pouget and Mayor Prue

Opposed : Councillor Crain

There were many people leaving the gallery and it was noisy. There was a request for a brief recess to allow the gallery to clear out.

It was now 7:25.

Delegation Item #15.1 – Amherstburg Mind Body and Soul Event – Linda DiPasquale

Ms DiPasquale addressed council next. Before she began, she noted that due to the lengthy wait, she had lost some of her members of support for her delegation. She introduced two other individuals and said that another had had to leave. (They were there representing various user groups)

Here is the link to her powerpoint presentation (this will help me save some keystrokes) https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14861

She explained that she was not the originator of the idea for this event. It was an event to foster health and well-being, with elements about nutrition, mental wellness, a healthy lifestyle, being active etc. She noted that they were not-for-profit groups organizing the event and that the proceeds would be donated to the Miracle League. Ms DiPasquale also explained the benefits to the community for the event. She noted the various rental fees that would have to be paid and they totaled $4,885.82 with tax included. She felt that they would have to charge a high price of admission to people to cover those fees and then would have less to donate at the end. She asked council to waive the fees for the event.

Councillor Crain spoke first. He felt that this was a great event and that he didn’t have a problem waiving the user fees for the groups. He felt that most of the groups are paying weekly fees anyway to use the Libro and that this event would be bringing people to Amherstburg and to the Libro.

Councillor Pouget noted that they were all not for profit organizations and that all proceeds would go to the Miracle League. She also said she would support waiving the fees.

CAO Critchley felt that it was a great initiative but that there are a number of groups that pay the user fees and they are not for profit. She felt it might be prudent for council to request a report about all not for profit user groups and the fees that they pay in order for council to see the lost revenue that would happen by waiving fees.

Ms DiPasquale said she could appreciate this could set a precedent. She felt that this is the inaugural year for the event and that it could be a deterrent. She felt that they would be able to pay the fees next year. They were hopeful that this was a one time request and that they were expecting the event to grow and then they could pay the user fees next year.

Councillor McArthur noted that in the recommendation, it was already recommended to waive the fees. Ms Baillargeon said that a full report could be provided about the various user groups.

Councillor Courtney felt that the event was a great idea but that he wanted to wait for a report before deciding to waive the fees. Mayor Prue asked when a report could be ready. Ms Baillargeon said it could be ready in May but not for the next meeting.

Ms DiPasquale said that the organizers would do everything possible to make this event possible with or without the waiver of the fees.

Mayor Prue noted that the event would likely be approved that night at the meeting but that the only thing that may not be was the fee waiver and that would come back on May 27th.

Councillor Crain noted another event was happening at the Libro for Halloween and wondered if they were also asking for their fees to be exempt. Mr Tetler, Manager of Licensing, said that that particular event (the Halloween one) was not asking for their fees to be waived. Councillor Crain asked when event organizers normally pay their fees. Mr Tetler said that payments are required at the time of the event.

There was a motion made to receive the delegation. It carried.

2024 Special Events Approval-Part 3

Councillor McArthur made the motion as written below, including the waiver of the fees (part 4b for this event). Councillor Pouget seconded it.

1. The following events BE APPROVED:

Amherstburg Ribfest 2024 – June 13th – Jun 16th , 2024
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th , 2024
Art Crawl 2024 – July 20th – 21st , 2024
Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th, 2024
Canada Day – July 1st , 2024
Shop Local Halloween Market – October 26th , 2024
Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th, 2024
Bob Meloche Fishing Derby – June 16th , 2024

2. An exemption from table number 3-1(2) of Noise By-law #2001- 43 with respect to the operation of any electronic device or group of connected electronic devices incorporating one or more loudspeakers to allow for music BE GRANTED for the following events:

Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th , 2024
Canada Day – July 1st , 2024
Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th , 2024
Art Crawl 2024 – July 20th & July 21st , 2024
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th, 2024
Amherstburg Ribfest 2024 – June 13th – June 16th, 2024

3. The following events BE EXEMPT and PERMITTED for road closures to begin prior to 5pm:

Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th, 2024
Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th, 2024
Amherstburg Ribfest – June 13th – June 16th, 2024
Canada Day – July 1st, 2024

4. The fee waiver requests BE APPROVED as follows:

Amherstburg Ribfest – June 13th – June 16th, 2024 (Road Closure Fee $250)
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th, 2024 (Libro Rental Fee ($4,885.82)

5. The Public Events Committee BE DIRECTED to confirm that the requirements identified by the Committee are met prior to the event.

Councillor Courtney said that he could not support the motion since it was precedent setting to waive the fees. He noted that the organizers would be using the entire Libro facility.

There was then a motion to divide the motion. So, in essence, council would vote once for everything except 4B and then vote again about 4B, the waiver of the fees.

The motion to divide the above motion carried 3-2 (Councillor Allaire had declared a conflict on the events section).

Then, the Mayor asked if there would be any discussion on anything in the motion, except for 4B. There was not, the motion was made and it carried. Everything except 4B carried……

Wait for it folks……either some members of council did not fully read all of the information about the events or they didn’t understand the maps and reports…. because wait for it…………The Rib Fest will be held downtown on Ramsey Street from June 13th to June 16th…..which means that Ramsey Street AND the public parking lot at the corner of Richmond Street and Ramsey Street will be closed for four whole days!!!! So two of the three members of council that are always going on and on and on and on about “closed streets” for Open Air, just approved to close even more streets and a parking lot for an extra day!!!!!!!! No questions, no comments, nada. Not a peep. Personally, I thought it was quite ironic and a little bit funny! Tell me you’re not reading the reports without telling me you’re not reading the reports. 😉 Or perhaps, the outrage by these three councillors about “closed streets” is disingenuous or perhaps fake, since they just voted to close yet another street AND a parking lot!!! Councillors Allaire, Courtney and Pouget consistently vote against Open Air. Yet neither Councillor Courtney nor Councillor Pouget said one single word about another street being closed to accommodate the event! Odd. As for me, I can’t wait! This is going to be a great event! For my fellow Open Air lovers, it will be even bigger and better for the weekend of June 13th to 16th! Ramsey Street from Murray St to Richmond St will be closed as well to allow for the ribbers to set up. I’m sure I’ll see you all there having a great time! 😀

Now it was time to vote just on item 4B which was to waive the fees of $4,885.82 at the Libro Centre for the Mind, Body and Soul event.

Councillor McArthur felt this was not precedent setting. He felt that they wanted to take all of the money that they will make and donate it to the Miracle League. He felt that that money would do a lot of good and as Councillor Crain had pointed out, the user groups pay fees to use the facility on a regular basis.

Councillor Pouget said that she agreed with what Councillor McArthur said. She felt that the report was clear to waive the fees and that she shouldn’t vote against it. (I always find it ironic when it’s pointed out that one report was clear about what to do about something but other reports are ignored or disregarded. Like the report about the boat launch that basically said we can’t afford it was disregarded 5 minutes ago LOL, even though it too was clear, Councillor Pouget chose to vote in opposition to the recommendation…hmmmm…..) Councillor Pouget felt that it was a one time request for the group and they were prepared to pay the fees next year.

Councillor Crain noted that as an event host, before he was elected to council, for the 100-year anniversary of Amherst High School, the fees were waived. He did note that he does need clarity about waiving fees but that he would support it. He felt that at times things were wishy washy about which fees were waived.

Deputy Mayor Gibb felt that it was a valuable project and said he wished he could waive the fees. He felt that council needed a report about such waivers since council already donates and gives grants to local not for profit groups. He felt they shouldn’t be waiving some fees and not others. He said that he may be able to waive fees, but would need a report first, otherwise it would just become another donation.

Councillor Courtney felt that perhaps an upset limit could be set. He felt that it was a big ask since the group was using the entire Libro Centre. At this point, Councillor Allaire started addressing Councillor Courtney from across the room about requesting a report…..then she must’ve remembered that she had declared a conflict on this item and she stopped talking……There was then some talk of deferral until a report came but ultimately it went to a vote to waive the fees. It carried 3-2. In favour were Councillors McArthur, Crain and Pouget. Opposed were Deputy Mayor Gibb and Councillor Courtney.

Councillor McArthur and Councillor Pouget must’ve been feeling very generous Monday night. They both voted to proceed with a boat ramp with a price tag well into the millions AND then to waive almost $5,000 in user fees at the Libro Centre. I wonder if they’ll add me to their Christmas lists?

Internet Purchase Exchange Location

This is a pretty forward-thinking and innovative idea. People often buy things from others on internet marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace or Kijiji. Usually people need to meet to complete the transaction to pay for their purchase and claim their item. As seen in the news, it can be risky meeting with strangers for these types of situations so people often seek a public place to meet. It seems that some of our neighbouring municipalities have set up an “Internet Purchase Exchange Location” in a visible and public place. It appears that administration is recommending that Amherstburg follow suit by installing a camera in the municipal parking lot south of the Police Detachment. There would be two spots designated for the individuals to make the exchange. The camera and the proximity to the Police Detachment would provide more safety. The police would have direct access to the video recordings should there be any complaints and can be called to attend if there’s an emergency.

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Chief Administrative Officer, or designate, BE AUTHORIZED to purchase and install equipment and signage in the parking lot adjacent to 532 Sandwich St. South to facilitate and authorize the creation of an Internet Purchase Exchange Location as noted in the report of April 22, 2024;

2. A transfer from the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund not to exceed $4,500 (plus HST) BE AUTHORIZED.

Councillor Crain felt that this was a good idea and he had no objections to putting this in place for Amherstburg residents. Councillor Pouget also expressed her support. The motion was made and it carried.

2024 Amendments to Traffic By-Law 2011-69

Back in 2011, council approved a Traffic By-Law. The bylaw needs to be reviewed periodically and there are some updates included in the report. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that: 1. By-law 2024-023 being a By-law to Amend By-law 2011-69 be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Deputy Mayor Gibb asked if, for the next bylaw to be amended if staff could red-line the document, in order for council to see what language was being changed. He felt that would be simpler and easier. The Clerk agreed that could be put in place.

Councillor Allaire had a question regarding a section of the bylaw. She noted that in part of it, it said that skateboards did not have access to the roadways but that people using in-line skates do. Mr Chaimberlain said that that portion had always been in the bylaw. Ms Giofu, Director of engineering, spoke about multi-use of roadways and that she would look into it.

Councillor Courtney agreed that he liked the idea of the red-line to see the changes and mentioned that he’d rather defer this to another meeting.

Councillor Allaire noted that she had read through every line and if it were just the red changes, she would have just focused on the red. She said that she “won’t let another bylaw fool me”. (I had to chuckle a bit. Again. I’m guessing she was referring to the procedural bylaw that council passed unanimously in August. I’m not really sure how a bylaw can fool anybody. They’re written in black and white. You either read or you don’t. You either understand it or you don’t. It’s not some type of magic trick that should be fooling anybody. How does a document written in black and white fool somebody?)

Anyway, a motion was made to defer this item and it carried. Deferred.

Removal of Part Lot Control- Boblo South End

I think we all know by now that anything to do with Boblo on the agenda causes (unnecessary) drama.

The motion was made and seconded :

It is recommended that:

1. The application for Removal of Part Lot Control for Part of Bois Blanc Island, being Lot 139, Lot 141, Lot 155, Lot 156, Lot 160 and Lot 172 on Plan 12M-700, known locally as Boblo South End Subdivision, BE APPROVED; and,

2. By-law 2024-031 being a by-law to remove certain lands from Part Lot Control be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Councillor Pouget said that she could not approve this item since she felt it went against their strategic plan. (Ironically, waiving the rules of order as she had motioned to do earlier in the meeting also goes against the strategic Plan LOL Goal #1 page 17 for those that want to check it out https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Aa3cfdf7c-c0cd-30eb-82fb-70a2592fa745 ) She felt that she had not received any assurances about if the barges go down how the town would deliver services. She also started talking about the land for the garage for the fire truck hadn’t been cleared yet. Therefore she would not approve this item.

Councillor Courtney asked if council could not not approve this item. Ms Osborne, Deputy CAO, said that this item was part lot control and had already been approved. She said that if council were to deny it now that they would need a defense for the Ontario Land Tribunal. She noted that Councillor Pouget’s concerns were not a planning reason to deny this item. Councillor Pouget went on about how very concerning it was about the barges and that she doesn’t know of any other way to get information. Ms Osborne pointed out that the developer was just redrawing some lines differently but there were no new lots. Mayor Prue passed the gavel to say that this is just a planning rationale to redraw some lines. The motion was made and it carried. It was odd that it was even discussed, but I digress. I think Councillor Pouget voted against it anyway.

Annual Treasurer’s Report – 2023 Council and Appointee Statement on Remuneration and Expenses

Councillor Pouget asked the Treasurer to explain why her T4 had a difference of $200 compared to the report. There was back and forth about this…..frankly it was a big time waster….the Treasurer explained it, more than once, to Councillor Pouget. One member of council was far more concerned with their computer screen and keyboard the whole time. And finally the motion was made to receive the report and it carried.

NEW BUSINESS

This section of new business was in a league all its own. It was almost like it had been rehearsed in advance. I saw nods given across the table, signals made, almost as if some members of council knew what was coming and were prepared with seconds or “questions” or “comments”. Maybe some members of council think this is a soap opera “As Amherstburg Turns” and decided to script everything out ahead of time?

County Road 20

Councillor Pouget made a motion regarding County Road 20. She wanted the Mayor and Deputy Mayor to request that the County include Amherstburg in the traffic study that is being done in LaSalle. Councillor Allaire seconded it. Councillor Pouget felt that there was excessive speed. Mayor Prue said that the Mayor of LaSalle had already raised the concern at County Council since the extra traffic is coming from Amherstburg. The motion was made and it carried.

Recycling

Then, Councillor Allaire spoke of the lack of recycling at town hall and the Libro Centre. She wanted recycle containers available to the public. Ms Baillargeon said it could be looked into and she could report back about costs.

Boblo dock

Councillor Allaire asked if there had been an update about the Boblo dock removal. CAO Critchley said that she had reached out to her contact at the DFO but had not heard back yet. She said she would follow up again.

LED Sign

Councillor Courtney asked if user fees for the LED sign at the Gateway of town could be made available to the businesses. Ms Osborne said that the town is looking at ways to encourage revenue.

Social media and the press

This part of the meeting was really something. Councillor Courtney said that he does not participate on social media but that he watches it. Councillor Courtney felt concerns with members of council’s involvement with the media and social media. He felt that in the past council had been told to stand down and allow the Mayor to speak. He noted that the Deputy Mayor filled in while the Mayor was on vacation overseas. He noticed a comment under a post about Valente purchasing the former General Amherst High School that said “where is our mayor?” He said he noticed a lot of talk about the sale of the High school on social media and in the press. He felt that the mayor should be dealing with the media and he asked if council can speak to the media about issues. (It seemed to me that Councillor Courtney might be envious or perhaps a little jealous of certain members of council and their social media presence? Or media presence in general? I guess the other option, rather than just “watch”, would be to become involved and contribute? Just a thought….)

The Clerk pointed out that the code of conduct had been amended. He noted that members of council are free to express their opinions as long as they keep an accurate view of a council decision and defend the position of council as a whole. He said he could send the amended code of conduct to council.

Councillor Courtney felt that “hot ticket items” should be coming from the Mayor. Councillor McArthur spoke about how the Mayor is the official spokesperson. He also noted that members of council have an obligation, even if they disagree, to accurately describe the decisions of council. He felt that how the code of conduct was written before might muzzle members of council. But now, they are free to speak their conscience. He also noted that the issues Councillor Courtney had raised, such as the old high school is not a council issue. He felt that if the media calls, they’re each free to speak to them.

Councillor Courtney felt that the sale of the former General Amherst was a big “to do” and that any announcement should have been from the Mayor. (Um, does he realize that the town did not own the high school? Why would the Mayor announce the sale of a building that the town did not own? Kind of nonsensical…..)

Councillor McArthur noted that the sale of the high school was not a town decision nor an administrative decision. He felt that it was a sizable real estate deal and that should empower councillors to speak to the media.

Deputy Mayor Gibb agreed. He felt that the sale of the former General Amherst had nothing to do with council. He noted that Valente put a sign up on the building. He also said that if a reporter calls him, he answers the call since he was elected to represent the people of Amherstburg.

