Committee of the Whole

Good afternoon, viewer oil.

I'd like to call the meeting of the Committee the Whole to order for Tuesday, April 11th, 2023.

This committee of the whole meeting recognizes the Lukong speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation and their historic connections to these land that continue to this day.

This afternoon we'll hear from the public during the public participation portion of the agenda, and this evening we'll hear from the public during the public participation and question period portions of the agenda.

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Just uh uh encouraging you to um to follow the utmost in decorum when other folks are speaking and allow them to have an open and impartial form.

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Can I I think there's some discussion about the agenda before I start because somebody told me, and there's a late item on the blue sheet that councilor McKenzie will speak to that falls under your area, Counselor Lemon in Arts and Culture, for a spring uh and fall community building event.

But I know that you had uh potentially another amendment that you would like to do to the agenda.

Yeah, if I may.

Thank you, Mitch Bess.

Um, just a small amendment and then a slightly bigger amendment.

Um the per first is that in the uh petitions and delegations, Christine Jackman from the Reading Center will be joined at the podium during her presentation by Jim Powell, and they're going to um do double duty at the podium.

And the second is um uh I would like to add, with council's indulgence, that uh an opportunity for council to consider the request by the reading center at in tonight's meeting.

It's not on the agenda.

And I would like to see it discussed tonight rather than delayed to a future agenda.

Future meeting.

Thank you, Councillor Lemon.

And I would uh ask you to per to coordinate that motion at the right uh time, should it occur this evening.

So we were going to add some uh after the petitions and delegations, um, which normally just doesn't have an action on it.

Um we want to have a bit of a discussion about the funding for it.

Sarah, looking to you for some advice on where to add that in.

It can occur right after the petition and delegation is fine.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Was there anything else, Councilor Lemon?

Does any other member of the council wanted to amend the um agenda as we've discussed?

So we're including the blue sheets with Councilor McKenzie's, the correspondence on it, plus uh the addition of Mr.

Jim Powell for petitions and delegations, and an opportunity to discuss uh the grant and aid request as well.

Can I get a motion to approve that agenda?

Councillor Brown, seconded by Councillor Rogers.

All in favor, none opposed.

Motion carries.

And uh can I get a motion to adopt the minutes of the previous meeting, which is from March 14th, 2020.

Move adoption.

Second.

Moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

All in favor.

None opposed.

And now we are down to petitions and delegations.

So I'd like to invite uh Christian Jackman and Mr.

Jim Powell for a presentation.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, uh ladies and gentlemen of council.

My name is Jim Powell.

I live at 140 St.

Giles Street in View Royal.

I'm not a member of the View Royal Reading Center board, nor have they asked me to make a presentation to council.

However, I was the chairman of the View Royal Public Library, the View Royal Reading Center from 2001 to 2010.

And I thought a brief history of the library to the new members of council would be useful for your deliberations.

The View Royal Library opened in 1943 as a bookmobile operating out of the what is now the community center in the lower level where the fire hall used to be.

The town of View Royal was incorporated, as you know, in December 1988, some 45 years after the library.

The View Royal Public Library was incorporated in May 1989, so the following year, five months.

It was a public library of BC.

In 1995 or thereabouts, the town of View Royal invited the library and the RCMP to be equal participants in the building of a town hall called a multi-use facility.

To that end, View Royal Public Library applied for a BC21 grant of $287,400 to be applied to the town of View Royal for an equal share in the building.

There is some dispute, and we could not confirm whether that grant was ever made, but the building was built, so the money came from somewhere.

We were given a 10-year lease at effectively zero rent.

It was a $15,000 grant, $15,000 rent, plus we got $22,000 from the Public Library Service to operate the library.

In 2002, View Royal joined the Greater Victoria Public Library as part of the casino settlement with the other municipalities.

View Royal Public Library then lost their library services grant of $22,000, but eventually that was split with the Greater Victoria Library some years later.

The town covered the rent as before, plus, they gave a grant an aid of $7,000 from casino revenues to operate the library.

And View Royal Public Library continued as a public library while negotiating with the town and library service branch.

On the 8th of November 2007, the View Royal Public Library Board dissolved the public library and became the View Royal Reading Center with resources, their revenues and expenses as a public library, but it resolved the question of whether we could have two public libraries in View Royal.

In a month after that, the View Royal Reading Center received a notice from the town of View Royal to vacate the building.

After protracted negotiations with the CAO, it resulted in the town offering to pay rent and obtain space in the Admiral's Walk Shopping Center.

The library services grant still covered the book, and as before, the rent funding was from casino revenues.

In May of 2008, the View Royal Reading Center opened in Admiral's Walk.

It was good publicity for the town and for the reading center.

It was a convenient location, plenty of parking, and very handy for both Song Keys and his Claimont bands to use our resources.

We had over 15,000 volumes, free internet, TV, uh DVDs, and movies for for rent.

We had over 300 visits a month.

And that was uh sometimes over a thousand books and and other articles taken from the library.

And as an aside, the town had negotiated a reduced rent for Mrs.

Campbell, uh, which made it affordable for us to rent there with the town grant.

In March 2009, after becoming a reading center, the BC Liberals decided they didn't want reading centers and canceled all the grants for all the receiving all uh reading centers.

About that time is when I left the board, so I really shouldn't say any more about the operations of the board, but I know that Mrs.

Campbell died and the rent increase.

The town grant uh got changed from uh the casino revenues to uh town uh finances, and then the lot the reading center then had to apply for a grant and aid to cover those same expenses, which they did, but because of the increased rent, they had to move to the location up on uh Island Highway, which is really not a desirable location, but it was what we could afford.

I sometimes wonder whether we could reapply to the NDP government to see if the reading center grants could be reinstated, that would go a long way to helping the library.

And to those who say that the library is duplicating services, that's not quite true because the library doesn't have a branch in View Royal.

We can walk, we don't need to drive, we don't need to take the bus, we can go to our library by walking.

The other thing is that the libraries are complementary, they don't really compete with one an author like Beldackey or anybody else and they retain all the copies.

So that with some authors, we have 30 copies of the same of the same author's books.

So if you go and you find out that you like Baldacci, but you just read the new one from the Greater Victoria Library, you can come to our library and read the other 19 in his collection.

And besides, you don't have a one-year waiting list to get that book.

I hope this information will help you view the View Royal Reading volunteer run, 80-year-old asset to our community, at least until there's a Greater Victoria Public Library Branch in View Royal.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your service to the community.

Hello, I'm Christine Jackman.

I live at 755 Market Street in Victoria.

I don't actually live in View Royal, but I'm the manager of the library.

And I took over in 2015.

So there's a five year gap between Jim and me.

The manager before me was my mother, and some of you know her.

And so yeah, we moved up to Island Highway.

We had to reduce our uh books by about two thirds.

Uh, we've had to get rid of the DVDs that we had for loan.

We've had to get rid of the computers that we had for public internet because they were too old to be upgraded and we didn't have the budget to buy new ones.

So pretty much all of our problems are because we don't have the budget.

Last year we had 50 new members sign up.

We have 846 active members in the library who visit regularly.

Anybody who just happens to be walking by pops in and looks awkward location where we are, but it is kind of on the way to everything and fairly central, so it's convenient for the people, especially the people who live in that area.

Most people come on foot, some people drive.

Um I just wanted to let you know that we're we're still going strong, we're still seeing people come in, we're still uh loaning a lot of books out.

We we do cater to the people specifically.

If they ask us, I want to read this specific book, we go out and get it.

We try to curate our collection to the community.

So our nonfiction is very strongly local history.

