STAFF REPORT: CAO UPDATE

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated February 4, 2025 from the Chief Administrative Officer titled “CAO Update” be received for information.

PURPOSE OF REPORT:

To provide Council with information regarding material events and happenings at Town Hall.

BACKGROUND:

The Administrator’s report for the Committee of the Whole meeting to apprise Council of the highlights of significant activities of the Town.

INFORMATION:

Office of the CAO:

The proposed Westshore RCMP Detachment Expansion project continues, with a meeting held between View Royal, Langford, and Colwood and the CRD to discuss establishing a sub-regional service to fund the expansion.

The CAO spent two full days in the “Big Room” with the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) team of architects and engineers, working on the validation phase of the project. A decision on whether to proceed with the detachment expansion based on the validation work is expected in the summer of 2025.

The CAO spent time coordinating with South Island municipalities facing the downloading of 911 costs from the Provincial and Federal government. Although the increase to 911 service has been budgeted for, the South Island communities are questioning why 40 other municipalities do not have to pay for 911, why the Province has not set up a cell phone levy as in other Canadian jurisdictions, and how they can have input into the E-Comm governance model.

The Town of View Royal hosted the Local Area Administrators’ (LAA) Lunch Meeting, with many of the CAOs from throughout the CRD attending. The following week a lunch meeting with the CAO from Langford was held to welcome Jason Johnson, the new CAO for the City of Colwood.

Corporate Administration:

Front counter staff have been busy with renewals for Secondary Suite Type 2’s, business licences and dog licences.

January saw three large changes on the communications front:

Firstly, the Town’s monthly e-newsletter was relaunched with a new format as “Inside View Royal” (January 2025 TVR Newsletter).

Secondly, as described in the January 2025 “CAO Update”, the Town entered into an agreement with Social PinPoint in November 2024 to use their digital engagement tool. “Engage View Royal” launched in January 2025 as anticipated and is the platform the Town will now be able to use to enhance community participation on various projects and initiatives (Home | Engage View Royal).

Projects listed on the platform at this time include:

Thirdly, in response to a request by the Mayor, staff activated the Town’s BlueSky account (Town of View Royal (@townofviewroyal.bsky.social) — Bluesky) and stopped posting on X (formerly Twitter) effective January 31. Followers were directed to BlueSky and the “What’s New” posting encouraged people to stay connected, listing the Town’s other communication channels.

A grade four class from Eagle View Elementary School visited Town Hall for a tour in mid-January as part of their studies into the three levels of government in Canada. They learned about the role of local government in British Columbia, elections, the decision-making process, and discussed various career opportunities. The students saw some historical photos of students in the View Royal community taken between 1912 and the 1950s and also saw images depicting the changes to Eagle View Elementary School’s entrance over time. To cap off the tour, the class learned about the work undertaken by the Parks Department and ate lunch in Portage Park before heading to the legislature for an afternoon tour.

Planning has started for 2025 Archives projects including native plant species mapping, development of a View Royal timeline, and more “Auntie Archives” outreach. With respect to the native plant species mapping initiative, this work stems from a growing community interest for local environmental and ecological information. The project is spearheaded by a View Royal student who not only regularly volunteers with the Town’s habitat restoration work, but has now also taken on volunteering in the Archives to research and map native plant species in Portage Park.

The Archives floorplan has been revised to allow for an ergonomic desk for staff, which has also provided for more space for volunteers, researchers, and the installation of a display wall to showcase materials from the Town’s collections.

In Records, the annual file rollover is underway. New 2025 folders are being processed with older files being cycled into storage or queued for compliant and secure destruction, avoiding the costs of offsite storage. The RFP described in the October and November 2024 “CAO Updates" has been issued for the records information management project as described in Project Summary C-004. The successful proponent will work with project staff to build the Town’s records program within the Microsoft 365 environment.

Finance & Information Technology:

Finance staff have been working toward preparation of the draft 2025-2029 Financial Plan for Council consideration while also being focused on preparing the 2024 financial statements before the year-end audit scheduled for April. These annual processes are an entire team effort and Finance staff appreciate the support received from other departments who provide timely information, critical to finalizing these tasks and meeting legislated reporting deadlines.

Grant-in-aid applications are currently being accepted for consideration in the Town’s 2025 Financial Plan. The deadline for applications is March 3, 2025, and staff have begun informing potential applicants through the Town’s website and social media platforms.

In January, IT staff completed the upgrade of Thrive on-site and cloud backups while implementing new hardware. The Town’s ERP, Vadim was updated and patches and were installed. IT staff also worked with the Town’s OCP Team to implement the new public engagement web site, engage.viewroyal.ca.

Development Services:

The Development Services team continued to be busy for the month of January responding to a consistent number of zoning, land use, building, and business licence inquiries, and reviewing and processing development applications. In January, Development Services (Planning and Building) received 12 new applications, which are summarized in the following table:

In January, Development Services formerly launched the Official Community Plan review and update. A project webpage has been created on the Town’s Social PinPoint website as shown in the image below. In addition to the project launch, staff published a survey that focuses on updating the OCP vision, which is a statement, collection of goals, and values for the community and where it sees View Royal in the future. Staff are promoting the survey on social media, e-newsletter, and Town’s website. An ad will also be placed in the Goldstream Gazette. The first survey closes on February 16, 2025.

Engineering:

The Engineering and Parks Departments is commencing the hiring process for summer students.

Operations were normal for View Royal’s sanitary sewer system.

The sewer repair work at the Watkiss Way Bridge was awarded to G&E Contracting, and they are expected to start work in the coming month.

A sink hole was discovered on Thomas Park Lane due to a displaced section of storm drainpipe. The Town has engaged with a qualified civil contractor to undertake the emergency repair work. (see below)

Staff are working with the resident at 1979 Chalmers Court to correct a blocked drain service and a new catch basin will be installed in the boulevard fronting 70 Norquay Road.

The new transit priority bus lanes project on Island Highway between Six Mile Road and Burnside Rd W is nearing completion. Curb and sidewalk on the east side (the water side) and concrete medians in the center of the road were recently installed.

Jedburgh sidewalk improvements are well underway with scheduled completion in late March / early May. Island Highway sidewalk improvements will be underway once the weather window improves.

258 Helmcken: Frontage improvements are currently underway. However, work is presently delayed due to inclement weather. The site remains safe and secure.

9 Erskine: Frontage and intersection improvements are underway. Watkiss/Erskine intersection upgrades have begun, with temporary delays expected.

Parks:

January has been a busy month for parks as they ramp up the new year with Town Hall grounds and parks cleanup, building checks and holiday lights removals. Further to this was the need for winter prep and maintenance due to the inclement snow that occurred in late January / early February. Parks has been busy with snow removals, keeping the Town Hall, parks areas and bus stops accessible.

After the recent water line repair (two of them – one at the front of the Town Hall building and on at the water meter on View Royal Avenue), the brick work on top of the repair area has been replaced.

The Town’s Habitat Restoration Program Coordinator reported the following data for 2024 invasive species removal events in the Town of View Royal:

• View Royal volunteers participated in 42 events in 17 different parks.
• A contribution of more than 640 Hours.
• Over 124 m3 (cubic meter) of invasive plants removed.

These figures do not include data from Greater Victoria Green Team events, or their independent work.

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated February 4, 2025 from the Chief Administrative Officer titled “CAO Update” be received for information.