Councillor Pouget said she had received many calls about the Anchor District. She had been asked if council had approved it. She felt that we have to respect the Mayor and that there was confusion with the public.

Councillor McArthur said that this was a great opportunity to clear the air. He noted that the Anchor District has nothing to do with council. He also spoke about how on the Transportation Master Plan, there were 3 options presented for Murray street and the public were asked for their feedback about it. The options included closing that one block for a pedestrian friendly area OR removing the parking to allow for expanded sidewalks and traffic only OR leave it as is. He noted that everyone saw these options in the Transportation Master Plan. Councillor McArthur also pointed out that businesses are free to put things on social media and that they put a concept out and can do so.

(And after the meeting, what did Councillor Courtney do? Spoke with two reporters….LOL)

The Libro Centre

Remember the big cost-saving motion that would be so beneficial to taxpayers that was mentioned earlier in the meeting? Well here it was….prepare to be disappointed.

Councillor Pouget made a motion to direct administration to prepare a complete report to decrease the budget at the Libro Centre and then to send it to the Audit and Finance Committee for their review.

Mayor Prue asked if Councillor Pouget could specify an amount or a percentage, since the way the motion was written, it could be one dollar. Councillor Pouget felt that the Libro had a 2 Million dollar budget and she did not know how to reduce it so she wanted administration and the Audit and Finance Committee to find ways.

Councillor Allaire seconded the motion…..

(I was sitting there in disbelief……Councillor Pouget voted in favour of proceeding with a boat launch that will cost us well in excess of 2 Million dollars and was now looking to shave a couple of bucks off the Libro budget. Ya, that’s helpful…..sorry for the sarcasm, but geez….Oh, and she also just voted to waive almost $5,000 in fees for use of the Libro Centre……so waiving fees, now cut their budget? Makes no sense to me…..)

Councillor Courtney said that he would support the motion to find efficiencies but then pointed out that Councillor Pouget had just voted tonight to waive $4,800 in fees that would be income for the Libro Centre. (LOL!!!!! Zinger! How’s that for inconsistent? LOL I’ll vote to waive almost $5,000 in fees, but now find efficiencies in your budget…..awesome…..)

Councillor Pouget was then allowed to defend herself since she was mentioned directly. (Funny how Councillor Crain never seems to be afforded the same right….) Councillor Pouget said that she voted to waive the fees based on the report recommending it. She felt that the event would bring tourists to the Libro. (Again, this was getting rich…..Councillor Pouget was suddenly gung-ho for tourism? Was I in an alternate universe?) Councillor Pouget also felt that the amount was insignificant in the grand scheme. (Again, what was going on? A $200 difference on her T4 generated 5 minutes of discussion, but $4,800 was insignificant?)

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that he couldn’t support this motion since the time to look at the Libro budget is at budget time not halfway through the year.

Councillor Crain felt that this motion seemed more like a notice of motion. He spoke about the procedural bylaw on page four stating that substantial matters should be notices of motion. The Clerk explained that action items are generally for notice of motion. He read from the procedural bylaw.

Councillor Allaire said that she would support the report to find efficiencies.

Councillor McArthur said that he would oppose the motion since he felt it was nebulous. (Just in case you don’t know what nebulous means, it means hazy, vague, indistinct or confused.) Councillor McArthur said that a Director could say, turn off the lights, turn off the air conditioning, stop the programs, fire the people and that would save money. He felt that the motion went against the spirit of building programming at the Libro. He felt that if there were a specific area, then it could be looked at at budget time. He noted that the arena loses money every year and that council knows that. He also noted that council just directed administration to proceed with a boat launch (and yes, a boat launch will lose money every year, just like the arena does.)

CAO Critchley said that when administration prepares the budget they are always looking for efficiencies. The true losses and the true costs are shown. She also noted that this year some of the fees at the Libro were not increased since people didn’t want to pay them and council kept the fees down. She noted that the Libro is a public service and a public entity.

Mayor Prue felt that this was very difficult since Councillor Pouget had not asked for a specific percentage or dollar amount to be saved. He wondered if she were looking for $100,000 or $2 Million? He also pointed out that there is no public institution in Canada that is set up for recreational services that makes any money. They provide services and will never turn a profit. Mayor Prue also noted that it is the same with the Senior’s Centre, now that it’s been turned over to the seniors, there is not a chance in hell that it will make money. (This whole thing was turning around fast on Councillor Pouget…..it’s hard when all of your previous decisions come back to haunt you LOL! Council waived all of the senior’s fees for the old ACS building, tonight waived $4,800 in fees for the Libro, voted to spend MILLIONS for a boat launch, but hey, let’s look to find money in the Libro budget. It was nonsensical….)

Councillor Courtney then spoke and said he had been swayed and would not support the motion. He felt that council could look at last year’s template and this was “getting off track”. (Was it ever on the track? I really don’t know….)

The motion went to a vote and was defeated 4-2. (In favour were the mover and seconder, Councillors Pouget and Allaire. The rest were opposed.)

I started packing up my things thinking the show was over.

BY-LAWS 24.1 Final Tax Rating By-Law 2024-028

But, the show was not over. Usually bylaws fly through and next thing you know the meeting is being adjourned. Not tonight though.

Councillor Pouget said that she had voted against the budget and would vote against the bylaw. The Treasurer said that now that all of the assessments are in, the final rate is 6.22%.

Councillor Pouget said that it should be made clear to the constituents that our tax increase was over 7%.

Mayor Prue seemed somewhat provoked. He said that was not the case at all. When the three rates are melded together, so the town’s 6.22%, the school board’s 0% and the County’s 4%, all melded together the total would be 3.82% is what the constituents will see. Mayor Prue pointed out to Councillor Pouget that Council had voted for this.

My head was spinning.

The meeting adjourned at 9:03 PM.

I don’t even know how to wrap this all up…..just re-reading the blog to proofread for typos made my head spin all over again. So I guess I’ll just leave at this. Monday night’s meeting was brought to you by the letter I for Inconsistency.

It looks like the next meeting isn’t until May 13th so that will use all a little break I guess. And it will give some members of council a little extra time to find odd and random items to bring up for New Business for the next episode of As Amherstburg Turns…..and maybe some extra rehearsal time too?

See you in a while Amherstburg with the next pre-meeting blog! Enjoy the beautiful spring weather!

April 15, 2024 amherstburg2

In preparation for Monday April 22nd Regular town council meeting

Well, I’m still recovering from the merry-go-round of New Business at last week’s meeting and now the agenda is out for the Monday April 22 agenda.

The agenda is 381 pages. Here is the link to the PDF version : https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-22-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/46616109-4c3c-4349-b7d6-b150013c790a

And the link for the HTML version for those that prefer that https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=128884cf-2d66-4ad7-b91f-eb4bd677a060&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

Here are the highlights for the upcoming meeting :

RECOGNITIONS

Award Presentation: District Chief Jason Durocher – Professional Qualification of Fire Officer IV

There isn’t a description on this item but it appears that Mr Durocher will be recognized for achieving a professional qualification.

Internet Purchase Exchange Location

This is a pretty forward-thinking and innovative idea. People often buy things from others on Marketplace or Kijiji. Usually people need to meet to complete the transaction to pay for their purchase and claim their item. As seen in the news, it can be risky meeting with strangers for these types of situations so people often seek a public place to meet. It seems that some of our neighbouring municipalities have set up an “Internet Purchase Exchange Location” in a visible and public place. It appears that administration is recommending that Amherstburg follow suit by installing a camera in the municipal parking lot south of the Police Detachment. There would be two spots designated for the individuals to make the exchange. The camera and the proximity to the Police Detachment would provide more safety. The police would have direct access to the video recordings should there be any complaints and can be called to attend if there’s an emergency.

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

2. A transfer from the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund not to exceed $4,500 (plus HST) BE AUTHORIZED.

3. A pre-approval for the 2025 Operating Budget and future budgets of $1,000 to IT – Computer Maintenance BE AUTHORIZED.

Financial Plan for the Town of Amhertsburg’s Municipal Drinking Water System Licence

Administration has to prepare a financial plan for our Municipal Drinking Water System Licence and council has final approval. Here is the link to the plan if you’re interested https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14719

Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The six-year Financial Plan (2024 to 2029) for the Town of Amherstburg Municipal Drinking Water System Licence BE APPROVED; and,

2. Administration BE AUTHORIZED to submit to the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing in accordance with Ontario Regulation 453/07 in order to meet the requirements of the Municipal Drinking Water Licence renewal.

2024 Amendments to Traffic By-Law 2011-69

Back in 2011, council approved a Traffic By-Law. The bylaw needs to be reviewed periodically and there are some updates included in the report. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that: 1. By-law 2024-023 being a By-law to Amend By-law 2011-69 be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Kingsbridge Subdivision Phases 10A and 5C – Assumption of Underground Infrastructure and Streetlights

This looks to be pretty routine stuff for the Kingsbridge subdivision infrastructure. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The recommendations in the letter regarding Kingsbridge Subdivision Phases 10A and 5C dated March 7, 2024 from the consulting engineer, Baird AE BE ACCEPTED

2. The underground infrastructure and streetlights in Kingsbridge Subdivision Phases 10A and 5C BE ACCEPTED AND ASSUMED.

Consent Agreement, 5651 County Road 20

From the background portion of the report : “An application has been received for approval of a Consent Agreement to satisfy certain conditions associated with Consent File Numbers B/23/22 from Jon and Kathy Parks. Section 53(41) of the Planning Act, requires that conditions must be fulfilled on a provisional consent within 2 years.

On July 5, 2022, Jon and Kathy Parks obtained approval with conditions from the Committee of Adjustment to sever one residential building lots from a 55.59 acre property which is located on the north side of County Road 20. The retained parcel is vacant agricultural lands.

The applicants also received approval from the Committee of Adjustment for a total of ten residential buildings lots from this holding. A Consent Agreement was executed to ensure appropriate development of these lots.”

And here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The execution of a Consent Agreement with Jon and Kathy Parks associated with Consent File number B/23/22 inclusive BE APPROVED; and,

2. By-law 2024-015 being a By-law to authorize the signing of a Consent Agreement for the development of five residential building lots be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Removal of Part Lot Control- Boblo South End

This item appears to be part of a normal development procedure, but since it’s about Boblo….one never knows….it could turn into a two hour discussion. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

2. By-law 2024-031 being a by-law to remove certain lands from Part Lot Control be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Zoning By-law Amendment for 6871 Concession 6 North

This item seems to be about a property on the Six Concession North that has applied to add a second dwelling on the property and an additional driveway. It seems it’s already been addressed at a planning meeting. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. By-law 2024-022 being a by-law to amend Zoning By-law No. 1999-52, to amend the zoning for the subject lands known as 6871 Concession 6 North be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same; and,

2. That section 6.3.4 of the Driveway Alteration or Installation Policy BE WAIVED to allow for 3 right-of-way access locations be provided for driveways within the agricultural zone in relation to ZBA-05-24 for 6871 Concession 6 North.

2024 Special Events Approval-Part 3

I love events and we’ve got some more coming our way!!! Some of the events need noise bylaw exemptions or street closure bylaw exemptions, that type of thing. The GREAT news is that Ribfest is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The format is a little bit different, so for all of you Ribfest fans, get ready! It’s coming back! Here are the events and the required exemptions.

1. The following events BE APPROVED:

Amherstburg Ribfest 2024 – June 13th – Jun 16th , 2024
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th , 2024
Art Crawl 2024 – July 20th – 21st , 2024
Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th, 2024
Canada Day – July 1st , 2024
Shop Local Halloween Market – October 26th , 2024
Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th, 2024
Bob Meloche Fishing Derby – June 16th , 2024

Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th , 2024
Canada Day – July 1st , 2024
Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th , 2024
Art Crawl 2024 – July 20th & July 21st , 2024
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th, 2024
Amherstburg Ribfest 2024 – June 13th – June 16th, 2024

3. The following events BE EXEMPT and PERMITTED for road closures to begin prior to 5pm:

Amherstburg’s Gone Car Crazy – July 28th, 2024
Ribs & Ragtime – June 8th, 2024
Amherstburg Ribfest – June 13th – June 16th, 2024
Canada Day – July 1st, 2024

4. The fee waiver requests BE APPROVED as follows:

Amherstburg Ribfest – June 13th – June 16th, 2024 (Road Closure Fee $250)
Mind, Body and Soul – July 20th, 2024 (Libro Rental Fee ($4,885.82)

5. The Public Events Committee BE DIRECTED to confirm that the requirements identified by the Committee are met prior to the event.

Licensing Committee Appointment 2024-018

It seems that the licensing committee still needs to be appointed even though council put the business licensing bylaw on hold. There appears to be committee terms of reference. It also appears that the new committee will need to get to work on some short-term rental licensing items that may arise. The members of the new committee will be : Anne Creery, Dan Gemus, David Mazza, Del Oxford and Ryan D’Alimonte.

Information Report for K. Walter Ranta Park Proposed Boat Ramp

Well, we’ve been waiting to hear about a boat ramp at Ranta Park. The report is in, with drawings, two options and two prices. The recommendation is simply to receive the report.

Here’s a link to the report for those who are interested (it provides the history of the property as well.) https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14765

There are two options included in the report. Option #1 – Boat Ramp at the far West End of the Park along the River . The costs are outlined in the report and the final price tag is $1.6 Million.

Option #2 – Boat Ramp Located Closer to Road using the Existing Canal. Again, the costs are broken down in the report but this option totals $5.6 Million.

The report is quite interesting and I strongly urge everyone to read it. The recommendation is for receipt as it seems that funding a boat launch will be problematic for council.

Drinking Water Quality Management System – 2023 Status Update

There is an information report regarding the 2023 status update of the town’s drinking water quality management system.

Q1 2024 Policing Activities Report – WPS Amherstburg Detachment

Another information report regarding our police services will be presented to council. It’s broken down by month with numbers of traffic tickets issued, types of calls responded to etc.

Amherstburg Water Treatment Plant Submission of the 2023 Annual Summary Report

And another information report for council about the water treatment plan submission.

Annual Treasurer’s Report – 2023 Council and Appointee Statement on Remuneration and Expenses

If you recall, this report was on the agenda for the last meeting. It consists of the breakdown of what each member of council was paid and/or reimbursed. Also, committee members’ stipends were listed. Well, the Treasurer was absent at the last meeting and two members of council had questions about their T4s and didn’t even know what per diems were. So council ultimately decided to defer this report. Hopefully, maybe in a magical world, these members of council asked their questions during the past two weeks so that we don’t have to sit through it all over again. Unlikely I know.

There are several other items on the agenda, consent correspondence, other minutes etc. I usually don’t preview those and I’m not starting today LOL.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Council can ask any questions about items on the unfinished business list.

NEW BUSINESS

And as always, the new business section remains Pandora’s box of oddities. Random emails, phone calls…..suddenly get brought up for public discussion…..last week brought a motion about something a member of council “heard”…..that was new…..rumourville for New Business. Can hardly wait to see what lows this week’s new business may bring us.

I have a feeling that Monday night’s meeting will be a long one. Which means I won’t be back with the summary until possibly Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

In the meantime, read the boat ramp report at minimum and then get out there and enjoy our beautiful spring weather!

April 10, 2024 amherstburg2

Tuesday April 9th Regular town council meeting

Well I watched Monday night’s meeting from home. It wrapped up in just over an hour but the last 30 minutes or so for New Business……WOW!!!!! The first part of the meeting was quite boring. The last portion consisted of a lengthy grocery list of “new business” items from Councillor Pouget and one that became a motion based on something that somebody had “heard”……unbelievable. I got the impression that what was “heard” was basically gossip but that didn’t stop council from debating it, talking about and wanting to look into it…..it was like high school, in a formal, professional situation. Super strange. Anyway, more on that later. But if you want the scoop on the hearsay and rumours, it will be at the end of the blog. Honestly, I won’t be insulted if you skip through to the end, that’s where the meat is. LOL

First, there was a special meeting scheduled for 4:00 to discuss one item :

Development Charge By-Law Background Study – Watson and Associates

I did not watch that meeting.

Then there was a special planning meeting scheduled for 5:00. It was about the new Official Plan.