We don't keep a lot of other nonfiction, we are more entertainment reading.

We do have a large children's section as well.

Um, and I don't know, is there are there any questions?

Thank you and uh thank you uh to Jim as well for the presentation.

It was enlightened and uh bit of history certainly um uh set into context quite a bit so I'll I'll turn to my colleagues in council if there's any questions for uh the Reading Center no questions yeah Councillor McKenzie um thank you for the presentation you both kind of answered the questions I had so um but I was wondering, are you to speak to the the the demographic of the people who come into the reading room?

We are very strongly seniors.

Also, our volunteers are mostly seniors too.

And we do get quite a few children.

There are at least three daycare centers very close by.

So we get a lot of people who come in with their children.

We get daycare people walking by all the time.

But I would say that our demographic is mostly seniors.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lemon and then Councillor Rogers, please.

Thank you.

Thanks, Christine and Jim.

Jim, you made you made a comment that, you know, urging us to help and and keep, you know, the community to to support the reading center until such time the GVP GVPL established sees fit to establish a branch here.

Would that be the overall greater wish of the reading center board and membership, do you think?

I I cannot speak for the board.

I I cannot speak for the board.

It certainly is my wish.

Uh I love the View Royal Reading Center.

I read over 50 books a year from there, plus additional ones from the Greater Victoria Public Library.

But I'd be lost without the Reading Center.

My wife is the same.

She reads as much or more than I do, although she reads nonfiction where I read fiction.

Okay.

If there was a branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library, we would probably use it as well.

And quite frankly, I'd use the reading center if it was still there.

But I know there's finances involved.

Uh and you, you know, it's difficult if you had a reading center in View Royal or a library in View Royal, would you really need a reading center?

I think the volunteers would miss it, and I would miss it.

But you have to be practical sometimes.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Can you advise from sorry, and you may have re put it in your grant application, but uh what do you have in terms of membership fees and um what fundraising do you do?

We don't charge fees for membership, we charge fines and we have book sales to raise funds.

And this year we will be applying for a gaming grant.

Any other questions from counselors?

As uh I I have one of my own, and that is has there been any discussion formally with the Greater Victoria Public Library to look at um I I don't know what would be best, a cooperative model that would um potentially share resources between the reading center and the library.

I'm thinking off the top of my head, an ability to pick up your books from there potentially to get other resources to be able to kind of you know cross um support each other and uh because it cost you nothing to get a Victoria, Greater Victoria Public Library um uh card.

And then you know, a lot of the services that would be available, plus Greater Victoria Library could use some of the space if they were doing presentations or um looking at some of the benefits of their uh training that's online that's available.

Has anything had been pursued uh to uh work out kind of a relationship?

Uh yes, there has.

Uh when my mother was manager, she had several meetings with the Greater Victoria Public Library.

Uh the meetings took the tone of either us becoming a branch or becoming, as you said, cooperative with the library, and we were turned down, just flat turned down by the library.

Um, we also we did engage in interlibrary loans with the Greater Victoria Public Library, and that was shut down.

And I'm sorry, I don't know why.

I think it was a cost issue.

Um this was just slightly before I started working with them, so I don't know that part.

Thank you as well.

I mentioned that I've spoken with um Maureen Salwa, the the CEO of the Greater Victoria Public Library, and she's agreed to meet with me and Christine to discuss opportunities.

Thank you, Jim.

If I may, uh when we lost our our reading center grant from the library services branch, they also decreed that we would lose our interlibrary loan service and also the IT section that used to provide us with a a website so that we could advertise and and do loans online, things like that.

So they really cut us off at that point.

Thank you, Jim.

And thank you both for answering the questions and a good presentation history lesson for us.

Thank you.

Council Lemon, I'd look to you for a discussion about the motion, I think.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I'm I'm going to uh oh I need to get my agenda up, um make move that council need my glasses now.

Hold on.

Um here here we go.

Uh that we the council approve the requested $38,000 grant in aid for 2023 for the Vieuroyal Release Center.

Okay, and uh is there a seconder for that.

I will second for discussion.

Okay, and uh let's go to the mover first for um some motivation, Councilor Lemmon.

Okay, well, thank you.

Um we have an it's the 80th anniversary of perhaps the longest standing, maybe the fire department might be in, might be in the the same league, but the longest standing organizations in View Oil.

It's a it's a founding organization.

And I I you know I think it would be it would be I won't say irresponsible, but shameful for us to uh to not support it at this to and celebrate this longevity of of a volunteer run um um initiative.

And you know, it's the reading center is you know it's it's much more than books, it's much more than reading.

It's it's we don't have a senior center here.

We don't, you know, we have a we have a community hall, but it is limited in size of what it can accommodate and uh the the reading center is it's it's a social hub for many people in View Royal it's a you know you you pop into the reading center people know you they get to know you they get to know what you like in your books um and it's it's a it's a social um comfortable place to be and handy it's handy it's a handy place to get your books yeah thank you, Councillor Lemon.

And I'll go to the seconder uh for um motivation or discussion.

And then to you, Councillor Brown.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Powell, for the uh the history.

And I'm probably one of the uh few that remembered back in the 60s when it was in the community hall and as a child going there on a regular basis.

I remember I remember it well.

So I I know it well.

I also know that um uh before we got the casino, the uh Greater Victoria Library, uh we were cheap and proud of it.

So it it required that we had to pay $400 per person for anybody that wanted to join the Greater Victoria Library.

You know that.

And we would get reimbursed by council, but back that was uh probably before uh we're around when we were only five, four thousand people.

Um then the um of course uh the casino came in, and at that time we were able, we were forced, not forced, but now we're required to be a regional member of it.

Um so the situation today is that we're faced with a 9.95% tax increase.

We all are.

Probably business is more.

Residential stratus will be more than that.

And um the the issue is that the um we've received the tax increase for uh Greater Victoria Um Library, and that was 40,000.

So they've asked that's a almost a half percent tax increase that they want, they need.

And uh and um it's um an issue where it's that's directly off taxpayers now.

What used to be on the casino is no more.

We pay the rec center, but we're finding that the the rec center is going up and up and up, and and counselor Kowalovich has just informed us that the infrastructure bills of the the or the uh restaurant rec, parks rec roofs and so forth, gonna be about five million.

You know, it's a huge chunk, and we also have a police station to build.

So with all that, with the casino, with those um uh issues, I have um I'm I'm sorry, but I have a real issue about duplication of service.

And with all due respect and and I appreciate the volunteers and what you've done over the years and and what you want to set out to do, because of that, I cannot support the grants and aid application at this time.

It's um just too much to uh to ask of the taxpayers, and um we're we're at a point, and I and I I hear you guys are struggling.

And uh it's a it's a mutual situation.

You know, I understand that.

Um so um unfortunately, I I feel it's time to really deal with a uh serious situation.

And uh, you know, the GVPL, the Wonder Fuke Rec Center, um there is easy access, it has all the features at all as all the amenities, it has the rec center and and it has a senior center.

So regrettably, I cannot support the motion.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers, Councilor Brown, please.

Yeah, I appreciate the uh the reading center.

Um my only concern is the the amount.

Uh we only have $40,000 left in our grants and aid, and we have one more request for funds.

And we typically keep $5,000 aside for something that comes up later in the year.

So I would propose if I could get a second or an amendment to to uh uh approve a grant of thirty thousand dollars if someone would second that.

I think that's uh a good one.

I just want to make sure folks have had a discussion to chime in, those that want to.

Counselor Brown, Councilor McKenzie.

Yes, thank you.

