Well, tonight’s meeting wrapped up just before 8:30….tonight was the first official live streaming of town council meetings….I am curious…..was anybody watching??? If so, did you watch all of it or just some of it???
**Mayor DiCarlo was absent tonight**
Deputy Mayor Meloche explained that tonight’s meeting would be live streamed. The meeting will also be available later to watch on the town’s website. I know they post the audio recordings of old meetings (I’ve gone back at times to check things), so this will be a nice addition to help refresh memories.
Long Service Award Recognition
Ross Sinasac, a 35 year employee of the Town of Amherstburg was recognized tonight for his devoted service to our town. There was a very nice speech made about him and his work ethic, outlining his career with the town. He received his award and then went for a quick photo with the Deputy Mayor. Congratulations!
DELEGATIONS
Active Transportation within the Town of Amherstburg – The Cozmic Queenz
This robotics team of young girls presented to council. Their group was tasked with a real world project to make our community a better place. They discovered that Amherstburg has a lack of bicycle parking. They invented a bike parking system that can accept a variety of bike sizes and also has a locker for storing personal belongings and a helmet. It also seems to have a locking system for the bike that is incorporated into the locker and locks both the bike and belongings at the same time. The team asked that the town consider this style of bike parking when purchasing equipment for the town. They spoke with businesses and met with the Director of Parks and Recreation as well as Councillor Simone.
All of the members of council thanked the young girls for their presentation and added some additional comments. Councillor Prue felt that a lot of towns are looking at scooters, especially in larger cities and wanted a report about scooters for Amherstburg. At the end, Councillor Prue introduced a two part motion to send this presentation to other surrounding municipalities as well as for administration to look at the long term use of scooters in our community.
Refreshment Vehicle By-law Amendments and Operation on Town-owned Parkland
This report stems back to a couple of requests for exemptions for food trucks. The current bylaw does not allow food trucks to operate within 200 meters of a restaurant. There have been a couple of requests (sometimes with exemptions granted) which prompted the report. It seems that administration held two public consultation meetings, asked local restaurants for feedback and also looked at bylaws in the surrounding municipalities.
As soon as this item came before council, Councillor Prue had questions for staff and started citing page numbers. He seemed to be questioning why Leamington had a setback for food trucks of 91 meters, Windsor has 30 meters and other municipalities have no regulations. (Which made me wonder…..why did Amherstburg have a 200 meter setback? That’s more than double any other areas?)
Ms Rublie, Manager of Licensing explained that there was public consultation that was held and businesses were notified by mail. It seems that only 4 businesses came to the meeting and 2 of them were against the new proposed bylaw.
These were the changes proposed :
- No distance setback requirement to operate from restaurants, snack bars or other refreshment vehicles, except in the event that applicable setbacks are required pursuant to the Ontario Building Code and Fire Protection and Prevention Act.
- Approval is required from the health unit, Fire Services and from the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA).
- A distance setback of 100 meters from a Public Event is required unless the event organizer has approved the Refreshment Vehicle as a vendor at the Public
Event. - Refreshment vehicles will not be permitted to operate in a residential zone.
- Setback requirements from intersections and driveways to manage traffic concerns.
- May operate between 7am-11pm.
- May only operate a Refreshment Vehicle on property owned or managed by the
Town, if the Refreshment Vehicle has been awarded the rights to operate at that
location by the Town. - In addition, amendment to the annual fee is recommended as follows:
- Annual licence fee increase to $204.
The sticking point in all of these changes ended up being the “A distance setback of 100 meters from a Public Event is required unless the event organizer has approved the Refreshment Vehicle as a vendor at the Public Event.”
There was discussion about the lottery system, but the sticking point ended up being that the food trucks would have to have a setback of 100 meters during a public event, unless they had approval from the event organizer. The example of the Rotary Rib Fest was used that this bylaw would prevent a food truck from setting up next to their event, that they would be subject to the setback rule just for that day, during the event. The rules of order were waived to allow Bill Deslippe to speak.
Mr Deslippe owns the Perch Pit which was granted an exemption in August of last year. He had sought bylaw relief from the 200 meter rule and council had given it to him about 6 months ago. He felt he had would be grandfathered against any future bylaws and setbacks. That seemed not to be the case. It was explained that he would need to seek permission to operate if an event were held in the Kings Navy Yard Park, which would put him within 100 meters, since that was a provision in the new bylaw. Then, one of the owners of the Waterfront Ice Cream spoke as well. (I believe they own the property where the Perch Pit will operate.) She wondered if the would have to ask permission, for example, to operate during the Gone Car Crazy event. The CAO explained that that is a town event and they would have to ask permission, however, it wouldn’t be a problem. He was citing a concern more if someone other than the town were to decide to run an event downtown.
Ms Rubli suggested to council that they could remove the portion about the 100 meter setback and seeking permission…..and then the flood gates opened. There was more back and forth. Should they remove this line item? Shouldn’t they? (If you’re really interested in hearing and now seeing it all…..go check the recording on the town’s website. Or if you’re a Coles Notes kind of person, keep reading.)