Here are the agendas for the 5:00 meeting for those that are so inclined.

Here is the agenda in PDF https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-09-1700-Special-Council-Meeting/746d1a63-bb00-4aa0-b088-b14200ef5eb0 263 pages

And here it is in html https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=6f7836dd-f629-481e-803c-bf4153b41bde&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

I did not watch that meeting either.

I did, however, watch the entire regular meeting that started promptly at 7:00. And boy was it a show! Not in a good way though. It was embarrassing and I think certain members of council made Amherstburg look bad.

Here are the agendas for the 7:00 regular meeting :

https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=a2c10b2e-728a-4cee-b3ee-a8aa936dffba&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

This one has the video too if you’re so inclined to watch.

Or the PDF version : https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-09-1900-Regular-Council-Meeting/ea50a95e-a586-4d3c-875e-b1470164c22b

2024 Mill and Pave Program – Tender Results

Looks like some more roads are going to be fixed up! The request for tender went out and the results are in.

Deputy Mayor Gibb asked that if the work were approved tonight when would it start. Administration said it would start in early May. Councillor McArthur seemed pleased that the price came in under budget by about $130,000 and asked if the funds could be redirected or used for another road. Ms Giofu, the Director of Engineering said that they wanted to wait until all of the work was complete, just in case any problems should arise and that money could be required. She noted that once the work is completed, more work could be looked at with the leftover money and that would come back to council. Councillor Pouget asked about the timeframe (duration) for the work and was told about 3-4 weeks in total.

Finally, Councillor Allaire made the motion for the administrative recommendation, Councillor McArthur seconded it. They voted and the motion carried. There is some more road work coming to Amherstburg! (Yes, it will be inconvenient….I will brace myself to read the complaints on social media…..We can’t have it both ways folks, either the roads get fixed and we are inconvenienced…..or they don’t get fixed and we complain about the potholes and condition of the roads…..)

Housing Enabling Water Systems Fund Grant Submission

It looks like the province has opened up some grant funding for water systems upgrades to support more housing. It seems that it’s to help municipalities repair and/or expand drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. It looks like the province will provide funding to eligible applications up to 73% of the cost of the work. The criteria for the grant applications are listed in the report and it looks like applications have to be submitted by April 19, 2024. I included the recommendation in my pre-meeting blog. It is extremely lengthy, so I won’t repeat it here.

Councillor Pouget spoke about an email she had received that she felt didn’t have any details or a time frame for reference. She wondered if this would be for roads or bridges. Mr. Hewitt, Manager of Engineering, said that the grant was strictly for the water and sanitary system infrastructure. Councillor Pouget wondered if there would be money for roads later on. Mr Hewitt had to explain to her that the 5 year capital budget includes funding for the Fryer St/Lowes Side Road area for development and that the roads have been identified. Ms Osborne, Director of Development Services mentioned that development charges would be collected from the developers.

Councillor Pouget then asked when administration became aware of the application for the grant. Ms Osborne noted that it was stated in the report that administration was made aware of the grant in February 2024. (Hmmmmm……so the answer to this question was in the report….) Ms Osborne said that administration had followed the due course for the application process and that the grant application is due April 19th. Councillor Pouget felt that 10 days ahead of time was not an adequate amount of time for council to make a decision. She wondered why council hadn’t seen this sooner and felt that council had to make knee-jerk decisions and too quickly. (OK folks….my inside voice is coming out…..that’s what council was elected to do. Make decisions. The easy ones, the hard ones and often quickly. Sitting on one’s hands and putting off decisions is generally not an effective strategy to run a large corporation right? Read the report ahead of time, ask your questions and make a decision council. The agenda comes out 10 days in advance now. Any member of council can be adequately prepared for the meeting and certainly prepared to make a decision. Since, well, that’s their job…..) CAO Critchley explained that it was a complicated grant application and that two workshops were held between the town and the Ministry during the month of March. She noted that administration had to get all of the information and that a grant application is not written overnight. Ms Osborne continued that meetings had to be scheduled with the developers and that administration did not have all of the information in front of them until the third week of March, therefore the April 9th meeting was the earliest time they could get the report and recommendation before council.

Councillor Crain asked in layman’s terms….if the town did not apply for this grant that it would be a decade before the south/east quadrant of town could be developed. Long answer, but basically, yes. Councillor Crain also asked that if the town receives the grant for 73% of the money are the developers ready to build. It seems that one of the developers already has a draft plan of subdivision for over 700 homes and the other two developers are preparing. Councillor Crain also asked if, aside from staff costs, were there any other costs to submit the application for the grant. The answer was a clear no.

Councillor Pouget hemmed and hawed some more, more back and forth…..

Finally Deputy Mayor Gibb made the motion as presented but added a section for council to direct the Mayor to write a letter to MPP Leardi asking for his support of this application. Deputy Mayor Gibb spoke of the current housing crisis and affordability crisis and felt that if the province is covering 73% of the costs to upgrade the water systems that council has to make this happen.

Councillor Crain felt that any time the town can apply for a grant, that they should apply and that this particular grant would help to reactivate the south/east quadrant of town.

Mayor Prue passed the gavel. He felt that the province often does this type of thing, opens up grant applications knowing that many municipalities won’t be able to prepare one in short order. He noted that the town has 700 homes waiting to be built and he was looking forward to additional homes. He said he had no issue sending a letter to MPP Leardi.

Finally, the motion carried unanimously.

Annual Treasurer’s Report – 2023 Council and Appointee Statement on Remuneration and Expenses

This is the annual report that council receives that shows their salaries and expenses. Included in the report are also residents that sit on committees that receive a stipend.

So, here is the link to the report for those that want to see how much, in total each person receives : https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14683

And if you’re looking for the breakdown for pay and reimbursements, it is all listed here : https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14684

SIGH……big huge SIGH……members of council had over 10 days to ask their questions about this about their specific pay. But they didn’t. They waited until tonight. And the Treasurer was ill so she was not at the meeting. So this turned into a big waste of time, for everyone.

Councillor Pouget asked why her income showed $27,756.11 but that her T4 stated $26,000 (I didn’t get the exact number but she mentioned a $1600 difference). CAO Critchley said that she could have the Treasurer look at it but that the total of $27,756.11 includes expenses (communications allowance) and per diems. Councillor Pouget asked if this should all be in a full report in the future since the public couldn’t speak to it since they didn’t know she was having a discrepancy. (Again, ten whole days went by…..and now was the time to ask about her personal situation??…..and I’m going to take a wild guess that the T4 only included salary plus the per diems and that the communications allowance would be claimed differently than income since it’s a reimbursement. I’m not an accountant, so I’m not sure but looking at the numbers, if I add together her salary and her per diems it comes to $26,334.76, which may have been the number she cited. Anyway, I do not understand why a member of council wouldn’t have asked about this immediately if it was of concern…..)

Councillor Allaire also felt confused. She noted one of the reports had a figure in the $28,000’s for herself but the other had $29,000 ish. She noted she had attended a conference and she was assuming that her ERCA board income was in there too. CAO Critchley explained that there were per diems and mileage included in one section. Councillor Allaire did not seem to understand what a per diem was. Councillor Pouget felt that all per diems are the same. Mayor Prue interjected that the per diems are not all the same, that they differ for conferences.

Councillor Courtney’s zoom screen was dark for a while…..not sure where he was? But he came back later.

Councillor Crain made a motion to defer this report to the next meeting. Deputy Mayor Gibb seconded it. And it carried. Deferred to the next meeting. (Hopefully, the members of council that are confused or don’t seem to understand can take 5 minutes of their day to send an email to the Treasurer so that she can explain and break it all down for them. Or I guess we can sit through 30 minutes of it all in two weeks?)

Golf Tournament

It was mentioned that there was a supplementary agenda with a request for the Food and Fellowship Mission to sponsor a golf tournament. There was a lot of back and forth. It seems that in the past, members of council that participated paid out of pocket to participate in the golf tournament. Councillor Allaire asked about where the money could come from to make a motion to support a foursome. She asked if it had been taken from council per diems in the past. The Clerk explained to Councillor Allaire that per diems are paid if a member of council attends a meeting, for example a committee meeting that council had set or a meeting outside of a regular meeting schedule. There was more discussion that members of council had simply paid on their own to attend various golf tournaments.

Councillor McArthur felt that council shouldn’t pay for a foursome to attend but that they could do a hole sponsorship for $175. He made the motion to sponsor a hole. Councillor Crain seconded. Mayor Prue passed the gavel to say that the Food and Fellowship Mission comes to council each year for a large donation and that council should ask them next year if this could be included.

It was put to a vote and it carried.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Councillor Allaire asked about the boat ramp and if the archeological assessment was complete. Ms Baillargeon, Director of Parks and Facilities, said that a report was coming to council on April 22nd.

NEW BUSINESS

Councillor Allaire asked about an update on the removal of the old Boblo dock. CAO Critchley said that the DFO (Department of Fisheries & Oceans) had their construction documents ready and that they are awaiting the release of the federal budget (next Tuesday) to see if funding will be in the budget for the dock removal. It seems that funding was not there in the fall, but funding was requested for the 2024 budget for the dock removal. The CAO said that she had it marked in her calendar to get in touch with her contact at the DFO after the budget is released to see if they will have the funding for the project to remove the dock. Councillor Pouget then asked the CAO if she could expand on what Councillor Allaire was asking since she wasn’t sure. The CAO then re-explained everything and that they are waiting for the federal budget to be released.

Councillor Pouget then pulled out a laundry list of items for new business :

Councillor Pouget asked about the money for the structure on Boblo Island for the fire truck and the title of the land….it’s being worked on, is the short answer.
Councillor Pouget asked Fire Chief Montone about the removal of the sirens and if/when information would be given out…..short answer, pamphlets received, door to door campaign to begin in May and follow up with the schools in the fall
Councillor Pouget said she had received concerns about the development on Brunner Avenue regarding parking problems and dogs going to the bathroom on people’s lawns….short answer, admin already dealt with the issue of a parking spot too close to the highway and admin will reach out in a good faith way about the dog issues….(really is it necessary for the issue about dogs to be brought up in a meeting? Could’ve been an email…..and ultimately, what is administration supposed to do if people aren’t scooping their dogs business? )

Some mysterious letter

I can’t summarize this one point form. It was like a merry-go-round ride. Councillor Pouget started talking about a letter she had discussed with Mayor Prue last week dated April 3rd and wondered where it was. Mr Fox, the Clerk, said that the public can submit letters to council and that he had already spoken to the resident and they were working through the process with them to resolve the situation. (It was hard to follow since I had no idea what letter Councillor Pouget was talking about or what was in it….) The Clerk mentioned something about council receiving a reply about this letter. Councillor Pouget felt that the letter should have been included as consent correspondence in the agenda. CAO Critchley spoke and said that Councillor Pouget had delivered the letter to the Mayor and herself. She thought that Councillor Pouget wanted her to deal with the situation and she did. She also noted that the Clerk had spoken on the phone twice with the author of the letter and had attended the property. She apologized for any confusion and thought that the matter had been dealt with. That was not good enough for Councillor Pouget. She pressed on and on and seemed to insinuate that administration had purposely withheld the letter from council. The Clerk mentioned he had received a photocopy of the letter in his mailslot and had assumed that everybody received a photocopy. (The back and forth was fast and furious and my hand just could not keep up….probably because I was also in disbelief at the blatant disrespect being shown to our town staff. ) Councillor Pouget continued to berate staff for not having distributed the letter to all of council. (It seemed clear to me that this was a miscommunication from the very moment that Councillor Pouget brought the letter to town hall, staff had apologized, twice.) Mayor Prue wondered if this could just be resolved with a staff report about the letter.

Councillor McArthur asked a question to clarify, since he felt lost. (Welcome to the club! I had no idea what was going on and it seemed that nobody else did either….) Councillor McArthrur asked if a resident had dropped off a letter addressed to the Mayor and Council and left it with town staff at town hall OR did a resident hand a letter to Councillor Pouget and say “give this to council” and if that were the case, why didn’t Councillor Pouget give it to council? Councillor Pouget said the letter was given to her. She was asked to bring it to Mayor Prue and to make sure that all of council received it. Councillor Pouget said she had met with Mayor Prue, he read the letter and then told her to tell Kevin to put it on the agenda. (This struck me as odd that the Mayor would tell a member of council to tell the Clerk what to put on the agenda???) Councillor McArthur said that Councillor Pouget could have just put the letter in their mailboxes and that that would have worked. Councillor Pouget went on and Mayor Prue interjected that he was unsure that this discussion was appropriate at this time. Councillor Crain felt that council should praise in public and criticize in private. He noted that this was a 20 minute discussion about a letter that should have been addressed privately. (Spot on Councillor! Spot on!) Councillor Crain felt that council was wasting staff’s time and the public’s time talking about this. (Just a side note, all but one member of council were listening and trying to follow along…..one spent their time on their computer during all of this….seemed disinterested and checked out?) Mayor Prue asked point blank to Councillor Pouget if she wanted staff to prepare a report for either public session or in-camera. She requested in-camera. The Clerk then read to council their procedural bylaw about consent correspondance….it seems that only letters from other levels of government or associations are included in consent correspondence. He also noted that members of council are free to bring up items as new business, which is what was being done. Anyway, long story short, there will be a report, possibly in-camera.

(My take on all of this??? It sounds to me like somebody gave a paper letter to Councillor Pouget. It was addressed to the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor and all of council from what I gathered. It seems that this person asked Councillor Pouget to bring the letter to council. It sounds like she only brought it to the Mayor and the CAO. The CAO took that as direction to deal with whatever was in the letter. It seems that Councillor Pouget did not give a copy of the letter to the rest of council as asked by whoever wrote the letter…..Councillor Pouget seemed to infer that the CAO and Clerk purposefully withheld the letter from council….yet from what I could understand it seems that Councillor Pouget was asked to give the letter to council…..a big miscommunication and 20 minutes of discussion for what? Apologies were made, yet accusations flew. Unbelievable.)

Back to point form

Councillor Pouget asked where we were at with the search for a new Fire Chief. Mayor Prue explained (again, like at the last meeting) that personnel matters are not discussed publicly. (Any bets if Councillor Pouget will ask about this AGAIN at the next meeting? Third time’s a charm right?)

I heard a rumour….or I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend….

Then, as if we weren’t traumatized enough about the mysterious letter and the rampant accusations…..Councillor Pouget brought up that…..

She said according to Anthony Leardi’s office, the Federal Government has provided $19,000,000 to the Town of Amherstburg over the last 5 years. She wanted to know what this money has been spent on and also if there were any of those funds left. She said she’d like to make a motion for a full report regarding this issue.

As everyone sat there looking bewildered, Mayor Prue asked her which funds. He mentioned that a whole bunch of funds come from the province and named a few of them. Mayor Prue then went on that as far as he knew almost all of it had been spent on roads, bridges and sewers. He told her she would need to be more specific in order for staff to prepare a report. Councillor Pouget then just repeated pretty much what she had said already. Mayor Prue then explained that the last six budgets would contain all of that information. He seemed bewildered and asked her if she wanted staff to dig through the last 6 budgets to see where all of the dollars were spent. (Ya, great idea……big waste of time and resources…..Councillor Pouget could dig through them herself I think.) Mayor Prue explained again that the money is used for infrastructure and that it has all been spent. He asked again if she wanted staff to dig through the past six budgets to look for every dollar spent. When Councillor Pouget spoke, her microphone didn’t work at the beginning but I heard her say “we’ll see if it passes or not”. Mayor Prue then asked her again for her motion. She again repeated herself and said that according to Anthony Leardi’s office, the Federal Government has provided $19,000,000 to the Town of Amherstburg over the last 5 years. She wanted to know what this money has been spent on and also if there were any of those funds left.

Mayor Prue said that the federal government has not given the town $19 Million dollars. Mayor Prue did not understand where Mr Leardi was getting this amount for federal funding, since he is the provincial representative. Mayor Prue explained that we do not receive that kind of money from the federal government. He explained that the town receives around $4 Million per year from the province and he wondered if Mr Leardi could be mistaken.