Um I uh do appreciate also the the value and the history that um you provided, but I do echo uh Councillor Rogers' comments, uh you know, with the increase in the G VPL fees, we really have to make sure we're getting the most value for our money in that service.

And we also have to compare the request for funding to the other requests that we received.

So this amount is just uh in my opinion, we're not um getting the most out of our our available limited uh funds.

And I think um also when reviewing the budget comments, there were a lot of comments about the reading room as well uh again questioning the the value uh for the cost so I would prefer to see a conversation that that happen with the GPPL see if yeah if if we could see if it could be a branch or um some of these suggestions that Mayor Tobias said and but yes uh right now I don't I can't approve the the request for the amount of um before I go to you Council Lemon I just wanted to make my own statement and I I I grew up reading out of a bookmobile in rural Nova Scotia and certainly appreciated the availability.

I don't think I would have got to read if it wasn't for the bookmobile, um, to be honest with you.

Um, I see that it serves, you know, really over a thousand people in View Royal.

And although we've doled out money for uh other things for grants and aid that are good for the community.

I don't see that many active members, uh, particularly amongst seniors being a real thing to do.

So I also um, you know, share, here's where I'm caught a bit.

I I share the concerns that Councillor McKenzie and Councillor Rogers do, and and Counselor Brown with the budget.

Um I support it for this year, and maybe I'm not I'm not the first mayor to say that, but we need to come up with a plan with uh the greater uh Victoria Public Library as well as you know diversifying uh our ass.

There are people out there waiting to give money away.

I know this because they try to offer it.

Um and I think we you need some help in in um in a process of discovery and and maybe some assistance around how we can uh leverage other people's money because that's always better to spend, right?

Uh instead of tax money.

Uh so I'm a big supporter of other people's money when it comes to ventures like this, and I can't help but think that there are other opportunities to diversify the commitment to it.

Um now there's a a number that's been thrown out for $30,000 to give us a starting spot.

Um I'm just wondering, Councillor Lemon, will that how long will that suffice for rent and whatnot?

Um thank you for asking.

I not very long, I suspect.

Christine, what is your rent?

$2,000 a month or three?

Two.

Okay.

So it'll cover our rent and maybe it would be a good starting.

Would would that be a starting place and and you could consider some grant applications elsewhere to to expand?

Okay.

So your worship, um would you want to vote on my motion and then we can go to the I think Councilor Brown's got one on the table, so if if you were to second that, Councilor Brown, could you like read?

The motion was to to approve a grant of thirty thousand dollars.

And if I get a second or we can vote on that.

I think we need to vote on the first one for 38 and then vote on his.

I'll make an amendment to your oh you made an amendment to it.

Okay.

Voted an amendment first and then come back to your seconds.

So the the motion is to fund the reading center.

Of course, it's a period of one year.

The grant would be reduced from 38 to $30,000 for this year.

But if uh folks in council could offer some opportunities uh and support for uh crafting some other applications for grants, that would be I'm sure appreciated.

Um so yeah, that is so moved by counselor brown and seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Are we good to call the question or do we want to discuss for Councilor Rogers?

I guess the um, you know, I you can see how far it goes.

Um there was a thought that um GPPL might um uh partner with um the reading center, and over my time as being um on the um commission for um GPPL and others, um it's uh it was, you know, we can have a go at it, but I really, really doubt any success in that regard.

Um the astonishing thing is that the provincial government finally gave um all the libraries um in the province uh some much needed cash since uh for you know almost what two or three decades they they neglected the formal libraries.

I hardly think um they've changed their position on reading centers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh if there's no other questions uh or another comments, I'll call the question.

Those in favor of the motion on the table for a grant of 30,000 uh to the View Royal Community Um or to the View Royal Reading Center.

Uh all in favor.

All opposed.

And I see councilor uh McKenzie and Rogers are opposed for the record, so the motion carries um any other concern stuff oh i thought i turned it on that moves us to the public participation period is there anybody in the chamber that wishes to address council there's a lot of you here somebody's gonna want to say something.

Nothing.

Okay.

Uh Carl, on the phone, do we have anybody?

Mayor Tobias, we have no callers at this time.

Everybody's doing something else when it's council meeting.

Gotta get the memo out.

Uh I think that allows me to pass the chair over to Councillor Brown for Protective Services.

Yeah, welcome everyone to the um portion of this meeting, which is the Protective Services.

Um, I just want to say in my report that we were without a bio officer for a period of time, and now we have uh Bile Officer Cameron on staff, and I'm sure he's gonna be a great addition.

And we've put him to work for sure with several outstanding files.

Um also just a reminder that it's tsunami awareness week this week.

So uh people that have don't have kits, grab and go kits.

I would recommend they they get them for every family member.

And if you have one that's been sitting around for a few years, like mine, you have to go through it and check for your expiry dates on your on your food items.

Um moving right on.

I see uh uh Superintendent Preston's here, so I'll call you up, Superintendent, to give your police report.

Thank you, Counselor.

Mr.

Mayor, Council, thanks for having me.

Um so a number of things that I think um I discussed with uh staffers about first discussing uh strategic priorities for the year.

And I think if I was if I'm correct, they wanted to do it at uh the committee of the whole.

Is that correct, counselor?

Yeah.

Um, so every year we obviously sit down with each community.

The uh the West Shore detachment is made up of seven communities, as you're well aware, including the uh Songhees and Esquamble First Nations.

Um, and we try to establish the priorities that the community set for us.

And we try to establish priorities.

Uh and our fiscal year starts in April.

So it's April to April.

So this is my opportunity to hear from you to tell me what uh you're hearing from your constituents and you as a counsel um would like to see more or less of um in terms of uh law enforcement police services within your community.

Uh typically uh things as uh visibility, uh community policing, traffic, drug enforcement, uh, those are types of things that I hear back from um communities, and I have so far with a number of the other communities.

I have uh I think another five to go here, though.

So um yeah, I'll pause here and perhaps I could put it to uh Councillor Brown uh or Mr.

Mayor to uh to kind of set the conversation in motion as to what your priorities would uh what you'd like to see.

Any counselors want to ask or supply some information to Superintendent Preston or Tobias?

Yeah, thank you, Councilor Brown.

Um Superintendent Preston, you've done, I think, an outstanding job on that West Bern side stretch, particularly during the day.

Uh I note that um uh things have slowed down, including me going by uh cruiser a couple of times uh when I wasn't looking at my speedometer.

Um and so thank you for being responsive there.

I think we're we're finding niches in View Royal.

Um now the I'll call it the road less traveled, uh, meaning that uh some of the issues aren't so much during the day, but they're at night and usually involve alcoholic consumption.

And I know um that road is usually favored over the main highway all the way to the highlands if you're going that far, if you've had a couple of beers from downtown and that's where your next stop or home is.

So I I think I would support um consideration of probably some uh some roadside checks.

Um and that's something that uh perhaps the Highlands would uh would agree to as well.

I know I meet with the mayor later on next week, and I can discuss with him just to see if there's some consensus there.

Um, but uh we've had some close calls uh there with damage to public property, and certainly given the trajectory of some of those vehicles flying off around Eton or area concern.

If anybody had been around there, they would have uh not been in good shape.

And I'm sure some of the drivers even weren't uh ending up where they did.

So uh I I think right now I'm I'm very satisfied with the responsiveness and the visibility for the RCMP.

Certainly uh aware of it much more now, and and for me it's just some some some more consideration for that.

The other part would be visibility on on the trails when you get the uh the bike teams up and running.