Ultimately, the motion was put forth with no amendments, which included the requesting permission during a public event if the food truck was within 100 meters. It wasn’t a recorded vote, but I watched :
Support : Councillor Prue and Councillor Simone
Opposed : Councillors Courtney, McArthur and Renaud
Then Councillor McArthur made a new motion to pass the bylaw without that one clause regarding the 100 meter set back……Councillor Prue then called a point of order, that it was not legal to just make the same motion with a small change after a motion had been defeated. There was much back and forth….the Clerk said that anyone who voted against the motion, therefore on the prevailing side would have to make a motion to revisit the motion…..then there was arguing about that……more back and forth…..finally, Councillor Prue made a motion to reopen the motion, remove the 100 meter setback rule during events but review all complaints before year end…..then this carried. Phew! I hope you were able to follow that! If not, go check the video. 🙂
(This live feed thing is kind of liberating……just sayin’. )
Zoning By-Law Amendment- ES Creek Road (Conc 3 Pt Lot 32)
This looks to be a zoning amendment for a property to sever a dwelling which is surplus to the needs of the farming operation. It seems that all notice and consultations were done and that the owner is bearing the costs of this amendment. There were a couple of questions but ultimately this passed very quickly.
Kingsbridge Subdivision Phase 5G – Subdivision Agreement File No. 37-T-13003
This passed with no discussion.
Road Dedication of Reserves for lots on Plan 12M-534 (easterly extension of Whelan Avenue, Hilton Court, and Lambert Street) as Public Highway
Again, this passed with no discussion.
Kingsbridge Subdivision Parkland Conveyance
This item had quite a bit of discussion. It seems that there is some money being donated as well as some money being put into parks reserves in regards to the Pat Thrasher Park in the Kingsbridge subdivision. It seems that the town would be required to do two rough cuts on this property. (I’m not sure what that means…sorry) Ultimately Councillor McArthur made a motion to use the $20,000 donation and approximately $60,000 into the parkland reserve to dedicate it back to Kingsbridge area for their park. Councillor Simone pointed out that the area is very developed with a lot of families and that the park is in need of repairs.
New Business
There were a few items brought up under new business, but two of them stood out.
New High School
Councillor Courtney said that he has fielded concerns regarding the new high school. Things such as the loss of the third gym, loss of a mechanical shop, lockers, grass and other things had been brought forward and he wondered if it were possible to just keep the old school. (Um……that ship has sailed……about 4 years ago now…..)
Councillor McArthur made a motion for council to write a letter to the Premier, Doug Ford to increase the budget to get the new school done right. He also added the Education Minister and the Public School Board as well to put pressure on the government to do this right. Councillor Courtney wondered what say the town had. The CAO felt that the letter writing campaign was a good idea and said that the jurisdiction about the school was not the town’s. Suggestions were made to include the local trustee as well as our local MPP. Councillor Courtney wondered if the town should organize a petition but Councillor Prue felt it was much better for the MPP to do that since the school is not in the town’s jurisdiction of power.
So, the town will send emails to all of the above mentioned people and it was suggested that residents do the same. Councillor McArthur was reading off email addresses if anyone wants to go back and watch the live feed. (Or send him an email, I’m sure he’d send you the email addresses that you would need.)
Libro Master Plan
Councillor Simone brought up the Libro Master Plan which was recently shared with the public at a public consultation meeting. She said she had heard some concerns about some structures that would be remaining on the property. Councillor McArthur felt that the town shouldn’t drag it out and that we should commit to tearing the buildings down now, not to mention the name and that it was not healthy for the community to relive this. Mr Roberts, Director of Parks and Recreation admitted that this is a very sensitive subject. One driving goal behind the plan was to use existing structures were possible in order to create a parks yard or maintenance yard. The plan was that that would take place in the former farm buildings. However, the intention was not to prolong the pain of the community, that there is a budget and that new pole barns could be built similar to what is there. He was hoping to bring the issue up tomorrow at a senior management meeting and bring a recommendation to council. He knew that the immediate reaction was to get rid of the buildings. He said this issue would be taken with utmost seriousness and that the buildings were not “just buildings”.
CAO Miceli then spoke and explained that the public consultation process had started and the community had spoken. He said no recommendation was made but that they will amend the plans. They heard from the residents and from council. The CAO said that the buildings will not be included, that this is a change flushed out by the process of public consultation and that the town will move forward with demolition.
And with that, council prepared to move in-camera to discuss :
SPECIAL IN-CAMERA COUNCIL MEETING
That Council move into an In-Camera Meeting of Council directly following
Regular session pursuant to Section 239 of the Municipal Act, 2001, as
amended, for the following reason:
Item A – Acquisition and Disposition of Property – Section 239(2)(c) – A proposed
or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board;
and, Section 239(2)(i) – A trade secret or scientific, technical, commercial,
financial or labour relations information, supplied in confidence to the
municipality or local board, which, if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to
prejudice significantly the competitive position, or interfere significantly with the
contractual or other negotiations of a person, group of persons, or organization.
The meeting wrapped up just before 8:30……I am curious to hear if anybody tried the live stream option…..send me a message or a text if you did….I’d love to hear your thoughts! With that, I’ll see you in two weeks Amherstburg! 🙂
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