Councillor Courtney was confused. He felt that when we receive grant money that it’s all earmarked and accounted for in the budget. He felt that Mr Leardi should know all of these answers. He felt that Councillor Pouget needed to ask Mr Leardi to earmark and reference the $19 Million that he was speaking of for staff to then cross reference it. Councillor Courtney felt that Mr Leardi should know exactly what the funds were earmarked for since he was able to call out a specific amount. He also reiterated that it is money from the province since Mr Leardi is MPP and this is not federal money received. Councillor Courtney even offered that he could look at the past budgets if amounts were specified. Or that it could be sent to staff to cross reference but that more specific information would be necessary.

Mayor Prue advised Councillor Pouget that she should have Mr Leardi specify and pinpoint exactly where the money came from, whether federal or provincial. Mayor Prue felt that the reference to “federal” was in total error. He said he would need to pinpoint the money, the years and amounts given and what they were intended to be used for in order for staff to cross reference the past 5 budgets. Then staff could pinpoint which roads, sewers etc were done.

Councillor Pouget then changed her motion to direct staff to write to Mr Leardi to ask him for this information. Mayor Prue said that staff could write the letter but what are they to do if Mr Leardi doesn’t answer……That didn’t really get answered and the motion was on the floor. I was hopeful that nobody would second it, but Councillor Allaire did. The Mayor opened it up for discussion.

Deputy Mayor Gibb spoke and said that he did not understand why we would spend any time on this since all of this information is in the budgets. Everything is quantified in the budget every single year. Deputy Mayor Gibb found it “odd” and a little bit “unsettling” that council would ask our MPP what they did with the money since it’s in our budget every year. He said that he couldn’t support this motion.

Councillor McArthur spoke next. He felt that the motion was unclear on the face of it whether council was asking Mr Leardi to account for federal or provincial money. He also noted that any money received from the government is earmarked specifically in the budget documents. He felt that council could do this work to look into the spending but he didn’t feel that staff should spend their time on this. Also, he felt that council should be careful about how frequently they send letters to Mr Leardi, our MPP. He felt that council should pick the timing of any letters so that they have maximum impact so that we can get what Amherstburg deserves from the provincial government. He felt that if we send letters willy-nilly it lessens the impact.

Councillor Courtney asked how time consuming this may be. He wondered if council was calling Mr Leardi out or if he was calling out council. Councillor Courtney felt that Mr Leardi had made a statement to Councillor Pouget since she was referencing him and he was asking about what council had done with the $19 Million.

Mayor Prue explained that Mr Leardi did not state these things to council. Mayor Prue explained that Mr Leardi had purportedly said this to a constituent and the constituent is now asking if Mr Leardi is correct. He explained to Councillor Courtney that Mr Leardi has not initiated this. Councillor Courtney asked Councillor Pouget if it were true that Mr Leardi hadn’t contacted her directly.

And wait for it people…..

Councillor Pouget said that “I attended a meeting and that’s what I heard”. Mayor Prue asked : “With Mr Leardi?” Councillor Pouget replied : “No, with his, um, associate.” You can actually hear Mayor Prue sigh if you watch the video…LOL

Councillor Crain explained to Councillor Courtney (since he was on zoom) that each member of council had received a piece of paper with a few questions on it and that was what was being referenced tonight. (He had a piece of paper in his hand).

Councillor Pouget spoke again and wanted everybody to understand that she has the highest respect for Mr Leardi, that this is just for clarification since it was requested by a resident and she is raising the issue. (So get in line folks, bring forth everything under the sun that you’ve “heard” from somebody and council will waste everybody’s time looking for rumours and ghosts….)

Councillor Allaire said that she will always second for discussion since she thinks it’s important that they support each other. She said that she would not support the motion since she felt that it’s not necessary. Councillor Allaire said that :” We should only probe Leardi when necessary to get more out of him”. (Read that twice! I double checked the video to be sure I was accurate…..)

While Councillor Allaire was speaking, Councillor Pouget started putting her laptop away. It went to a vote for the motion. Only Councillor Pouget voted in favour. The rest voted in opposition. So, no letter to Mr Leardi to try to find out if what he said is true…..

(So this is how I understood this…..Supposedly Mr Leardi said to somebody that the town received $19 Million from the federal government. Somebody then talked about it at a meeting that Councillor Pouget attended with Mr Leardi’s associate? Now Councillor Pouget wanted town staff to spend time finding out if this were true? Anybody else getting flashbacks from high school here? Oh….somebody told me that somebody told them that (fill in the blank)……It defied logic that this became a 15 minute discussion at a council meeting all based off of something that somebody supposedly was told or supposedly heard. And it begs the question for Councillor Pouget…..How can you serve on council for that many years and not realize how much funding you get from various levels of government and how it is utilized in the budgets? And if any of this may be true, then I hope that Mr Leardi takes his “associate” to task for making such a statement. As a councillor, if a resident were to have told you that they “heard” this, shouldn’t a member of council be able to say “any and all grant monies received from either the provincial or federal governments are earmarked for specific projects and spent accordingly on those budgeted items.” Instead, this council member was ready to begin a wild goose chase and waste time and resources looking into past budgets? The whole thing was mind boggling. And frankly very concerning.)

Deputy Mayor Gibb then spoke and said he would be brief. (Councillor Pouget continued to pack up her things to get ready to leave while he spoke…..) Deputy Mayor Gibb referenced a recent media release about awards that were won in Amherstburg from Tourism Windsor/Essex & Pelee Island. He extended congratulations to the owners and staff of Amherstburg’s Salty Dog for winning the title of Best Lunch Spot and congratulated the owners and staff of Wolfhead Distillery for winning the Best Art of the Cocktail Award. He extended congratulations to Amherstburg’s Parks Department since the Kings Navy Yard Park won Best Park or Garden. And also, he extended congratulations to the Tourism Department since Open Air won the Best Street Event Award. He extended congratulations to everyone.

(Side note from me…..did Open Air just win ANOTHER award? Seems so! I hope that council is paying attention to this!!!!!! We’ll add another trophy to the shelf for Open Air!)

The meeting adjourned at 8:09 PM. The New Business section of this meeting was…..unbelievable! I have watched so many meetings during the last 9 years and just when you think they can’t outdo themselves, this happened……I don’t know about you but I have the song “I heard a rumour” by Bananarama stuck in my head now. (Yes, it’s a great 80s song! LOL)

On that note, I’ll be back before you know it with a preview of the April 22nd meeting and that’s no rumour! See you then! Have a great rest of your week Amherstburg!

April 2, 2024 amherstburg2

In preparation for Tuesday April 9th Regular town council meeting

Tuesday April 9th looks like it will be a long evening for council.

First, there is a special meeting scheduled for 4:00 to discuss one item :

Development Charge By-Law Background Study – Watson and Associates

There isn’t a report attached so I don’t know what that item entails.

Then there is another special meeting scheduled for 5:00.

It looks like the 5:00 meeting is all about the Official Plan.

Here is the agenda in PDF https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-09-1700-Special-Council-Meeting/746d1a63-bb00-4aa0-b088-b14200ef5eb0 263 pages

And here it is in html https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=6f7836dd-f629-481e-803c-bf4153b41bde&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

The agenda has several items all related to the Official Plan. It seems that this is a guiding planning document that will be used by council now and in the future to plan for land use in the Town of Amherstburg for the next 30 years. There are projected population numbers as well as projected employment rates.

The various reports are quite lengthy and I’m not going to summarize all of them. I don’t feel documents such as this can be effectively summarized. So here is the policy directions report (150 pages) for those of you that are very interested in the Official Plan. Happy reading! https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14623

And because the special meeting at 5:00 is all about the Official Plan (which is a HUGE subject), the regular meeting is scheduled to start at 7:00. The good news is that the agenda is not heavy and I don’t anticipate the lengthy show of a meeting like we had last week….gulp…I hope?

So, for the 7:00 regular meeting, here are the agendas :

PDF format (only 45 pages!) https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-04-09-1900-Regular-Council-Meeting/a7e3b390-aa2d-43e4-951e-b14200effce2

And HTML format for those that prefer that https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=a2c10b2e-728a-4cee-b3ee-a8aa936dffba&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

2024 Mill and Pave Program – Tender Results

Looks like some more roads are going to be fixed up! The request for tender went out and the results are in. This is from the report so that you know which roads will be getting some road work done. “The sections of road included in the RFT and to be completed under the recommended award of tender are ranked 191st (Alma St Between Conc. Rd 4 North and Conc. Rd 5 South), 223rd (Alma St Between Conc. 4 North and Conc. 4 South) and 240th (Alma St Between Conc. Rd 4 South and Meloche Rd) in the 2021 Roads Needs Study. These roads are all considered in the ‘1-5 years’ category. If not rehabilitated these roads will continue to deteriorate. The inclusion of the roads supports the Town’s asset management plan recommendations to apply a single lift mill and pave to roads that have a pavement condition index (PCI) around 60. This is being done to extend the lifecycle for these roads and slow their deterioration.”

And here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk, or their designates, BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Mill-Am Corporation in the amount of $746,620 plus HST, being funded as outlined in the financial matters section of this report, for services outlined in the tender documents, subject to approval of technical content by the Director of Infrastructure Services and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer, or designates; and,

2. The Chief Administrative Officer, or designate, BE AUTHORIZED to amend the agreement with Mill-Am Corporation if required to expand the scope of the work plan, provided such additional services remain within the total project funding of $900,000 inclusive of HST and subject to approval of technical content by the Director of Infrastructure Services and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer.

Housing Enabling Water Systems Fund Grant Submission

It looks like the province has opened up some grant funding for water systems upgrades to support more housing. It seems that it’s to help municipalities repair and/or expand drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. It looks like the province will provide funding to eligible applications up to 73% of the cost of the work. The criteria for the grant applications are listed in the report and it looks like applications have to be submitted by April 19 2024. Administration is seeking council direction to apply for the grant funding…..the recommendations are long and specific…..sit down for this! LOL

It is recommended that:
1. THAT the Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Infrastructure Services BE AUTHORIZED to apply to the Housing Enabling Water Services Fund (HEWSF), for the South East Quadrant (SEQ) Infrastructure project noted in this report, subject to the documents being satisfactory in legal form to the Chief Administrative Officer, in technical content to the Director of Infrastructure Services and in financial content to the Chief Financial Officer and;
2. The following funding sources BE APPROVED to address any eligible cost not funded by the grant;
  1. Sanitary Development Charge Reserve (0125);
  2. Detailed Design Cost Recovery;
  3. Water Reserve (0200) and;
3. The Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Development Services/Deputy CAO, with support from Watson and Associates, BE DIRECTED to negotiate a funding agreement with the developers with property included in the SEQ infrastructure project in order to secure developer charge funding for the sanitary servicing costs not funded by the grant for this project as well as recovery of costs from the detailed design to fund a portion of the water servicing costs not covered by the grant and;
4. The following recommendations BE APPROVED upon written confirmation of the Town being awarded funding under the Housing Enabling Water Systems Fund for the SEQ Infrastructure project:
  1. That the Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk, BE AUTHORIZED to sign and execute any agreements, declarations or approvals required resulting from receiving funding under the Housing Enabling Water Systems Fund, satisfactory in financial content to the Chief Financial Officer, and in technical content to the Director of Infrastructure Services and;
  2. The Mayor BE AUTHORIZED to sign the Transfer Payment Agreement for the Housing Enabling Water System Fund, if so required by the grant provider and;
  3. That the Chief Administrative Officer and the Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to take any such action required to the recommendations noted above and sign any required documentation/agreement(s) for the implementation of the South East Quadrant Infrastructure project, satisfactory in legal form to the Chief Administrative Officer, in technical content to Director of Infrastructure Services and in financial content to the Chief Financial Officer; and;
  4. Authority BE DELEGATED to the Chief Administrative Officer to award and issue purchase orders and or sign and execute any agreements as may be required for the necessary services to execute the scope of work for the South East Quadrant Infrastructure Project and;
  5. Administration BE DIRECTED to provide a report to Council to commence the necessary Local Improvement process and;
  6. Administration BE DIRECTED to provide a report back to Council on the funding agreement with the developers.

Annual Treasurer’s Report – 2023 Council and Appointee Statement on Remuneration and Expenses

This is the annual report that council receives that shows their salaries and expenses. Included in the report are also residents that sit on committees that receive a stipend.

So, here is the link to the report for those that want to see how much, in total each person receives : https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14638

And if you’re looking for the breakdown for pay and reimbursements, it is all listed here : https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14639

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Members of council can about any items on the unfinished business list.

NEW BUSINESS

Members of council can make motions or ask questions ranging from mundane (that could have been an email) to important.

And that’s about it folks. Tuesday’s meeting appears that it will be a looong meeting, due to the Official Plan special meeting….but the regular meeting that starts at 7:00 doesn’t seem to have too much meaty stuff.

Just remember, the meeting will be on Tuesday April 9th instead of Monday. I believe the date was changed due to the solar eclipse that will be happening on Monday.

Have a great week Amherstburg!

March 26, 2024 amherstburg2

Monday March 25th Regular town council meeting

The level of disrespect and unprofessionalism shown by some members of council at Monday night’s meeting was horrific and embarrassing. If you didn’t watch the meeting, I encourage everyone to watch the video of Monday night’s meeting, in its entirety. The disrespect was littered continuously throughout the entire meeting, right up to the very end. The meeting lasted about 3 hours and 45 minutes so you’ll need some time and a comfy chair.

This blog will be painful to read. It was equally painful to write.

Council met in-camera at 4:00.

There was a planning meeting at 5:00.

The regular meeting had a revised agenda that included two new delegations that weren’t on the original agenda. Here are the links to the revised agenda :

https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=4df61d70-0d01-4c9e-9edf-1c8d91fe9e68&Agenda=Merged&lang=English

And for those that prefer the PDF : https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-03-25-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/c8846ff0-1257-4107-9fce-b13e0104c6f7

The meeting started promptly at 6:00. It was a full house in the gallery and people were standing outside in the hallway.

***Mayor Prue attended the meeting via Zoom***

Deputy Mayor Gibb chaired the meeting.

Report-Out in camera

There was a motion made to approve the sale of two vacant lots on Victoria Street for $350,000 + HST. The motion carried.

There were some other in-camera report outs but they were all to proceed on verbal direction of council.

PRESENTATIONS

Map and Grow Program – Danielle Bohn, Quentin Maini, Brian Kountourogiannis and Alice Grgicak-Mannion, University of Windsor School of the Environment

Ms Bohn addressed council about a tree program that the town had entered into with the University of Windsor. She was representing students that are studying a science certificate program. She spoke of the importance of trees to reduce pollution, create habitats, add value and curb appeal to properties among other positives. She explained the project purpose of tagging trees and compiling data about their growth, type and condition. She also showed a small snapshot of how the information is being stored so as not to reveal anyone’s private information.

Councillor Crain thought that this is an excellent program to help with Amherstburg’s tree canopy and was an all-around win/win.

Councillor Courtney wondered how big the program would become and if it could become too big to manage. Ms Bohn said that the data is there and continues for the tree giveaways. She noted that it’s the same amount of work and that new students will fill in as the existing students graduate. Councillor Courtney noted that there was a request for $10,000 and wondered how it would be funded and if a sponsorship had been lost. Ms Baillargeon, Director of Parks and Facilities said that the first year, THRIVE had sponsored the program and then Piroli had sponsored it the year after. At the moment, they are looking for a sponsor. She noted that the town already has the money set aside if they are unable to find a sponsor. Ms Baillargeon also noted that they are seeing sponsorships currently and that a few things are pending. Another person that was part of the group from the University also mentioned that the students are looking at some initiatives as well and also the TD Friends of the Environment Fund.

There was a motion to receive the presentation and it carried.

Map and Grow Tree Program

This item was pulled forward on the agenda since the previous presentation was in relation to this report.

Councillor Courtney asked about the $10,000 and that it was not taxation dollars. Ms Baillargeon explained that there was money built up in an account and that they were seeking sponsors and donors. The money is already set aside and the tree program provides trees on town property as well as on private property.

Councillor Allaire made the motion for the administrative recommendation.

It is recommended that:

1. That Council SUPPORT up to $10,000 from the annual Parks Tree Operating Budget to the Earth Day Map and Grow Tree program.

The motion carried.