Um I know that there uh is you know ongoing concern, particularly on the group, the goose and in our parks um with uh with with just having an extra visibility we realize that you cannot your presence isn't going to stop uh everything from going on but it's a reminder I think for folks that that uh view royal is covered by the RCMP and and uh and that they're on it so those those are the two points that there'll there'll probably be others right after this council meeting that come up but those are the two points that I see.

Councillor Rogers yeah hi there um so I I guess a number of things.

One is the um the whole issue of drug enforcement and uh particularly when we have those places operating in in our houses and on our streets, and we know of a couple with long-standing uh issues.

Um and I I think the the um uh if there's some way of being able to improve the coordination communication, uh who knows, maybe part of neighborhood watch is that every house has a doorbell camera on it.

And uh so that you know about that, you can then check what are the circumstances, and that you yeah, you had the ability to get the information rather than go on the news and say, anyone seen anything?

So it um it I think the the technology and availability is there, and it may be an additional pair of eyes of functionality that would improve uh law enforcement um yeah for for you folks.

Um the um the uh I'm also curious about the catch and release program uh offered by the Crown.

Um is that still an ongoing issue or th has the Crown substantially changed their realization that they need to keep the dangerous people off the street.

I think uh that's been voiced loud and clear by the Premier and uh by the Department of Justice.

I think we're yet to see um w how that how that looks and how that transitions into you know real time with a with uh these serious offenders that you're speaking of because uh there's nothing more frustrating than um working feverishly on uh on individuals that are committing the majority of crime or violent crime in the community just to see them return back to the community without treatment or deterrent.

So um I think we're too early in uh to to determine how this is going to unfold and and uh how this is going to look, but uh I can assure you from a law enforcement we welcome the the notion of you know that those select few that are causing the most uh the most issuing in our society and our communities.

Indeed.

One of the um uh uh you know ongoing issues that we're we're all facing is the um uh the the issue of constables having to stay long hours at the VGH to um uh provide watch and security and um and safety uh for both the the individuals who bring in and the the people around.

Um has the province again refresh my memory, has the province offered any um improvements to that by hiring security?

No, I mean they have security there, but unfortunately it's it's a statutory thing where it has to be a peace officer before um before a uh a doctor, not transition to a security person who the security person would would uh in then in turn tr uh transition to a doctor and and so until that's um changed or if it's ever changed uh I don't see our problem dramatically decreasing unless you know and I've been trying to champion and and try to be as loud as possible in terms of um having separate facilities uh so we don't have to take these individuals to an eMERGE where we wait you know uh two three four hours uh and not really for for our sake but I mean you know picture somebody in crisis that you're taking them in handcuffs and putting them there uh basically on show uh while you wait two three hours.

Um like I I don't think we should be treating people like that first of all um and I don't think it's an efficiency by any means to have three four or five police departments sitting down there with uh you know people that are in crisis waiting to get treatment and there's not enough services so we wait there long periods of time costing you the taxpayers in each municipality um substantial amount of uh funds so I mean there's a lot of work to be done I think again I can only voice this to our councils and hope that our our councils uh mayor and councils champion uh this with the province and try to come up with some solution.

I don't I don't have the solution.

I think there's a number of solutions that could be posed and could be tried um but it really has to come from I think our mayor and council.

If I if I may and I I I'm just suggesting that the um in in terms of a plan um maybe jointly led by the RCP and uh the mayors um with the the politicians to get some change going on um and improve that situation.

So it's kind of a uh I'm not leaving it all to to uh the RC and P but it's a it is a coordination and and maybe it's time for um Vihan and and um RCP and and the province you know, key people getting down and addressing it.

Yeah, it you know, I think it would be nice to dig deep across the province and try to come up with a a dollar figure.

And you know, I think that's typically unfortunately what motivates uh, you know, um political movement is when you see an actual dollar figure.

Um and I and I, you know, working in far reaching places throughout Western Canada here, this is not a significant issue.

Um or I haven't seen as a significant in a lot of the rurals rural or smaller spots.

You typically go to the hospital and they see you quite quickly in those spots.

It's uh I've never seen it as bad as you know here in the lower mainland, especially uh I mean I I hear of people in the lower mainland.

I haven't worked in the lower mainland, but I know they have similar issues as well.

Um you know on our average is two hours.

So every time we apprehend somebody, which is every day essentially, um, you know, we're waiting two hours at a hospital on average.

Uh so you add that up with every police force and and every community that that that's a lot of salary dollars, uh, especially when our police officers costing around $200,000 uh per individual right now.

Yeah.

Just a um rhetorical question.

I wonder what happens.

Where do officers take such individuals when the emergency room is closed in small communities?

Yeah, I mean, obviously we have to take them somewhere.

So we uh we take them to the nearest facility.

Interesting problem.

Yeah, thank you.

So you bet.

Any other comments or yeah, counselor lineman?

Yeah, sorry.

I'm sorry.

I didn't look over there, sorry.

Yeah, no, I sort of no wonder I was anyway.

Um I wanted I I wanted to address the very, very same same issue that my colleague addressed regarding um the time spent languishing in emergency rooms.

So as he was speaking, I've you know, I was thinking, what what what can we do?

Because I know the previous council, um I in fact I think the previous council and a few others um wrote the province, and that was when E B had, you know, was um premier EV was not premier and housing wasn't his priority.

He was running there and nothing happened then.

Um so perhaps it's it's it's a matter for um us to, you know, per perhaps for Mayor Tobias, um, when he goes to UBCM to meet with the uh the the minister responsible and uh maybe you know as a council we discussed you know uh a resolution and and uh you know kind of a a joint force of lower island um um local local politicians um making some noise and um seeing what we can do to get um some action but but todd um you you spoke about numbers now i don't know how we would get those kinds of numbers without you know, one of us working the phone for every detachment, but do you have any way of accessing through the RCMP?

Like the R even if we were just to do the RCMP alone, um, spend you know, you know, this many thousand hours um uh um cooling their heels in ERs.

I can check with our uh our uh headquarters in Green Timbers are off strategy and and some of the other uh departments, um including some of our strategists and our um yeah, there's a number of individuals that I think off the top of my head I can think of that we'd probably be able to put together something.

Yeah.

Um just yeah, rough rough numbers based on uh kind of a global accounting.

Okay.

And I can certainly do that.

Well perhaps we can we can think about what we can do in coordination with with others across the region and uh go from there.

So in terms of uh priorities, uh sorry, counselor, um maybe I can turn it back to you.

Okay.

I just want to kind of revisit the the priorities for the year.

Um if there's some other I I got a bit of a bias because I spent a lot of my policing career in community policing and school liaison.

And having the officers in the school, even if it's a part-time, I think it has a lot of value and and not even specifically having uh the same officers doing it all the time.

Uh if you if that work spread out for so the the students just don't think oh Constable so and so is the good guy everyone else aren't.

But the trust and the uh the value uh I I was in uh Nanaimo detachment for nine years and six years of that was in community policing.

And even today if I go to Danaimo, students that I taught how to ride bikes safely or cross the street safely still remember me.

And that really feels good.

And I think it it's a two-way street.

And also the uh I know the staff and the students always appreciated it when uh the constables went to the school zones and even if they're just sitting on the side of the road uh doing paperwork uh that sends a message out it gives you the visibility and uh teachers used to float our detachment up and say you know how happy they were to see the police car there uh if you know eight o'clock in the morning or eight to eight forty whenever they start school.

Um so that that kind of visibility the and and it's a long term you know those kids grew up and a lot of them become police officers.

I uh police officers in Victoria uh say we we remember you because you coached us as you when you were a police officer or you went to my school and I think um it it's it's it is it works both ways.