DELEGATIONS

Delegation – Item #14.1 – Open Air – Dave Doherty

Mr Doherty delegated to council next. He explained that he is one of the owners of Flow Cafe and Bikes and the Meal Prep Company located at 274 Dalhousie. He was there to discuss Open Air and its boundaries. He was asking to move the boundary further down Dalhousie Street in order to include his business. He felt that having the boundary end at the corner of Murray Street and Dalhousie Street was a strong deterrent for people to continue on down the street to his business. He noted that thousands are out enjoying Open Air. Mr Doherty explained that when the barrier was moved further down Dalhousie Street during Cars Gone Crazy, that his business revenue increased 4.3 times.

He felt that as things are now, he is locked out of Open Air and doesn’t get the foot traffic that he could get if he were in the footprint. He did mention that he was aware of the logistics of having to man the barrier for the protected lane in order to allow for access to the Queen Charlotte residents parking. Mr Doherty felt that expanding the Open Air footprint to include his business would be the difference between him being a long-term business or a struggling business.

Councillor McArthur said that he wanted their business to be a long-term business. He also mentioned the contributions that they have made in such a short time (the bike trails at the Libro Centre). He wondered if they were allowed to move patio furniture out in front of their store. Mr Doherty said that he did confirm that they can use the space up to the sidewalk.

Councillor Courtney noted that there were 4 other businesses in the plaza and wondered if Mr Doherty had consulted them. He said that he had spoken with the Legion, Nucelli’s and the Yoga Studio and that they were okay with the changes. He mentioned that the other two businesses are closed on the weekends.

There was a motion made to receive the delegation and it carried.

Delegation – Item #14.1 – Open Air – Bethany D’Alimonte

Ms D’Alimonte delegated next. She is the owner of MusicLand. She noted how Open Air launched in 2020 during the pandemic. She cited an article from the Windsor Star from March 2023 that the main objective of Open Air was to boost business and that it did. She said that the return on investment to date is over $13 Million and that approximately 123,000 have attended Open Air. As well Open Air ranked as THE number one destination of 2023 of a Top 100 events and festivals in Ontario. She felt that we should be very proud of these achievements. She felt that 10 years ago this was something we all dreamed of, of Amherstburg being a colourful and happy town creating memories for a lifetime and now our dream has come true.

Ms D’Alimonte spoke of the 5 options that were presented to council last year with Mayor Prue choosing the 14 week event and trying to compromise with council. He had noted at the time that council was divided. Ms D’Alimonte noted the importance of compromise. She then asked that council compromise about the footprint of Open Air in order to extend it and allow Flow Cafe and Bikes into the footprint. Ms D’Alimonte felt that anyone that was born and raised in Amherstburg would know that Amherstburg was a lifeless town 5 years ago. She felt that the small businesses are what have given life to our town. She mentioned perhaps only closing one lane for Traffic instead of both in front of the Queen Charlotte could be a compromise.

Ms D’Alimonte expressed that many do not do well with change, herself being one, but that for Amherstburg, change is needed. She also said that we are a community, people that reside in the same place and share common characteristics and common goals. She noted we are all individuals that may not share the same opinions or the same values but that we need to look at the bigger picture. She again noted that Open Air ranked as THE #1 event in 2023 for Festivals and Events Ontario. She felt that keeping the exact same event year after year would not do it justice and there was room for change, by expanding the footprint to include more business in the success of Open Air.

Councillor Pouget asked Ms D’Alimonte if she were representing a group of businesses. Ms D’Alimonte said that she had spoken to many of the business owners. She said that some felt that their words were twisted and that they are not against Open Air. Councillor Pouget felt that last year some people were begging for compromise and that they felt that 14 weeks was excessive and that they left in tears.

Councillor McArthur asked Ms D’Alimonte what her plans were for her music studio during Open Air. Ms D’Alimonte said that she is planning to open the garage door and have live music with an open mic night available at the end of each month.

The delegation was received.

Delegation – Item #15.1 Open Air – Sue Hudson (supplementary agenda)

Ms Hudson delegated next to council. She had a powerpoint presentation on the screen to accompany her presentation. She felt that she had two areas to highlight. She said that she does not have an issue with Open Air but felt that it shouldn’t happen without a review. She noted that there have been many surveys about Open Air. She felt that survey results can be debated and felt that they can be presented to fit a narrative. She had some of the survey results on her powerpoint (I’ll include them all after). She spoke about the motion made March 13 2023 which granted authority to the CAO to handle Open Air and that it would not be part of special events. She felt that for 2025 Open Air that we need to set goals, measure the goals and see if the goals are met in regards to Open Air. She felt that the way Open air 2024 was handled was unclear and disappointing and that council should let us know what the goal is for Open Air.

Councillor Courtney felt that the frequency of Open Air is problematic. He also noted that other towns have BIA’s that fund events with their own money. (Amherstburg does not have a BIA). Councillor Courtney did not like how taxation dollars are being used to fund a festival that happens every weekend. Councillor McArthur called a point of order and asked if there was a question for the delegate since that was what was supposed to be happening. And, no, Councillor Courtney didn’t have an actual question, just commentary. (Side note…..tax dollars fund EVERY SINGLE EVENT in Amherstburg…..the Santa Claus Parade, River Lights, Canada Day, the list goes on and on…..why is it such a problem for some tax dollars to be used for this ONE festival but not the others? That’s my question!)

Councillor McArthur asked Ms Hudson what her favourite part of Open Air is. She said that she likes seeing everyone out there enjoying themselves. She added that she’s not sure of the goal of Open Air and that if we don’t know then it makes it difficult.

(My own personal side note…..do the Canada Day festivities have a goal? Does River Lights have a goal? The Santa Claus Parade? I don’t believe so…..so is a goal necessary for this ONE event but not the others?)

Delegation – Item #15.1 – Open Air – Linda Saxon

Ms Saxon delegated to council via zoom. She shared some statistics regarding disabilities. She shared her concerns regarding accessibility at Open Air.

She received several questions from various council members. Councillor Crain asked which barriers she was referring to. Ms Saxon mentioned physical barriers and attitudinal barriers. Councillor Crain asked if the physical barriers she mentioned were the ones at the end of the street filled with water.

Councillor Pouget asked if Ms Saxon could elaborate about other disabilities. Ms Saxon cited statistics from Statistics Canada and that the largest disabilities are pain related, as well as heart disease, lung disease.

Deputy Mayor Gibb noted that the Accessibility Advisory Committee had reviewed that footprint and did not find any issues but simply to advertise the accessible parking more heavily. Ms Saxon felt that maybe the 7 members of the committee are not representative of various disabilities and she noted that the microphones did not work properly during that meeting so she was unable to hear what was being said.

Councillor McArthur said that he was at the meeting and that there were no delegations. He noted that it was an emergency meeting at council’s request. It was a free flowing conversation and that it was recommended to aggressively advertise the accessible parking and to enforce it.

Finally, the delegation was received.

INFORMATION REPORTS – Report on Open Air

The report about Open Air was bought forward since the delegations were about this item. Here is the link to the report if you ‘d like to read it.

https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14368

As well, here are the various survey results included with the report (I had mentioned earlier that I would share them). Take a long, hard, objective look at them.

Open Air Visitor Survey (813 participants were surveyed)

41% of participants surveyed were visitors from outside of Amherstburg
6% of participants surveyed stayed overnight
99% of visitors surveyed would like to see Open Air Weekends return
Open Air Weekends demonstrated that it appealed to all age groups

Businesses in the Footprint Survey (19 Respondents)

79 % participated in Open Air Weekends
68% benefitted from the Open Air Weekends
68% would sponsor an activity at Open Air Weekends
84% received good or excellent feedback from their customers

Businesses outside of the Footprint Survey (10 Respondents)

20% outside of the footprint have benefitted from the Open Air Weekends
50% liked the Open Air Weekends
60% would sponsor an activity at Open Air Weekends
60% received good or excellent feedback from their customers

Talk the Burg Survey (549 respondents).

89.3% attended Open Air Weekends
77.8% liked the 2023 Open Air Weekends Footprint
83.2% would like to see Open Air Weekends return
74.8% would like Open Air Weekends to return every weekend

(And before I begin to try to summarize what was generally a scattered and chaotic debate, I must take a moment to clear the air. I find it so hypocritical that some members of council have talked about the survey results about Centennial Park and Jack Purdie Park – and they were filled out by about 200 people – as if they were golden. They used the results from those surveys to make decisions to keep affordable housing out and “save the parks”. They didn’t try to satisfy “everybody” by allowing a small portion of land to be sold for affordable housing and use the funds to improve the park did they? Nope. They used the results of a survey filled out by about 200 people to justify keeping affordable housing out. And now, we have a survey that Councillor Allaire asked for in the fall of 2023 that shows that overwhelmingly people love Open Air, they like the footprint, they want it to return every weekend, but it’s being discounted and cast aside by certain members of council? The hypocrisy of that is mind boggling! You can’t have it both ways folks! If the surveys give you what you want, it’s wonderful! And when it doesn’t, we’ll just ignore it and cast it aside? If that isn’t hypocrisy I don’t know what is.)

Councillor Allaire started off the Q&A period asking if the town had a goal for this year for Open Air. (Later in the meeting several other events were approved and not a peep about what the goals were for those events…..weird….) Ms Osborne, Deputy CAO said that Open Air is a tourism driver, that the town has collected statistics and that she had a presentation prepared with specifics for council. Councillor Allaire asked about the cost of Open Air. (Nobody asked about the costs of the events that they would approve later in this agenda. Maybe they’ll ask next time? ) There was some back and forth about the costs and Ms Osborne again mentioned she had a detailed presentation that needed to be walked through.

Finally, there was a motion for Ms Osborne to present her presentation. I wrote and took notes as fast as humanly possible.

As far as the total funding for events goes :

$110 K 2023 Base Budget for Community Events

$ 50K 2024 approved base budget increase

$160K Total Base Budget for Community Events

$ 20K 2024 One Time funding for Community Events

$180K Total funding for 2024

Base budget expenditures for events cover such things as entertainers, tent or stage rentals, port-a-johns, security, display maintenance and installations and other items I could not catch. These items are NOT funded in the base budget : Fireworks for Canada Day and River lights, Community Living Holiday, New Displays for River lights, Storage and Euro Shed, Additional Programming and the Bagpipers.

There were amounts shown for base budget for various festivals, I couldn’t catch them all, but I got some of them….Open Air, about $30,000, River Lights $57,000, Uncommon Festival $28,000, Santa Parade $16,000 and there were a few other events too.

Then, the data got even better….it got broken down by base budget for each community event with an average cost per programmed day. Open Air was the cheapest, although considering it is spread out over more days, that makes sense mathematically. Anyway, Open Air was about $860 per programmed day, Canada Day was $12,000 and the Santa Parade $16,000. Again, there were others but I could only do so much. Ms Osborne noted that the TWEPI Economic Generator formula was used to come to these numbers. She felt that Open Air had a great rate of return and provided economic stimulus. She also spoke about how the funding is one lump sum for community events and there is no risk to reallocate funds if necessary, for example, if one year entertainment costs go down but River Lights require more repairs.

Ms Osborne also pointed out that Murray Street Investment, there are several commercial (historical) buildings being renovated with new uses, such as the first boutique hotel, the Garage Gym is in a newly remodeled building, the old Tim Hortons now has a diner in and that people are spending millions of dollars to remodel and upgrade these buildings.

Councillor McArthur then spoke. He noted that Councillor Allaire had asked for a survey and council endorsed it. In November, council just received the survey and the survey showed that overwhelmingly people love open Air. He pointed out that nobody on council really said anything. (LOL! Of course they didn’t! How do you get a survey result showing people love Open Air, then at the very same meeting, start to make motions to pick it apart? That would likely affect re-election possibilities???? So you wait a few months right? Hope that the people that used their voices to let you know they loved Open Air won’t notice that you’re ignoring them????) He pointed out that council doesn’t tell administration how to organize Canada Day every year, they just do it. He felt that the town and businesses need time to plan things and a consistent environment to operate so that they can plan for staffing, capital investments etc. He wondered how important it was for administration and businesses to have consistency for events.

Ms Osborne said that consistency is essential. At this stage, the town is hiring resources, organizing night marks and day time activities to fill the gaps, since it was found through the surveys that, at times, there are gaps without activity. She said they’ve been auditioning performers. The ability to sell advertising also relies heavily on consistency. She also noted that when they bring forward events they don’t anticipate that that would be the time to discuss whether it’s time to make changes to the Santa Claus parade or if River Lights should start on a particular day. Things are planned way in advance and the time to make changes to summer events would be in the fall, well ahead of time.

Councillor McArthur also spoke of grants that administration was successful in acquiring as well as funding sources and partnerships. He noted that advertising is key and that also funding is sought based on a certain model. He talked about a grant that was about to be submitted requesting $100,000.

Councillor Pouget asked several questions about the money that the events generated. She felt that the figures were inaccurate and that it was “wrong” for her to present them. Ms Osborne said that the TWEPI formula was used and that it is a provincial model used to calculate economic spin off. Councillor Pouget said that it was not “Amherstburg’s model”. (At this point, my jaw was on the floor….unbelievable….) There was a lot more back and forth but I had a hard time keeping up….the level of disrespect being shown to administration had me floored.

Councillor Crain asked about the feasibility of moving the barrier this year to incorporate Flow Cafe and the other businesses on that end of Dalhousie Street. Ms Osborne said it would be tough to have it in place for the first weekend at the end of May, but that it could be possible to move it at some point during the summer, since it requires a lot of logistics to move it.

Councillor Allaire mentioned that Open Air is set for this year but that before Open Air is approved again next year if administration could meet with the businesses and council to “make it work for everyone”. (And boom! It was off to the races…..let’s play both sides here…..and guess what? It’s virtually impossible to make something work for “everyone”.) Ms Osborne said that council would have to give direction to administration to do so.

Councillor Pouget then called a point of order. She claimed that council had never approved a motion. She felt that administration had incorrectly assumed that council was doing it (Open Air). She said that Canada Day comes to council. (Was I one of the only ones in the room that read the report? The motion that was approved by council was in the report with the date and the recorded vote results! ) Deputy Mayor Gibb said that the funds were approved in the budget. Then, wait for it, Councillor Pouget said there was no breakdown in the budget, nowhere did council approve this and what they were doing was illegal. (Pretty wild accusation to throw out there! Was she accusing administration of doing something illegal? Isn’t one of the pillars of the Strategic Plan to improve council / administration relationship? Well she just took a sledgehammer to that pillar…..) The Clerk explained that it was all included in the budget and that council adopts a service level based on the budget. Councillor Pouget then started to get even more argumentative and wanted to be shown the motion. (It was in the report…..) CAO Critchley then spoke that the report was clear. That last year there was a fulsome discussion about Open Air regarding dates and the footprint. (Boy was it ever! Beyond fulsome! That meeting still sticks out in my mind.Not in a good way either. I think that was the meeting that people yelled expletives very loudly.) The motion was made on March 13 2023 and part of it delegated authority to the CAO for street closures etc and that was why it was not a special event. It had the same pattern and footprint. She also noted that the survey was done and council gave no direction other than to send it to the Accessibility Committee (again). (Side note…..of course council wasn’t going to pull the plug in November with overwhelming results of how popular Open Air is…..it’s much better to play the hypocrite and wait a few months right?) CAO Critchley went on that Open Air was in the budget and every year they start to plan. They are already planning River Lights but they don’t bring it all back to council for how long it will run or how every year. The budget was approved and administration started to plan. Nothing illegal took place and nothing went against the Municipal Act. She reiterated that the numbers provided by Ms Osborne were given to them by the province and TWEPI, that the same model was used for each event to keep it all consistent and that there should be no attack on her credibility or professionalism. She was using the number given by the professionals in the industry.

Was that enough to calm things down? No. Councillor Pouget pressed on that she wanted the motion. (The CAO had just told her it was March 13 2023 and it was in the information report that was in the agenda…..). The Clerk found and read the two motions from November where the report was received with the survey results and the second motion sending it to the Accessibility Committee.

Then Councillor Allaire made a motion that at the end of Open Air 2024, that there be a meeting to discuss it with administration, businesses and council, to discuss the footprint, frequency, benefits and the timing. Councillor Courtney seconded it for discussion.