Okay.

Yeah uh I couldn't agree more and and to to that end obviously I think there's 20 oh god don't quote me 27 schools or whatever is in in the in the area here and so what we do is we've actually assigned schools to individual members not just our community policing but just to that very point where you know especially if they have a kid in that school it gives them an excuse to go to the schools your your child and just be around those children for 15 minutes in the morning around school or uh school hour um school zone times and park those those police cars there a slows down people and B exactly what you uh you're saying you need to build those those relationships.

So I know a school a skill school district sixty-two is extremely supportive of um having police in schools.

School district sixty one, I know there has been some issues, uh and we do have a couple schools that fall into that uh that area here.

I know Del Manic's been uh Chief Manic's been quite vocal about that and I certainly support Chief Manic on uh every step of the way when it comes to uh having our our membership in the schools there.

So uh yeah if I'm hearing you correctly here schools uh obviously community policing schools and visibility within those are are certainly priorities and and I share those uh priorities as well as some of the traffic um you know uh those are always concerns but it's nice to actually have specific areas and and I lead that and those those are uh moving targets through throughout the year.

So again I can't emphasize enough when you and your constituents when you hear of areas that are problematic, when you see those areas, please uh just send it directly to me.

Um, I'm not gonna be the one out there uh enforcing it, uh likely, but I will at least I'm aware of it, and then I send it down to traffic services as well as every morning.

We have watch briefings every evening we have watch briefings, and so we can address issues like Western Burnside Road and and these other ones.

Um is there any oh sorry, counselor, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead, council counselor McKenzie.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, I would say I I would like to see more visibility in in the general community, not just at the schools, um, particularly I think in the commercial.

So we have two main commercial areas in Vie Royal, actually, probably three.

Um, but I'm thinking, you know, Admiral's Walk, Eagle Creek, and those, to be honest, are are where I've seen some maybe not as great behaviors happening.

Um, and they are they do happen to be on the outskirts of the town, like on the borders.

So it it would just, yeah, in those areas, I would um I think it would be good to see um have a little bit more police presence or visit just visibility, I guess.

Yeah, those uh great points and and we hear that from the commercial.

We hear that from the liquor like the liquor store up at uh Eagle Crest there.

Eagle Crest, right?

Eagle, yeah.

Eagle View.

Um yeah they you know they had significant uh thefts from there and shoplifting and so that is one of the priorities like park your car like you know you need to do paperwork.

You know it's very clear we don't want to be doing paperwork back at the detachment if you can help it.

You park your car there, you park yourself in front of a school zone, you park yourself in front of Walmart superstore, um you know outside the fire hall and view road like in high visible areas and especially in the commercial areas where there's a lot of thefts um so I hear you so I will make sure that that again that is put in as uh a priority for in terms of the visibility this year.

Sorry Mary Tobias go ahead sorry just uh yeah just just one I I think to summarize and it doesn't have to be in our priority order I think it's um um around those commercial areas to create uh some more visibility I think around the school zones to and unfortunately it's mainly mums that are rushing to school to drop their own kids off that are um challenging to both uh crossing guards and to other people's children.

Um but uh the uh the other piece that I'm interested in like looking at your trends where you see a preventative action might be a emerging concern.

Um like I went into uh quality foods the other day and I was looking for a roast and they said we don't keep them in the meat department anymore because they're stolen too quickly.

So if you want to roast you got to go to the butcher and he'll cut you a roast for it.

And that's seems to be something that's occurred like within the past year and a half.

Um, so I'm just wondering your take on trends that you see happening that maybe you would like uh to inform us that that would help our priorities a bit.

Well, I don't know if you got the uh the annual report there if you've had time to digest it.

But I uh shoplifting was up a hundred percent.

I can't remember if that was across the whole board or if I was just in Langford, but I'm pretty sure it was across the whole board, it was up a hundred percent.

So um you have desperate uh desperate times right now.

You have a lot of people that are um unhoused and mental health and and all the challenges that uh society is facing right now.

And clearly um, you know, there has been a movement with some of these individuals that are unhoused and uh not receiving the services that they necessarily need, and and we've seen more and more moving out to the west shore.

Uh nobody's immune, everybody's seeing it.

Um, yeah, so that's that's one trend, and and so to that end, obviously, working with our um our partners at you know the grocery stores and the LPOs, and um again, strategic, you know, um placing our vehicles strategically and visible, you know, being visible, being visible, being visible.

But you know, you can't uh that that in itself, unfortunately, is not going to solve uh that, but I'm hearing what you're saying.

Uh, one of the other emerging trends, it's not here in in um in View Royal near as much.

Um, Callwood actually has seen more of it, and it's it's unique.

It's funny how you know we have this uh integrated detachment in certain areas.

It's like, well, you know, you have you know substantial issues up at the hospital, mental health, and casino, and a few other places here.

Um, right now in Callwood, we've got some youth issues.

Um, and so youth is uh is a substantial concern of mine, and probably probably the biggest concern I have right now is some of the youth violence.

And uh I don't know if you've seen some of the media that we put out, but it's it's alarming and you know, unfortunately, unchecked.

And if we don't curb that behavior as youth, um, they don't go anywhere, they just grow into adults um conducting themselves in a perhaps uh even a more destructive manner.

And so that's one of the ones that uh you know, we're really trying to come up with some strategies, how we can work together with the municipalities.

This isn't a a police only fix.

This is obviously uh working with you know parents and coming up with you know ideas.

View Royal had probably one of the best uh best things I've seen.

Um I unfortunately I think it's closed now, but it was the coffee shop um down by the doctor's office there and by the IGA or whatever that is.

Um, and that was a great initiative that you guys had running.

In fact, I've been championing and prouding that to all the other communities say we need to do we need to follow View Royal steps and perhaps collectively all coming up with some more of those types of facilities where we've got some of the youth that are yeah they could go this way or they could go this way they're on the kind of fork on the road.

Um and perhaps going home isn't their their best option because uh the role model that that perhaps they have or don't have and so you know those are the the types of things that when you talk about trying to get in front of the trends that's what we're that's what we need to do.

And so um I won't be shy in bringing those forward um throughout the year here and letting you know and hopefully we can strike some committees and work together.

And that's the the benefit of having seven communities in one is we can pool the resources together and so you don't put it on the backs of one community.

Um if you don't mind, I'm gonna switch uh gears.

Is that all right, uh counselor?

I'm just gonna uh give you some some overall statistics here and then perhaps some of the calls for service.

Um so we throughout uh this is for uh the last quarter here, or sorry, February.

Uh we had 19 interactions uh traffic in View Royal.

Eight uh we gave it eight tickets uh last month, and we also the rest of them the uh the eleven others were uh warnings and box threes, which is you have to get your vehicle fixed, you have to bring it back to the detachment and show us uh or to uh um a facility to get your your vehicle fixed.

Um proactive school zone patrols in View Royal Elementary is Eagle View Royal Um and three ALPR.

So we actually have uh a new uh on all our cars we're starting to move towards having automatic license plate readers which I know a lot of people thought we already had but we didn't it was all manual before and so now we put these devices on there and they just basically read license plates uh 360 around your vehicle or you can set it in different manners and then you'll be able to tell who's prohibited of course now that they don't have ball tags on anymore who's unregistered who's prohibited who's uh restricted who's uninsured and so it's amazing how many uh how many hits you get with this uh this new technology.

Um, some of the calls for service we've had in the last month um in uh in uh we had a fraudster call, uh or sorry, a fraudster that was caught by our crime reduction unit.