Councillor McArthur said he would not support this sideshow. He felt that council should be listening to our businesses and that there was an item coming up showing that loud and clear. He went on to talk about consultation and the importance. He wanted to deal with the issue at hand, which was the delegation’s request to extend the footprint of Open Air. He felt that Monday night was not the right time for such a motion and that he would not support it that night.

Mayor Prue then spoke and said he had been listening. He agreed that the time was not right for the motion but didn’t think the idea was a bad one. He felt it would be much better to clear the air in the fall and that now was not the time to debate motions that were made or motions that should have been made and weren’t made. (LOL! That did make me chuckle, since a few members of council talk and talk and talk…..and don’t make motions……all talk, no action right?) He noted that administration had already started planning and applying for grants and that if the motion were made in September, he could support it. (Remember that folks, because the Mayor didn’t).

Councillor Crain felt that the motion was premature. He felt that council kept continuing to go down a rabbit hole about Open Air but not for other events and it becomes exhausting. (I wanted to stand up and clap. He was spot on! It is ridiculous, a huge waste of everybody’s time and energy and it is council that is making Open Air a “contentious” issue, nobody else. Well, certain members of council are…..) He also pointed out that not every business will show up for an open mic session or fill out the survey. He felt that it is impossible to get feedback from everyone.And he also said that it will be impossible to please every single business about Open Air and impossible to benefit every single business. (Spot on Councillor! Spot on! Thank you for saying it clearly!)

Councillor Allaire started talking about how businesses are affected inside and outside of the footprint. She felt that she has talked to some pizza parlors that their sales go down during Open Air and then go up later…..Councillor Allaire became somewhat argumentative and started using quotes from various members of council. She felt that council is playing with the livelihood of businesses and then…..she said that for someone to say our town was sleeping 5 years ago was baloney and that our town was vibrant (and the crowd cheered!) (I was absolutely floored again at how rude Councilor Allaire was towards a delegate that now, at this point, did not have the floor anymore, was sitting in the crowd, unable to defend herself. For a member of council to sit there in their big power chair and take a shot at a delegate, a resident, a business owner where they could not reply? While many people cheered? Awful, just awful and frankly, kind of mean….)

Councillor Courtney then said he felt it was the wrong time for this motion, so Councillor Allaire made a motion to postpone her motion indefinitely. (Indefinitely ended up meaning about an hour or two….) That carried.

So we were back to square one of discussing the information report about Open Air.

Councillor Courtney then started talking and talking and talking. He said he would be quick. He felt that Open Air is controversial. He felt that all of our festivals are awesome, the historical ones it seems. He felt that Open Air is now a business model since we use taxation dollars. (What funds does he think pays for the other festivals? Did we win the lottery? Tax dollars pay for the Santa Claus Parade, Canada Day, Uncommon Fest and the list goes on and on…..) Councillor Courtney didn’t like how the funds for festivals were umbrellaed. He felt that Open Air is a festival every weekend for 14 weeks coming from tax dollars. He felt that they needed to look at it with fairness and from a mile high. Councillor Courtney then said that somebody saying we were a sleepy town that he took great offense to that statement. He then went on to say that he’s NEVER seen vacancy signs in our downtown stores. (This made me laugh…..looks like Councillor Courtney must NEVER go downtown I guess…..during budget deliberations he had said the very same thing about no vacancy signs…..Lori Wightman was the guest blogger for that meeting and actually made a little list of vacancy signs she’s seen around town in the past 5 years…..here it is…..Tim Hortons, Elio Del Col gallery (currently sits empty), Insurance company and the storefront next door on Richmond St, the commercial places in the Queen Charlotte have only been filled the last few years, the storefronts on Richmond across from the Garage Gym have all been periodically vacant, the building on the corners of Ramsay and Murray – recently renovated, outside of the downtown core, a new plaza off Fryer Street sits empty, some empty storefronts in the Walmart plaza that have been recently filled, the building across from Canadian tire….So yes, in fact we’ve had our fair share of vacancies the past few years, fortunately several are filling up thanks to massive private investment.) Councillor Courtney felt that we’ve always survived pre Open Air and that it’s not our savior. He felt that if people keep falling on the sword that that’s the only way that Amherstburg can survive then that is a terrible mindset. (There was again, some clapping in the audience…..Effectively, I feel that Councillor Courtney negated all of the positive things that have happened for Amherstburg with Open Air, with his “terrible mindset”…. Open Air breathed new life into our downtown core and continues to grow, develop and thrive in my opinion. If someone thinks that Amherstburg was a sleepy town 5 years ago, they’re entitled to think that without Councillor Courtney lecturing them from his power chair about a “ terrible mindset”. And again, Councillor Courtney also took a shot at a delegate with his words…..unbelievable…..Frankly, if you look at our downtown now compared to 5 years ago, it is night and day, and for the better. In my opinion of course. I hope I don’t have a terrible mindset.)

Councillor McArthur then spoke. He mentioned he had a motion but wanted to address something first. He felt offended that council had taken a shot at a delegate tonight that had openly, honestly and passionately advocated for her business and other businesses in Amherstburg. She had pointed out something blindingly obvious that downtown is booming, that downtown is booming and revitalized to the benefit of everybody in town and in Essex County. He spoke about people coming here spending their money, taking music lessons, buying bikes, soon staying at a boutique hotel. He felt that council had had a business owner come and delegate and that shots were taken at her and that was very unfair. He felt that council should welcome people to come and delegate. He noted that two businesses had delegated that night pleading with them to expand the footprint of Open Air. He made a motion to consult with the businesses on that block to see if they can extend the footprint safely and also enhance signage to allow the businesses to better participate in Open Air. (And there it is folks, ACTION, a motion to make something happen…..rather than talking in circles….how refreshing.)

Councillor Crain wondered if it would be feasible to have a goal to have the new footprint ready before the season started. Ms Osborne said it would likely have to be implemented, if possible, later in the summer.

Councillor Courtney then addressed Councillor McArthur directly, which I thought was not procedurally allowed, but I digress. Councillor Courtney said he would support the motion. He said that grandstanding, showboating, sideshow used on Council, pointing fingers….The Deputy Mayor interjected about what was being said, Councillor Courtney then just spoke louder that “he called me out”. (What did he think he had done to a delegate that sat powerless to respond in the audience? My goodness! Get out a mirror!) Of course,during this heated exchange, the crowd started heckling, talking, speaking out…..Councillor Courtney seemed to give half of an apology to the delegate but it seemed more of a justification of what he had said. When he finished speaking, Councillor Courtney actually said : “But Don, Jesus man”. (I was shocked. The disrespect and rudeness was unbelievable. To address another member of council, then use his first name and disparage him…..I just have no words for the lows that were sunk to…..)

Councillor Pouget spoke at length about council ignoring AODA and that money is being spent on a small group of people. She did not agree to continue with Open Air.

Councillor McArthur’s motion to investigate extending the footprint to include more businesses at the Queen Charlotte as well as increased signage for them went to a recorded vote.

Opposed : Councillor Pouget

In favour : everybody else.

*Spoiler alert….if you think the Open Air discussion was over and had been put to bed, it was not….it would become a repetitive bad dream in another hour or so….**

Delegation – Item # 13.2 – Business Licencing – Sarah Brush

Ms Brush addressed council next about the business licensing bylaw. She noted that she is the owner of Speck’s Restaurant on Bathurst Street. She said that she received a letter about the new business bylaw in the mail on February 15th. The due date for the $350 fee was February 28th. She felt at a loss to understand the necessity of the bylaw and that there had been no communication from the town. She listed off various fees that she has to pay to various organizations for several required inspections. She felt that her business already goes through several routine inspections. Ms Brush asked that council revoke this bylaw or exclude her business from this bylaw.

There were a few questions of the delegate about the various fees that she is required to pay already and what they are for.

Then the delegation was received.

Licensing Committee Appointment 2024-018 & Business Licensing By-law 2024-019

This item was then brought forward.

Councillor Allaire asked if the inspection of the back flow drain was a real thing. The Director of Engineering said that it is a requirement to protect our drinking water. Councillor Allaire noted that council had passed the bylaw unanimously and that she had been confident about it but that now she felt that she had been wrong and apologized. CAO Critchley advised that council can revisit their bylaws at any time. Councillor Allaire asked about the multiple fees, why now and never before? The CAO said that the town has had a licensing bylaw for many years. That it was set up was that a new business needed a license one time when it opened and then never needed a renewal again. Therefore, nothing was ever checked again for any business in town for things like insurance coverage or other things. She also noted that WECHU does not give copies of their inspections to the town so the town is unsure if or when they are done and if they’re done annually. She noted that if council doesn’t want the bylaw, that’s their decision but that a license would be issued to a new business and there would never be any assurance if things have remained in place or changed. She noted that administration was trying to keep the town’s bylaw current.

Councillor Allaire asked another question and while the CAO was speaking, many people out in the hallway started yelling. The Deputy Mayor had to interject. The CAO said that this was a risk management practice to update the bylaw to ensure that things were current. The noise continued from the hallway and the Deputy Mayor had to interject again. He said that if there is to be a discussion, it needs to be a polite discussion since the CAO is giving her rationale, that it’s not to anyone to yell at staff. He said that everyone needed to show respect.

There was a lot more discussion about the business license bylaw but my brain was tired and my fingers are now very tired LOL. If you want to know it all, you’ll need to watch the video.

Ultimately, at the end Councillor Crain made a motion to suspend the bylaw, initiate public consultation, pause the fees and refund any fees that have already been paid.

There was more discussion and finally the motion carried.

It was 8:57 PM and council decided to take a break.

The meeting resumed at 9:05. Deputy Mayor Gibb had to bang the gavel to get some members of council’s attention to return to chambers to continue the meeting. They seemed to be having social time out in the hallway. I’ve been going to council meetings for nine years now….I always find that dynamic very interesting.

The rest of the agenda items flew through for the most part and yes some special events were approved, without any questions about goals, costs or any of that. Strange eh?

NEW BUSINESS

And just when things were rolling along and looked to be wrapping up, a member of council had to just beat the dead horse again.

Councillor Allaire made a motion to pull back her motion about Open Air and to put it back on the table now. (Remember when I said “indefinitely” didn’t last very long?)

Councillor Pouget wondered if council was promoting Open Air 2025 for or against. (I think we all know where she stands at least. No wishy washiness there I guess.) Councillor Allaire said that she wanted to bring her motion back now so that they could look at it together to see what is successful or not before proceeding to 2025 plans for Open Air.

It went to a vote to bring it back on the table now. Indefinitely was over. It passed 4-2 to bring it back…..In favour Mayor Prue, Councillors Courtney, Allaire and Pouget. Opposed were Councillors Crain and McArthur. The Deputy Mayor did not vote since he was chairing the meeting. This wasn’t recorded but I watched.

So, “indefinitely” had come full circle and everybody got back on the Merry Go Round.

Councillor McArthur felt that this was not the right time for the motion. He felt that it was sending mixed messages about Open Air and to the businesses. He felt that council had done this debate every year, that there had just been a survey done that showed overwhelming support of the event. He noted that Open Air is one of the best events around and it is tiring to debate it continuously.

Councillor Courtney felt that council can get “intel” and set some goals or ideas. He wondered why some still can’t see that Open Air is controversial. (Honestly, I think it’s a handful of people and a couple of councillors that make it controversial, but that’s just my opinion. It’s odd how I see so many people downtown every weekend all summer long having a great time and then I hear it’s “controversial”. Maybe I don’t see what I think I see? LOL Nah, I’ve got pictures.)

Councillor Allaire felt that this is a proactive approach to prep and prepare and asked for a recorded vote.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that since it would be a recorded vote and he would be required to vote then he would speak. He felt that this meeting in the fall consisting of admin, businesses and council would solve nothing and will cause more angst and just put the event at risk. He said that he supported what we have now.

Mayor Prue said that he would support it to let staff and council know that we will revisit this item at the appropriate time. He felt that it would cause some grief but that it would galvanize the businesses that want it to come forward. He was hopeful that with enough forewarning that they’ll come forward and the event could be fine tuned and made better.

Councillor McArthur said that his position remains the same. He pointed out that council had galvanized the community with the survey. He noted that 549 people had responded (which is by far the most responded survey that I know of) and that council asked the people what they thought and they told council they love Open Air. He felt unsure that the spirit of the motion was to make the event better or to improve it. (Yup. Agreed. I do not feel that that is the spirit of the motion at all. I think the spirit of the motion is to open up the possibilities to dissect and cut down the frequency and timing of the event, which will make it inconsistent…..and everybody knows for anything to be successful, consistency is key….but I digress…..) Councillor McArthur felt that the survival of Open air shouldn’t hang by a thread and that consistency is vital. He felt that it is a great event and that it has won multiple awards. He also said that he did not want the sword of Damocles hanging over it since that does damage to our town. He again noted that the community had been galvanized, council asked and the community answered. (Funny how that survey was such a high priority to get done and now that the results are in and didn’t line up with what some wanted to see, it’s being discarded. While surveys about Centennial Park and Jack Purdy Park filled out by far fewer people sit encased in gold in town hall. LOL.)

Councillor Crain spoke and said that Open Air is an event. He felt that by council going back at it again, puts grants at risk and sends a message that the event is unstable and up in the air every year. He pointed out that we don’t do this for River Lights (or other events) every year.

Councillor Courtney seemed to get defensive again. He felt that games could be set up in the park and that Open Air benefits some but not others. (See where this is going folks?)

Anyway, the motion was back….to have a meeting after Open Air 2024 is finished with administration, businesses within the footprint and outside the footprint by 500 meters and council to discuss Open Air.

Support: Councillors Allaire, Courtney, Pouget and Mayor Prue

Opposed : Councillors Crain, McArthur and Deputy Mayor Gibb.

There were some more questions about cheques from the cheque registry and other minutia, but my phone was exploding from friends watching at home. So I checked that instead.

The meeting adjourned at 9:44 PM.

It was a very disheartening meeting. The lack of respect shown to staff and even delegates was extremely troublesome.

And to listen to three members of council go after Open Air most of the evening was very disheartening. I know that many of you love Open Air and I know that many of you took the time to fill out the survey that Councillor Allaire wanted. And, well, looks like we all wasted our time.

But don’t worry folks. I’ll rally the troops again in the fall. And you can once AGAIN express how much you like Open Air and how it has become a vibrant event for our community that has created jobs, created fun and a sense of community. I guess the surveys and emails just weren’t enough for some members of council.

And I’ll be back before you know it with the pre-meeting blog for April 9th council meeting. See you then! Have a great week Amherstburg!

March 18, 2024 amherstburg2

In preparation for Monday March 25th Regular town council meeting

Council only has one meeting scheduled for the month of March so it’s been kind of nice to have a break for a while. The agenda came out ten days ahead of time, as per the new procedural bylaw, to allow us all to prepare for the March 25th meeting. The agenda is 543 pages….

First, council will meet in-camera at 4:00 to discuss :

SPECIAL IN-CAMERA MEETING

That Council move into an In-Camera Meeting of Council pursuant to Section 239 of the Municipal Act, 2001, as amended for the following reasons:

Item A – Received Communications from Upper Level of Government

Section 239(2)(f) – advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.
Section 239(2) (h)- information explicitly supplied in confidence to the municipality or local board by Canada, a province or territory or a Crown agency of any of them.

Item B – Information Relating to Security of Information Architecture, Systems and Processes

Section 239 (2)(a) the security of the property of the municipality or local board;
Section 239(2)(b) – personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees.
Section 239(2)(f) – advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Item C – Sale of Disposition of Land – Lease Renewal at Municipal Building

Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board.

There is a 5:00 planning meeting scheduled as well.

The agenda for the 6:00 Regular meeting doesn’t seem to have anything of interest, except for the information report about Open Air. For those of us that love Open Air, you’ll love the report. For the few that don’t like it, well, you probably won’t like the report. So, use your judgment and stop reading this blog if you need to.

For those of you that like to read the agenda in its entirety, here’s the link : https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=4df61d70-0d01-4c9e-9edf-1c8d91fe9e68&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

And if you prefer the PDF format, here it is

https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-03-25-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/c47a87d3-f1c6-40c2-89a5-b1370025baa6

And here’s a little preview of some of the items up for discussion on Monday night!