Uh they were using stolen credit cards from vehicles that were broken into, and uh suspect was tracked down by a crime reduction, executed a search warrant uh on the suspect's property, located all the credit cards, and that suspect uh was uh was serving a conditional sentence order at the time, so kind of to your point on the revolving door uh for similar convictions of fraud and theft and went back to jail based on the new charges.

Uh we had a mail on a CSO, another conditional sentence order.

Uh he was on house arrest at New Roads Recovery Center, and he just walked away from the uh facility, was reported to police, and uh he wasn't located despite the extensive patrol, so we forwarded a charge to uh crown for that individual.

Uh we had a curfew uh check on a female uh by a 24-hour curfew release order, and she was not home, so we forwarded a charge for her as well.

Police called for a woman yelling, screaming, protective services removed the female.

We had a disturbance at the VGH.

However, she had a head injury that needed tending, uh, so the police brought her back with the ambulance this time, and uh she was then cooperative when we were present uh at the hospital with her.

Uh we had a search for a missing female at Theodus Lake.

She was missing for three hours, friends split up on the trail uh to search for the woman's phone.

Um, and not being able to locate her friend, officers began foot patrols in the area.

View where a fire attendant and uh with their boat to assist.

And at 6 30, the individual was uh was located during the search.

Two youths, 14 and 15, uh ran into police and advised that they were being stalked by a cougar.

And uh the conservation officer actually confirmed at that time that there was a cougar sighting in the area, and so um it was kind of a good thing that uh we were able to resolve that issue without injury or um danger to any of the youth.

We had a uh uh a very, very unfortunate uh sudden death of a uh four-month uh infant uh in the last month.

We had a mental health uh complaint to the business in the View Royal reporting that their co-worker was uh suicidal and uh depressed, and uh we were able to um provide proper services without uh taking that individual into care.

Um again, we really have to make these uh and it and it's really difficult because you got to make these judgment calls um based on somebody's mental health.

We're not doctors, um, but you you just you can't have the the volume is astonishing of the amount of mental health associated to calls right now.

Um I know when I started and I'm sure when Council Brown started, uh it was a fraction.

Um and now it's it's it's incredible.

And I like I said, I encourage you to come on ride-alongs.

Uh that's open all year long if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Uh we really as a society, we really gotta something has to change here.

Um it it's not working, whatever whatever we're doing.

Um we had a uh a paranoid emotionally disturbed person male entering to a complainant's stranger's yard, began stating he was being followed.

Family of the uh emotionally disturbed uh person advised uh advised about this and then and what was happening, and the male was not fit again for apprehension.

Uh we did a check well-being.

We were able to get the supports for that individual.

Um called to advise a family member, took uh seven sleeping pills, and uh we attended on that one as well.

Um that one was taken to the hospital.

Uh, March 17th, we had three separate uh drive row drive well prohibited files uh in in um View Royal.

One of the uh three vehicles also had no insurance.

Um we had a male wielding a knife at the four meal uh four mile liquor store.

He was a homeless man who uh was under the influence of drugs.

We had theft from three vehicles, credit cards, a personal items stolen, SUI fraud investigation for one file where the credit card was used.

I can't help but think that the other guy on the first page might be uh related to that.

But um we had in a on Craig Flower an empty and empty trailer.

Police called for possible squatters living inside the empty trailer.

Um police were called and arrested two suspects for breaking into that same trailer.

Um we had a report of a male urinating in a public parking lot at uh Admiral's Road.

Spoke with the owner of the RV, uh parked at those locations, advised his nephew was the culprit and agreed to pack up and leave the area.

We had a report of a male walking into traffic causing vehicles to slam on the brakes near Elements Casino.

Officers determined that the male uh was a U.S.

national who failed to report entry into Canada, had no valid reason to be here.

He was arrested under the Immigration and refugee Protection act and transferred into CBSA uh custody.

We had a mischief at uh on Talcott Road.

Residents uh had had uh caught fire.

The small fire um there was evidence of uh arson and the investigation is still ongoing.

Kerfee check for prolific offender on island highway led to the officer seizing a stolen e-scooter parked outside the home.

Unable to connect that scooter item to the offender, but the scooter was recovered.

Uh female cyclist was struck by a vehicle on uh 275 Island Highway in View Royal.

The cyclist had abrasions on her arm, complaining of hip pain.

Driver was conducting a right turn and claiming they shoulder check but did not see the cyclist.

And on April 4th, uh this was uh last one here, April 4th.

Um, most of these are from February.

This one was an intentional fire that was set at VGH um by someone who um had some mental health challenges and no charges were resulting uh uh complex file, but uh no no charges will be ordered on that.

So those are just a random sampling of uh some of the files.

I try to give you a wide overview.

I try to get the analyst to not just get all the violent ones, but just kind of a wide range of uh files so you can hear what's going on in your community.

Um the first quarter.

So this is uh stats from the analyst here.

Uh you had a four percent increase of files, so that's 27 files from January to March compared to the last year.

So not a huge significant increase, it's 27 files.

Um nice to report that you had a 20 cent uh 26% decrease in violent crime uh from the last quarter, which was great.

Uh property crime, you had a 9% increase.

Again, those are you know, those those statistics can be skewed.

You you heard about the one prolific offender, two prolific offenders.

Um, they can do a lot of damage in terms of property crime in a very short order and skew stats quite quickly.

So hospital, you had a 20% increase at the hospital uh compared to uh last year at this time.

So we had 55 incidents in the first quarter of this year from January to March at the hospital.

You had a 117% increase uh at Elements Casino.

So that one's perhaps one to keep an eye on.

Um we'll see if that trend continues or what have you, but uh that's 21 files, uh, and an additional 21 files compared to last year.

So 39 files, and which is 21 more than last year at this time.

So one of the things I wanted to touch base, because we are getting complaints, is um about drug use, open drug use.

And so I'm not sure if uh all the council is uh is aware, but uh um in British Columbia is now it is uh legal to uh possess um certain most hard elicit drugs and use openly in public.

So although you can't uh you can't have open liquor still, but you can shoot uh heroin and uh cocaine and and all that, and the federal government is using this as a three-year pilot project.

Uh you're able to possess 2.5 grams of illicit hard drugs and use them in public spaces.

Um the notion, the spirit behind why the federal government did that is to decrease the stigmatation um behind um drug drug abuse and drug users so that they will seek help and they won't feel ashamed that uh they have an addiction or um an issue, and that they'll be more um uh readily willing to uh to seek help.

And so British Columbia is the only province that's uh that's trying this, and it's it's only been a couple months, and so it's too early to comment on which way this is going in terms of curbing or helping or or uh hindering.

So more to follow on that.

But just so you know, we are receiving complaints from uh you know constituents saying that they're seeing people using drugs and uh you know, unfortunately they're finding needles and what have you in areas, although it's not it's not legal to throw your needle.

Uh I think it's probably expected that that's going to happen uh given these current circumstances.

Um anyway, something to keep an eye on, and and certainly some feedback from you so that uh you know we can tell uh the province and and the federal government if this is working in your view or not working in in uh in your view.

So um, and then as far as uh I think in the annual report, I'll just quickly comment on the fact that uh you paid for 13% of the resources last year, and ironically, you used 13% of the resources last year.

So you you paid for 13% of the officers, and we responded to 13% of calls for service in your area.

That's going to fluctuate every year.

Uh that's some years you win, some years you lose, and that's just the part of uh being in a partnership with others.

Um scale, I think you you certainly win at the end of the year with uh being having a partnership as uh this.

One thing I would um, and I know that you guys are certainly ripe for, and I think the whole CRD is um for expansion and and for um um new buildings and new construction and uh you know a population increase, and with that, all the only thing I would ask is that you know you keep policing in the back of your mind that typically you're policing at a one to one to eight seventy five uh ratio and so if you approve a building for 875 just have that in the back of your head that that's a police officer um you know and that it has been that was accepted in the past it hasn't been ratified by this council and hopefully you know we can have some more conversations about that at a different date but I know Callwood has now ratified that as well just so that they don't we don't have to come back every year and say hey um you know this community is giving a police officer or you giving a police officer everybody's kind of a common across the board um Lankard's a higher uh they're one to seven fifty or that's what they were aiming towards we'll see if this council still stays with that but it does uh it certainly avoids friction between um your partners knowing that this is everybody's responsibility and if everybody pays their fair share if you will and you know what that fair share is in advance it's certainly easy to plan for for development as well and the same for municipal employees it's a three to one ratio is what we've been using for that um and I think I might have told this council before it's not a great uh formula to use in terms of there's better formulas if you were a standalone detachment but having partners in this there's only one real fair metric that unless somebody else can come up with a metric that everybody can agree on but we haven't found that yet and it'll also certainly be advantageous when we go into a new building.

Um, everybody knows what their fair share would look like, uh having some sort of metric that you can measure.

And so with that, I've talked a lot.

I will pause.

Any questions or comments?

No.

The uh val tags is interesting because when they took them away, of course, that you guys have scanners, which is great.

That's good to know because you know you used to see the expiry date, but I know people are driving out of province and then other countries have issues because they're getting pulled over in Washington State, for example, because the the patrol officer says expiry, you know, February twenty two twenty twenty three.

So I think ICBC recommending people just peel off all the old ones.

I know I've done that in my own vehicle.

Yeah, I didn't think of that, but that's a good point.

Yeah, just can I get a motion on the floor for to uh accept Superintendent Preston's report, please?

So moved.

Moved by uh Councilor Lemmon and seconded by Councillor Rogers.

All those in favor.

Thank you.

Thanks for your time.

And the next item is the building department report.

Is there gonna be a verbal?

Is that just no?

Okay, thanks, Leanne.

Uh can I get a motion to accept the building department report, please?

Moved by Councilor Rogers, second by Councillor McKenzie.

All those in favor?

Carried.

No new business.

Thank you, Councillor Brown.

Um I have very little to say.

Uh yeah.

Just one mention in my report, and that is of the uh forty-five million provincial windfall that libraries, public libraries received.

GVPL, Greater Victoria Public Library, is receiving, and it's called a one-time enhancement grant of $616,000.

Less than I would have thought.

So it'll have to be, you know, it's it's it's not it's not the kind of largesse that that um it might appear to be.

Uh it's to support uh library service enhancements, help address shifting to bands on service, uh collections, programs and spaces, and can enhance municipal local government dollars, but not replace it.

And uh tomorrow the uh the uh Wanapuca Um Arts Society is holding its its uh gala to it's kind of their coming out party, and uh I'll be there and certainly you people everyone here is invited and perhaps you'll be there too.

And uh that's it for me on McChair's report.

And we have a new business item from down the road.

Um, Councillor McKenzie, Spring and Fall Community Building Event.

Yes, thank you.

Um, so this is uh compared to the rest of the agenda, this is the lighthearted piece.

Um in recent weeks I've noticed the buds starting and flowers starting to bloom.

And um with the inspiration of the Chelsea Flower Show, I thought, why not have a View Royal competition similar to the uh light up View Royal for springtime, so as a community building event.

So similarly it would be for gardens, I was thinking, you know, a competition.

And um for later in the fall, I was also thinking a Halloween decoration competition.

Last year I also saw a number of really good Halloween comp um decorations.

So uh yeah, I just thought I would put that out there to see if if the council would be interested.

And then if so, I think we could probably replicate what we do for light up View Royal.

So yeah.

So do I need to move it and things like that?

Or sure.

If you for discussion, do you want to do you want to make a motion and see if there's any uptake?

Yep.

Okay.

So I will make a motion that we have uh both a spring and fall uh community competition for flowers and um Halloween decorations seconder council council counselor Brown seconded and uh motivator do you have any more to add or should I move on?

No no more to add.

Counselor Brown, do you want to speak to your seconding no it's a good idea.

It's just something light I'm sure it's not gonna cost a ton of money either just uh like photographs and that kind of thing so similar to view uh the light up view royal I think the cost would just be the prizes um that would be involved counselor rogers yes.

So um, you know, with the light up um um uh Council Lemon, you to you taken the initiative and coordinated that and and so on.

Um would that be this then something that that you would be coordinating?

I would be happy to, yes.

Okay.

All right.

So that's um, yeah, if if if you could do that, yeah, um I'm in support that uh then it'll help out.

Mayor Tabais.

Yeah, thanks for thanks for this, um uh Council McKenzie.

I think it's a great idea.

Um too bad we don't have something in the summer right now, because we got the spring covered off and the fall covered off with this and then the winter with the light up view royal.

We could have a deadline uh dead lawn or dandelion competition, I guess for for front lawns, but that's about it.

Staycation vacation.

We could have a staycation one.

Um, so what we're looking at, I guess, is just um kind of uh a mayor's credit card purchase of chocolates or something like that that we could coordinate for these two activities.

Plus, I think Damien did a good job coordinating some of the communication so we could uh wrangle some of his expertise to make it light on staff and just host some things.

So uh yeah, I'd be very much in favor of this.

Thanks for bringing it up.

Maybe we could even have little trophies or you know, some kind or plaque or something.

I know years ago, um, like counselor Rogers would remember this.

There was um a uh late spring event of the of an arts and gardens tour that was was pretty cool, but then you know, and people run out of steam or interest, but I I thought that was a really great idea so yeah yeah i'd look forward to seeing um how how you're going to um and i'll work with you um how how you're going to coordinate this before my daffodils die anyway um all those in favor of the motion to have these minutes passed thank you very much and that's it for me passing on to buy us uh I'm on.

Uh all four go a formal report, but I just want to thank staff again.

And I was in there as many of you were um looking at the engagement for the budget, and uh just like to thank staff for um putting it all together.

It's a lot of work um and a lot of options to um to to sort out.

So thank you very much for your efforts there.

So we can skip right now to staff reports, and I think we got an action list update for the first quarter.

I'm gonna appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor Tobias.

Um I don't have a presentation for you.

The report is for information, it's intended to describe the status of the various resolutions of council.

Second.

Uh I don't think there's any discussion, so I don't think I have a question.

Oh, you've got a question.

Um yeah, Kim.

Okay.

Perhaps you can or or uh the director of engineering can answer.

Uh the the um January um uh request for an audit on Burnside um a safety audit.

Has that been done?

Will that take place?

Has it taken place?

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Council Lemon.

We did uh engage ICBC regarding that issue, and um right now as we speak, you'll you'll notice there's some spray paint marks.

That's where we're gonna put in some signage, advanced signage for speed and for the curve, as well as uh reflectors.

Uh, in terms of the actual audit, uh, we did it uh reach out to ICBC as part of their program.

And um, given that they've looked at uh their five-year period, which is 2017 to 2021, there actually wasn't a lot of incidents at that time.

So a traffic safety review wasn't warranted for this.

But that said, we did mention to them that there were two recent that uh we wouldn't mind taking a look at to see what can be done.

And um as a result of that discussions, uh that is what we're gonna be doing out there.

This reflector, more reflective um visual cues as well as advanced warning signage.