DELEGATIONS

Delegation – Item #14.1 – Open Air – Dave Doherty

Mr Doherty will address council regarding Open Air. It appears that he will be asking council to make the footprint bigger for the event in order to include Flow Cafe and Bikes / Meal Prep in the footprint.

Delegation – Item #14.1 – Open Air – Bethany D’Alimonte

Ms D’Alimonte will also address council about Open Air. It appears that she is requesting to have the road barriers moved in order to include more businesses into the footprint for Open Air.

Delegation – Item # 13.2 – Business Licencing – Sarah Brush

Ms Brush will be addressing council about the new business licensing bylaw. She feels that the bylaw was passed in December 2023 without any input from the business owners. It appears that she is asking council to revisit this bylaw.

Map and Grow Tree Program

It seems that the Map and Grow Tree program began in 2022 based on a presentation by THRIVE on climate action. It appears the presentation was made to the old council on November 8 2021. The program is structured as a partnership between the University of Windsor and the Town of Amherstburg to give away 200 trees per year to residents. It seems that the residents would then permit the University of Windsor students to track and measure the growth of the trees.

This is from the discussion section of the report and explains the funding : “The Earth Day Map and Grow Tree program meets Amherstburg Strategic Pillar 4 Shape Growth Aligned with Local Identity, #5: Preserve the town’s greenspaces, agricultural lands and natural environment. The Town supports the purchase of the trees and distribution on Earth Day. Up until this year, businesses have provided financial support for the University of Windsor to manage the program. This year, the University expects to have sufficient funding to support the program. Administration recommends that we formally allocate a portion of the current operating budget in parks for tree planting to this program as it provides for another means in which to expand the tree canopy. Monitoring of the success of the program will be done annually, and adjustments to reduce funding for this program may be necessary should there be a requirement for trees in parkland instead. The funding allocated for this project would cover costs to purchase trees and the remainder to support the Universities portion of the program to track them.”

And here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. That Council SUPPORT up to $10,000 from the annual Parks Tree Operating Budget to the Earth Day Map and Grow Tree program.

Proposal for Draft Plan of Condominium: 359 Dalhousie Street – County File No. 37-CD-24002

It seems that a new condo development is going through the planning process. I took a peak at the plans and it looks like it will be a nice-looking building. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. Council ENDORSE the proposed Draft Plan of Condominium for 359 Dalhousie Street; and

2. Council DIRECT Administration to notify the County of Essex that the Town of Amherstburg supports the proposed Draft Plan of Condominium for 359 Dalhousie Street.

Zoning By-law Amendment for the Definition of Supportive Community Home

This item seems to be about the property at 184 Victoria Street South. It seems to need a zoning bylaw amendment in relation to the definition of a supportive community home. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. By-law 2024-016 being a by-law to amend Zoning By-law No. 1999-52, to amend the zoning to update the definition of Supportive Community Home, be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Summary of Site Plan Applications Since December 1, 2023

It looks like council receives a list of site plan applications. It doesn’t look too exciting…..

Request to Consider Initiating Amendments to the Economic Development Community Improvement Plan

It seems that since council already had a Community Improvement Plan, they must follow the planning act in order to make amendments to it. It appears that the area for the CIP would be amended as well as provisions to attract industrial/commercial development and provisions for the town to offer incentives to attract medical offices or urgent care.

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. Administration BE INSTRUCTED to initiate an Official Plan Amendment to amend the Town of Amherstburg Official Plan policies about where Community Improvement Areas may be defined within the Town of Amherstburg;

2. Administration BE INSTRUCTED to initiate the process to amend the Economic Development Community Improvement Plan as approved in By-law 2023-058 for the purposes of:

a. Amending the Economic Development CIP Project Area;

b. Adding new provisions to allow the Town of Amherstburg to offer land as an incentive to attract industrial and commercial development; and

c. Adding new provisions to allow the Town of Amherstburg to offer incentives to attract medical offices and urgent care centres.

2024 Special Events Approval Part II

I love events and it looks like a few are up for approval on Monday night! I think Amherstburg is becoming well known for hosting some fantastic events (Open Air included!) Here’s the list for Monday night :

It is recommended that:

1. The following events BE APPROVED:

a. W.R.A.C.E. – Amherstburg Canada Day Run/Walk/Wheel – July 1, 2024

b. Share the Road – Essex County – Kelly-Ann Way Grand Depart Ride – June 15, 2024

c. Park House Museum – Music Off the Back Porch – May 3, June 7, July 5, August 2, September 6, October 4, 2024

2. An exemption from table number 3-1(2) of Noise By-law #2001-43 with respect to the operation of any electronic device or group of connected electronic devices incorporating one or more loudspeakers to allow for music BE GRANTED for the following events:

a. W.R.A.C.E. – Amherstburg Canada Day Run/Walk/Wheel – July 1, 2024

b. Park House Museum – Music Off the Back Porch – May 3, June 7, July 5, August 2, September 6, October 4, 2024

3. The fee waiver requests BE APPROVED as follows:

a. W.R.A.C.E. – Amherstburg Canada Day Run/Walk/Wheel – July 1, 2024

b. Park House Museum – Music Off the Back Porch – May 3, June 7, July 5, August 2, September 6, October 4, 2024

4. The Special Events Resource Team BE DIRECTED to confirm that the requirements identified by the Team are met prior to the event.

Licensing Committee Appointment 2024-018 & Business Licensing By-law 2024-019

About six months ago, council had directed administration to open applications for the Licensing Committee. It looks like the terms of reference are now prepared and council had previously selected five lay people to sit on this new committee.

The members of this new committee are : Anne Creery, Dan Gemus, David Mazza, Del Oxford and Ryan D’Alimonte.

It looks like everything is in place and all the final details are ready. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. By-law 2024-018 being a By-law to Appoint Members to the Licensing Committee be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same;

2. That the 2022-2026 Committee Terms of Reference BE AMENDED to include the Licensing Committee as noted in the report of March 25, 2024; and

3. By-law 2024-019 being a By-law to regulate business licensing be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Council Meeting Livestreaming and Agenda Software Agreement Extension

It seems that in 2018 the town entered into an agreement for agenda software. A renewal of service is required in 2024 and will commence a new five year term. For those of us that have read agendas for a while, we’ve seen the changes in the format. Instead of just a PDF being available, there is a html format also available. As well, the html format links to the meeting video and allows you to find specific items during the meeting more easily. (Well at least I think so anyway).

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The proposal to extend the agreement for Council Meeting Livestreaming and Agenda Software BE APPROVED;

2. An increase to the 2024 Information Technology Computer Maintenance budget centre not to exceed $8,200.00 (excluding HST) BE AUTHORIZED and Administration BE DIRECTED to fund one-time the 2024 increase from the IT Reserve (20-3-1010000-0060); and,

3. Associated contractual requirements for incremental increases related to the Council Meeting Livestream and Agenda Software Agreement BE AUTHORIZED AND INCORPORATED into future operational budgets for the duration of the contract term.

Current State of Town’s Records Management Program

I found this report fairly interesting about the various records that the town is legally obligated to maintain and store. Here’s the link to the full report for those who may be interested :

https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14382

As it stands, records are kept in a variety of formats. It’s probably not that long ago that Amherstburg had to take out a stone and chisel to create records LOL (Just kidding folks….) It seems that currently there is an electronic records management system as well as archival (physical) records storage. There are several challenges outlined in the report in order to maintain the records safely and in various formats. Here is the recommendation from the report :

It is recommended that:

1. Administration BE DIRECTED to include for consideration in the 2025 budget deliberations a proposal to address resourcing challenges in the Records Management Program of the Town of Amherstburg.

Routine Disclosure and Active Dissemination Policy

It seems that the routine disclosure and active dissemination policy is ready. This policy appears to be about how town hall provides public access to everyday, non-confidential records to the public. It appears that the goal is to provide the information in an easily accessible format, to reduce staff time responding to formal information requests and to provide more accountability and transparency with local government.

It is being recommended to adopt the routine disclosure and active dissemination policy.

INFORMATION REPORTS – Report on Open Air

Sigh. Big heavy sigh. Open Air is on the agenda AGAIN. I guess the multiple surveys that show that people love Open Air and the multiple awards just don’t matter? I just don’t get why some members of council need to rehash Open Air over and over and over again. The report is quite interesting and it gives a history of the various motions and survey results for this term of council. Here’s the link to the report for all of the Open Air lovers to read if you’d like to read it https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=14368

If you don’t like Open Air, I’d suggest you do not read the report and definitely stop reading this blog. You won’t like either one.

The report provides the history of the various motions that council has made and voted on. I particularly enjoyed seeing a synopsis of the survey results that council had asked for last fall in 2023. Here they are :

Open Air Visitor Survey (813 participants were surveyed)

41% of participants surveyed were visitors from outside of Amherstburg
6% of participants surveyed stayed overnight
99% of visitors surveyed would like to see Open Air Weekends return
Open Air Weekends demonstrated that it appealed to all age groups

Businesses in the Footprint Survey (19 Respondents)

79 % participated in Open Air Weekends
68% benefitted from the Open Air Weekends
68% would sponsor an activity at Open Air Weekends
84% received good or excellent feedback from their customers

Businesses outside of the Footprint Survey (10 Respondents)

20% outside of the footprint have benefitted from the Open Air Weekends
50% liked the Open Air Weekends
60% would sponsor an activity at Open Air Weekends
60% received good or excellent feedback from their customers

Talk the Burg Survey (549 respondents).

89.3% attended Open Air Weekends
77.8% liked the 2023 Open Air Weekends Footprint
83.2% would like to see Open Air Weekends return
74.8% would like Open Air Weekends to return every weekend

Take a long hard look at those results. An objective, long hard look. I’ll be listening VERY closely Monday night.

Since it is an information report, it is recommended to receive the report.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Council can inquire about any unfinished business items.

NEW BUSINESS

Council can bring up any new business items. Generally, it seems that small items that affect specific situations are brought up that could’ve been handled outside of a public meeting. It’s almost like this is done for show.

And that’s it folks! Fingers crossed for another efficient and orderly meeting like last time! 🙂 Have a great week everyone!

February 26, 2024 amherstburg2

Monday February 26th Regular town council meeting

Well it was like Christmas and my birthday all wrapped into one big happy moment! LOL (OK, yes, an exaggeration, but still…) Monday night’s meeting was efficient and speedy….it wrapped up in just under one hour!!!

First, council met in-camera at 4:00 to discuss the following :

SPECIAL IN-CAMERA MEETING

That Council move into an In-Camera Meeting of Council pursuant to Section 239 of the Municipal Act, 2001, as amended for the following reasons:

Item A – Agreement of Purchase and Sale for Municipal Property Listed for Sale on Victoria Ave. – Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board.

Item B – Offer Regarding Lease or Sale of Real Property to Town of Amherstburg for Administrative Municipal Service Delivery – Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board.

Item C – Offer Regarding Lease or Sale of Real Property to Town of Amherstburg for Infrastructure Municipal Service Delivery – Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board.

Item D – Update on Belle Vue Expression of Interest – Section 239(2)(c) – a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board; and,

Item E – Liability Assessment Regarding Town Event – Section 239(2)(f) – advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

I decided to go to the 6:00 meeting in-person tonight. When I arrived, Councillor Courtney and Mayor Prue were both on zoom having a conversation. It could be heard in the gallery. It seems that Mayor Prue is on vacation at the moment, I could hear him talking about visiting various islands and ports. At one point Councillor Courtney seemed to think they weren’t being recorded yet, but it seems that they were….You can catch part of the conversation at the beginning of the recording. Deputy Mayor Gibb advised them that the recording had begun.

The meeting was called to order promptly at 6:00. Deputy Mayor Gibb chaired the meeting.

Here is the link to the agenda with the video for those that are interested https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=e4ee50bb-8609-479d-8db1-69d3e7944822&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

And here is the link for the PDF format of the agenda https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-02-26-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/9447c9a5-d6c8-4ce1-9825-b118015e2933

*****Councillor Courtney was on zoom tonight and appeared to be at home***

****Mayor Prue was on zoom tonight and seemed to be on vacation somewhere****

REPORT OUT FROM IN-CAMERA SESSION

For items A, B and C above, it was noted that administration was given verbal direction from council. For items D and E above, it was said that the items were received for information.

Space Needs Study RFP. No 2023-021 Results

A few months ago, council had sent a space needs study out for RFP. This study would evaluate the spatial needs for various town facilities. It seems that the study would evaluate the spatial needs for staffing and operational requirements for each division of town operations, but also keeping in mind future growth. Basically it appears that it will find the best way to address the space needs of each department, how to improve accessibility provisions and to provide public spaces for town business that is accessible and inclusive.

Councillor Crain asked about the second part of the recommendation where it was noted that the amount to be approved could go up to $200,000. He wondered if administration saw the price going that high or if it would be possible that it would be less. Ms Baillargeon, Director of Parks, said that administration had not yet prepared the RFP and that they don’t know as of yet how high the price may be.

There were some questions about where the consulting firms were located. (I’m not sure why that mattered?) Councillor Courtney wondered if the consultants would be looking at the potential growth in Amherstburg as well as looking for efficiencies with our buildings. Ms Baillargeon said that is exactly what they would be doing. They would be looking at all of our spaces (buildings) and to see where consolidations could occur and what makes sense fiscally in terms of our space.

Councillor Pouget asked if the study was just for buildings but did not include parks. Ms Baillargeon confirmed that the study was only for facility buildings.

There was a motion made to approve the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Jones Land LaSalle Real Estate Services Inc. (Hunter Facilities Management Inc.) also known as JLL., in the amount of $138,885 plus HST, being funded as outlined in the financial matters section, for services outlined in their proposal documents, subject to approval of content by the Director of Parks, Facilities and Recreation and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer; and,

2. The Chief Administrative Officer, or designate, BE AUTHORIZED to amend the agreement with Jones Land LaSalle Real Estate Services Inc. (Hunter Facilities Management Inc.) also known as JLL. if required to expand the scope of the work plan, provided such additional services remain within the total project funding of $200,000 inclusive of HST and subject to approval of content by the Director of Parks, Facilities and Recreation and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer.

The motion passed.

Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum Building Expansion

It appears that the town received a letter from the Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum. They appear to be in the process of putting on an addition to the Steam Building. There seems to be no cost to the Town of Amherstburg (nor the Town of Essex – both municipalities own that park), since it is being paid for by the museum itself. However, it seems that the Museum corresponded with the Town of Essex; a letter of support is needed from the town of Amherstburg to support the expansion.

Councillor Crained asked if the Co-An Park Committee had endorsed the project and been asked for feedback. Ms Baillargeon confirmed that yes, they did endorse the project and the town is working with them.

It was confirmed that there was no cost to the Town of Amherstburg for this building expansion.

The motion was made for the staff recommendation by Councillor Allaire and seconded by Councillor McArthur:

It is recommended that:

1. The letter dated February 12, 2024 from the Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum regarding the request to construct an addition to the existing Museum structure within Co-An Park, BE RECEIVED;

2. Conditional approval BE GIVEN to proceed with the location and building addition to the existing Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum building for display space and storage of show equipment, subject to a due diligence process ensuring conformity with and subject to Administrative review and approval of all required permits and drawings by both the Town of Essex and The Town of Amherstburg, as appropriate; and,

3. Authority BE GRANTED to the Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk to negotiate, sign and execute any modifications to agreements with the Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum that govern their use of lands within Co-An Park, satisfactory in form to the Chief Financial Officer, in technical content to the Director of Parks, Facilities, Recreation and Culture, and in legal content to the Chief Administrative Officer, in collaboration with, and subject to the approval of the Town of Essex, and, in consultation with the Co-An Park Board.

The motion carried.

McGregor Lagoon Expansion – Environmental Assessment – Request for Proposal Results

In October, council authorized a RFP for the McGregor Lagoon Expansion, for an environmental assessment. There was only a very small amount of discussion on this item and then the motion was made :

It is recommended that:

1. The Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Stantec Consulting Ltd., in the amount of $245,327.48 plus HST, being funded as outlined in the financial matters section, for services outlined in their proposal documents, subject to approval of content by the Director of Infrastructure Services, to legal content by the Chief Administrative Officer and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer; and,

2. The Chief Administrative Officer, or designate, BE AUTHORIZED to amend the agreement with Stantec Consulting Ltd. if required to expand the scope of the work plan, provided such additional services remain within the total project funding of $350,000 inclusive of HST and subject to approval of content by the Director of Infrastructure Services, to legal content by the Chief Administrative Officer and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer.

The motion carried.

Park Street Storm Sewer Outlet Relocation – Upsizing Costs

Well, the minute that anything remotely having to do with Boblo Island on the agenda, the discussion must rage on and on…..here’s some background :

It seems that there is currently some site servicing work happening in relation to the new ferry dock for Boblo Island. It appears that the developer had approached the town and was requesting to relocate the Park Street municipal storm sewer outlet that currently runs through the property. The developer was paying for all of the relocation work. Once the developer approached the town, the Infrastructure Services department wanted a design engineer to provide analysis to see if there would be a benefit to upgrade the existing sewer to provide improved services in that area.

It seems that by upsizing the relocated piping, that it would provide an immediate level of service upgrade but that also it would put the town in a better position to improve the level of service with future projects.

Councillor Pouget wondered if the extra expenditure would affect capital funding for other projects since this project wasn’t on the town’s radar prior to this report. Ms Giofu, Director of Engineering said it was correct that this project wasn’t on the town’s radar. She explained that all of the work was being done by Amico and paid for by Amico. When the town saw the work that Amico was going to be doing, they looked at the benefits of upsizing the town’s pipes but that the budget process was already proceeding. She felt that it would be a benefit to proceed with the new pipes now since if it were to be done in a few years it would cost over $1 Million to do the work. This project was only costing us the price of the pipe, Amico is doing all of the work at their cost.

Mr Hewitt, Manager of Infrastructure said that Amico had started planning the work in August but administration wasn’t sure about the work being done until December and the project wasn’t ready for the budget process, since it was too late. He felt that this is a great project that would benefit many since there is a large area that drains into this pipe that extends up to the new High School. He reiterated that this was an opportunity to do the work at a much lower cost than if the town were to do it themselves at a later date.

Councillor Pouget wondered how the $300,000 cost would affect future capital projects in the next 5 years. Ms Osborne, Director of Corporate Services explained that another project had come in significantly under budget and that OCIF funding had been returned into the reserve. While OCIF funding can never be guaranteed or known, $275,000 had been returned so this covered almost the entire $300,000 expense to upgrade the pipe.

Mr Hewitt explained that the pipe was for a large catchment area. There were several questions back and forth between Councillor Courtney and Mr Hewitt. Basically, in a nutshell, if council did nothing, the same size pipe would be installed and would maintain the level of service. If council approved the project, they would improve the level of service by having a larger drain pipe installed.

Finally, Councillor Allaire made a motion for the administrative recommendation and Councillor Drain seconded it.

It is recommended that:

1. Approval BE GIVEN for immediate use $300,000 in funding for the Park Street Storm Sewer Outlet Upsizing with $300,000 to be funded from the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF); and,

2. The Chief Administrative Officer and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute an agreement with Boblo Island Development for the costs related to the upsizing, subject to approval of content by the Director of Infrastructure Services and to financial content by the Director of Corporate Services/Chief Financial Officer.

The motion carried.

Amendments to ERCA Non-Mandatory Cost Apportioning Agreement

Councillor Courtney made the motion for the administrative recommendation right away. Councillor Allaire seconded it.

It is recommended that:

1. The report from the CAO entitled “Amendments to ERCA Non-Mandatory Cost Apportioning Agreement” and dated February 12, 2024, (the “Report”), BE RECEIVED;

2. Direction BE GIVEN to Administration to continue to participate in ERCA’s Land Acquisition Fund for 2024; and,

3. The CAO and Municipal Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign an Amended Funding Agreement with ERCA for contribution for non-mandatory ERCA programs as set out in the Report, satisfactory as to legal form and content to the CAO, and financial and technical content to the CFO/Treasurer.

Councillor Crain asked some questions regarding the conclusion of the report where it was outlined that the City of Windsor and the Town of Tecumseh had opted out of paying into the ERCA fund. He wondered what the downside of doing what the two areas had done would be for Amherstburg. CAO Critchley explained that the decision is at the discretion of council. She felt that the two other municipalities were waiting for more information to evaluate the program. She felt that the town would have to look at each project individually if we were not to participate.

Councillor Crain asked what would happen to the money if we paid into the fund but if it weren’t spent. CAO Critchley said it would stay in the fund. Councillor Crain expressed some concern if funds were not unutilized and what would happen to that money.

Mayor Prue felt that the program has worked well for 5 years. He felt that the rationale to stay in the program for this was good and that council could reevaluate later. He noted that all areas of the County have used funds for river or stream improvements or woodlot work. He felt he would rather stay in the program than opt out of it.

Councillor Courtney then explained that he sits on the ERCA Board. He noted that it stands for Essex Region Conservation Association, with the key word being Region. He made some type of comment about the “brainiacs” down the road and that when Windsor bowed out of the program it threw a wrench in the program. Councillor Courtney then seemed to address Councillor Crain directly, which I’ve noticed him to do before. I don’t believe members of council are supposed to address each other directly….it’s odd. Councillor Courtney then spoke about if ERCA wanted to make a real estate deal that money would be in the reserve to do so. He pointed out that ERCA owns land in different municipalities that often cross from one municipality to another. He felt that the concept for regional projects to work is that everyone buys in. (And it struck me…..Councillor Courtney opposed regionalizing our waste collection last year, but was full steam ahead for a regional approach to conserving the environment….struck me as pretty contradictory…..but I digress…maybe it’s because he’s on the ERCA board but not the Solid Waste Authority? I dunno…..)

Councillor Pouget expressed her support. She asked if County Council had taken a stand on this issue. Deputy Mayor Gibb did not believe it had been discussed at County Council. Mayor Prue did not recall that it had been discussed either but he noted he did not attend the last County Council meeting, that Councillor Pouget had attended in his absence. Councillor Courtney felt that the County did not have a purview with ERCA and that they do not contribute funds to them. Each municipality contributes funds individually.

Councillor McArthur said that he would support the program with ERCA. He felt that it was disheartening when municipalities pick and chose regional programs. He noted that watersheds do not respect municipal boundaries. He felt that what is good for one is good for all.

The motion then went to a vote and it carried.

Council Compensation Policy and Associated Matters

Council’s pay has not been evaluated or adjusted for many years. It appears that administration is recommending that the pay for members of council be evaluated. As well, it seems that they want to separate Council compensation and the Travel/Business expense into two separate policies to make it clearer.

It is also recommended that once the information comes forward, any changes would be put in place for the 2026 term of council. That way the current council isn’t deciding on their own pay for this term and the new 2026 council wouldn’t have to decide on theirs. Here are the recommendations :

It is recommended that:

1. The proposed amendment to the Council Compensation Policy BE ADOPTED as noted in the report of February 12, 2024;

2. An over-expenditure to the appropriate account in the amount of $9,503.02 BE AUTHORIZED to equalize compensation to all Council Members on a retroactive basis to the start of the term of this Council;

3. Administration BE AUTHORIZED to engage a consultant to perform a Council Salary Market Compensation Review to be funded from the Clerk’s Professional Fees;

4. Recommendations for any change in Council Compensation as a part of the Council Salary Market Compensation Review TAKE EFFECT for the 2026 Term of Council and BE INCORPORATED into the budget for that period;

5. Administration BE DIRECTED to utilize the Travel and Business Expense Policy with regards to Travel and Business Expenses incurred by Members of Council; and,

6. Administration BE DIRECTED to bring back amendments to the Travel and Business Expense Policy for future consideration by Council.

Councillor Crain wanted it clarified and on the record that the compensation matter would be in place for the next council and would not be for this term of council.

The Clerk, Mr Fox, explained that yes, the recommendation was for the next term of council but that one part of the recommendation had to do with retroactive pay for those that are collecting pensions and can’t contribute to OMERS. Councillor Pouget asked if that were her. CAO Critchley said that it applies to anyone that is on council and is over age 71. Councillor Pouget said that she hadn’t contacted the Integrity Commissioner. Mayor Prue said that he also had not contacted the Integrity Commissioner since he felt that there wasn’t a need to do so. He felt that all councils set their wages since no other body can do so and that is part of their role as members of council.

The motion was made (as noted above) and it carried.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Councillor Allaire asked about when the price would be ready for the third hard surface court. (When council approved the two hard surfaces for pickleball, they had requested a price for a third surface to be done at the same time, for some efficiency.) Ms Baillargeon said that once the project was tendered, she would come back with actual numbers and a report.

NEW BUSINESS

Mayor Prue said that he had received a memo yesterday from the Chamber of Commerce asking for $500, like last year, to sponsor an award. He made a motion to donate $500 to the Chamber of Commerce to sponsor an award. (Since he wasn’t chairing the meeting, he could make a motion if anyone is confused about that.) The Clerk clarified which award would be sponsored. Then Councillor Courtney said something along the lines that he thought that Councillor Crain would do this because he’s “notorious” for this and asked where the funding would come from. (I couldn’t help but notice some members of council smiled or laughed at this and some people in the gallery laughed too…..I’m not sure if Councillor Courtney thought he was being funny but it kind of came across as mocking Councillor Crain. I noticed that many were laughing, but Councillor Crain wasn’t…..it sort of became a situation of people laughing at somebody, not with them…..it was awkward….And I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but later when I checked my phone, I had a few friends that had texted me since they were watching from home – I guess they have nothing better to do? -…..and they felt that Councillor Courtney’s remarks were unwarranted.)

Councillor Pouget asked about the business bylaw that council had passed last year since council had been receiving complaints about it. CAO Critchley explained that they had always licensed business but had reduced it to 22 classes of business. In Amherstburg, until now, there were no renewals once a business license was issued. She used the example that 10 years could go by, things could change within a business but the town would be unaware. She noted that inspections would now be done annually and that renewals for various types of businesses were staggered throughout the year.

Councillor Pouget noted that she had voted for the bylaw and thought it was reasonable. She asked if the town had let the public and the business owners know. CAO Critchley said that the item was on the public agenda and that they were currently doing public education. She also noted that the Municipal Act is clear that the town can not profit from business license fees that it was only to be used for cost recovery. She noted that in some cases it’s not even cost recovery, it’s a loss.

Deputy Mayor Gibb said that he was not aware that businesses could need multiple licenses and could have three times the cost. CAO Critchley said that when they are doing inspections, they would be looking at different things. For example, if a business is a gas station and preparing food, it would be two licenses with two different inspections. She noted that if council wants to reevaluate the bylaw next year they could do so.

And suddenly it was time for bylaw approvals…..and at 6:56 PM the meeting adjourned. I’m having flashbacks to the “good old days” where I used to type up the blog right after the meeting. It seems like a distant memory yet here I am…..typing up the blog the same night as the meeting! And the added bonus? There isn’t another council meeting now until the end of March! It really is like Christmas and my birthday all wrapped up into one present! LOL!!!

Anyway, that’s it folks! I’ll see you in a few weeks! Thanks for reading! And I just realized I forgot to put the warning at the beginning not to read this blog….oh well. You read it. Even if you shouldn’t have.

February 20, 2024 amherstburg2

In preparation for Monday February 26th Regular town council meeting

The agenda came out 10 days in advance, as per the new procedural bylaw. The agenda for Monday night looks fairly light!

The agenda is a very light 160 pages, so there is hope that this could be an efficient meeting perhaps? Here’s the link https://calendar.amherstburg.ca/council/Detail/2024-02-26-1800-Regular-Council-Meeting/9447c9a5-d6c8-4ce1-9825-b118015e2933

Or if you prefer not to scroll through the entire PDF, here’s the link for the HTML agenda link https://pub-amherstburg.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=e4ee50bb-8609-479d-8db1-69d3e7944822&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English

Here are the highlights of the meeting :

Space Needs Study RFP. No 2023-021 Results

This is from the background portion of the report and sums it all up quite well : “The Town advertised a Request for Proposal (RFP) online for the Space Needs Study RFP No. 2023-021 on December 15, 2023 via Bids and Tenders and on the Town’s website. The RFP requested proposals from firms that could provide the Town with a team of professionals to prepare a study and report for the Town’s Space Needs. The study is inclusive of all Town departments spatial needs for administrative staffing and operational requirements of each division, keeping in mind future growth. The primary goal of the Spaces Needs Study is to determine the best way in which to address the space needs of each department and to provide a public space for the conduct of official Town business that is inclusive and accessible. The team will collectively possess the necessary experience and knowledge in their respective professional fields (i.e. planning, design, facility condition analysis, engineering, land use planning and stakeholder engagement), and have a “proven track record” of preparing technically sound and fiscally responsible municipal Space Needs studies.”

The results of the RFP are now in and here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum Building Expansion

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The letter dated February 12, 2024 from the Essex County Steam and Gas Engine Museum regarding the request to construct an addition to the existing Museum structure within Co-An Park, BE RECEIVED;

McGregor Lagoon Expansion – Environmental Assessment – Request for Proposal Results

In October, council authorized a RFP for the McGregor Lagoon Expansion, for an environmental assessment. The prices are in and here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

Park Street Storm Sewer Outlet Relocation – Upsizing Costs

Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. Approval BE GIVEN for immediate use $300,000 in funding for the Park Street Storm Sewer Outlet Upsizing with $300,000 to be funded from the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF); and,

Zoning By-law Amendment for 25 Renaud Street

It looks like the town has received a zoning bylaw amendment application from a storage company. It seems that everything meets the criteria as per the planning act. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. By-law 2024-008 being a by-law to amend Zoning By-law No. 1999-52, to amend the zoning for the subject lands located at 25 Renaud Street, be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Zoning By-law Amendment for Part of 160 McLeod Avenue

Another zoning bylaw amendment request. This one appears to be about severing a lot to create another building lot. Again, it seems to meet all of the criteria. Here’s the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. By-law 2024-007 being a by-law to amend Zoning By-law No. 1999-52, to amend the zoning for the subject lands which are part of 160 McLeod Avenue, be taken as having been read three times and finally passed and the Mayor and Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to sign same.

Amendments to ERCA Non-Mandatory Cost Apportioning Agreement

From the background portion of the report : “On November 13, 2023, Council received a presentation from Tim Byrne, Executive Director of the Essex Region Conservation Authority, “ERCA”, regarding the new arrangements for non-mandatory programs and services and the need for a separate agreement with the member municipalities to cost share in these items pursuant to the MVCA method of cost apportionment. Accordingly, Council approved the proposed Agreement which provided authority for a funding contribution from the Town for non mandatory ERCA programs and services.”

The report goes on to explain the reasons that administration is recommending that the Town of Amherstburg continue to participate. Here is the recommendation :

It is recommended that:

1. The report from the CAO entitled “Amendments to ERCA Non-Mandatory Cost Apportioning Agreement” and dated February 12, 2024, (the “Report”), BE RECEIVED;

2. Direction BE GIVEN to Administration to continue to participate in ERCA’s Land Acquisition Fund for 2024; and,

Council Compensation Policy and Associated Matters

It is recommended that:

1. The proposed amendment to the Council Compensation Policy BE ADOPTED as noted in the report of February 12, 2024;

3. Administration BE AUTHORIZED to engage a consultant to perform a Council Salary Market Compensation Review to be funded from the Clerk’s Professional Fees;

5. Administration BE DIRECTED to utilize the Travel and Business Expense Policy with regards to Travel and Business Expenses incurred by Members of Council; and,

6. Administration BE DIRECTED to bring back amendments to the Travel and Business Expense Policy for future consideration by Council.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Council can ask about any of the unfinished business items on the list.

NEW BUSINESS

And the jackpot where the lucky winners that sent emails or made phone calls get mentioned and asked about publicly. Bear in mind not ALL of the emails or ALL of the phone calls will get mentioned or asked about…..only those that meet some random, unknown criteria it seems….perhaps it’s in proportion to how much certain members of council agree with the email? It seems that they are usually items that could have been looked into sooner and behind the scenes rather than being a public show, but who knows…..maybe Monday night will be different?

Have a great week Amherstburg! Saturday is the Coldest Night of the Year fundraiser walk! Hope to see people out and about walking and enjoying our downtown! 🙂

I’ll be back sometime after Monday night’s meeting with a summary!

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