Thank you.

That's great.

And just uh a question, Kim.

If uh I'd invite um counselors to review the list uh for the next council of the whole, and if there's questions that arise about why wasn't that thing on it that I thought was, or that um do we really need that still on there?

Uh just to to help staff out and to to say that might have been previous council's action item list, but is there are we good to move on from that?

Um so thank you, Kim, for that report.

That's uh great.

Anything else to to add to that?

Thank you.

All we need is the vote then.

We're good to go.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

None opposed.

Motion carries, and now I think we're down to Don's good work at budget variants and projects update.

Council, it may look like I'm moving in for the afternoon.

Indeed.

We do have several items on your agenda that I have put forward.

The uh budget project, uh the budget variants and projects update is just the regular monthly update.

Uh nothing new there of note, other than of course the receipt of the 4.665 million dollars, um, which of course was not in the budget, um, but it would be will be it uh as soon as we get to the next uh the next item or one of the next items nice seconded by councillor lemon is there any discussion counselor just uh because it's my first time around so uh can we still make minor tweaks that to the budget itself uh for the 2023 to 2027 financial plan yes we're not quite there yet yeah uh what's reflected in the current uh budget that you that I have that is the official budget right now is last year's financial plan unless until it gets replaced with this year this five year plan.

Any other further questions?

Call the question, I think is in order.

Move receipts.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Not opposed.

Motion carries.

Next one.

I believe next up you have the citizen budget online engagement results.

And I'll just I won't you know go through everything of course.

I do hope that council took the time to both look at the citizen budget online tool as well as attached to this report are all of the verbatim comments as the good, bad and the ugly, everything.

It's it's all there for your review.

So the citizen budget engagement was launched on March 13 and it was held open until April 2, so basically a two year, two week period.

It provided not only an opportunity for people to comment and to look at what would change if they would, you know, what how it would affect their property taxes if they change certain components of the budget.

There's information on all of the services, as well as links to the other budget tools that we have, being the financial plan insights on our website and the full budget document that was available to them in all of its detail through links on that engagement tool.

So we did receive 57 participants this year, which compared favorably to last year.

Last year we only had 31, which was a bit of a drop, I think.

I'm hoping just an anomaly.

I'm hoping that it continues to go up.

But uh, you know, of the 57 participants, 10 per just about 11% of them actually completed um the the whole survey.

So so that's something to keep in mind.

And and you know, while these might not seem like astounding numbers, they certainly do compare favorably when you consider that we used to have public open houses that would we were happy if we got five or six people out to those.

Financial plans are are not often a big draw, not in just this community, but many of the ones I've worked with previously.

So I I think what is um important to realize is that generally speaking, um the the respondents, the participants did uh generally support the direction of our financial plan that we have proposed, and that they indicated that View Roll provides either very good or fairly good value.

That's 84% of the respondents that indicated either very good or fairly good value for their tax dollars, and that's an important measure.

However, I do need to remind council that the tool is not a statistically significant survey.

People know self-selected.

There's it is not a blind study, or you know, so do do keep that in mind while it it may indicate a flavor of of some interest out there and maybe generate some ideas and discussions.

It should not be considered as representative of all of you royal uh constituents.

So that I just offer for council's consideration.

That's my report.

Thank you.

Uh discussion, Council Brent.

So it sounds like a lot of people, well, no, a lot of the people that filled it in, they didn't necessarily fill in all the questions.

So they probably had areas of specific concerns or interest to them, and they filled those in and not the rest.

In entirely possible, and I would say likely.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I was uh I went through the um engagement and actually filled it out.

Um I thought the questions were constructed quite well, and I thought it broke it down quite logically.

Um but I think you know, my comment's gonna suffice to say on the number of engagements that we do.

And it's not just a strategy, it's um using our social media to remind and drive people back to that as well as reaching out to uh community associations and get people in those areas, like View Royal has certain areas that are covered off by Facebook groups or View Royal as a whole.

And I think it's up to us to drive people to these surveys as much as possible, not staff and council.

Um, because I think your your rate of return as we look more towards engagement, it's like how do we get people there, right?

That's the big thing.

Once they're on the web page then they can they can you know fill out the surveys or whatever it is that we're we're we would like input on.

But it's just getting them there and getting them alerted because there's a lot of noise out there of people's uh inboxes being full with stuff.

But I think a common way to do that would be a way to drive more.

But thanks for this very much.

I thought it was very helpful.

I don't think there was anything that I didn't expect to come out of the uh results.

Um I think overall it's it's kind of an okay endorsement for those who did participate that we made some uh decisions that were in line with expectations um and there was no surprises there and there's polarization on either end of that uh to be sure.

Uh so all in favor of uh receiving uh any post?

Not a post.

Um I think you're up here for the next one as well, Don.

Twenty twenty three to twenty twenty-seven financial plan approval.

So council is aware, of course, that we have been working on the budget now for several months, and council especially spent uh significant amount of time in February reviewing all of the details of the financial plan.

The results of those discussions you will see attached as schedule A and Schedule B to the report, noting all of the changes in great detail to the financial plan.

After the public of the proposed financial plan, and by publication I mean launching the citizen budget online tool and all of the documents and the financial plan insights, council considered the parking lot items.

And out of the discussion of the parking lot items came a reduction of the public safety building landscaping item, a reduction of $20,000.

So you will see we've added that to Schedule A, sorry, on Schedule B, noted it in red at the bottom of Schedule B as a reduction in $20,000 as that was funded from casino revenue.

Staff are recommending consideration of at least two other items, one being that of building inspection.

As you can appreciate, pinning a budget down at a particular point in time is a little bit difficult, difficult, is is challenging when information doesn't all come to you in completely all at the same time.

And when we looked at what we allowed for building inspection, considering the vacancy that was in the building inspection department at the time, and we we learned more as we went further along in the in the financial planning process.

What we're recommending now is that we add $40,000 to the budget for building inspection to make sure that we have we are able to provide the full building inspection service.

This will require a contractor help.

And because it is just a temporary measure, we believe that it would be fine to fund that from casino revenue so it would have no impact to taxation.

So that is one uh recommendation that uh we would appreciate council's endorsement at this time, or you know, if if there is an alternative that council has in mind, it's certainly willing to give you advice on that as well.

Additionally, you are aware that we received the $4.665 million in Growing Communities Fund.

What we were looking for today is authorization, in other words, inclusion in the financial plan by law that I will be bringing back to you to transfer that to the reserve.

That I believe we've got first three readings to create the reserve as required by the province for that fund.

As far as use of that fund, we're saying we have a five-year horizon to spend that money in.

I'm thinking that the advice that I could give is let's take our time, consider all of the options, consider staff's professional recommendation, consider all of the things that we could do and the priorities that council has for that money.

And let's make a plan this year.

If there isn't anything urgent, we certainly can include all of the uses in the next budget cycle.

If there is something urgent, we could amend the budget later on this year.

If there are others, um, now would be the time to make those um recommendations, and if council endorses them, they would then be included in the financial plan bylaw that is returned to you next.

Um, we would return the f the bylaw for first, second, and third reading on April 18 and adopt it on May 2nd.

Thank you, Don.

Now that's Sage Lee advice.

I think um the building inspector change casino revenue.

I mean, with the amount of holes we've got on the ground right now, um having a building inspector, especially some of the other challenged province properties that we've got right now.

We need there's no question we need a building inspector, and they're just they're not falling out of trees.

Um so I appreciate your efforts in both trying to hire and secure.

Couldn't agree more with uh taking our time and getting it right for the 4.66 million.

Um I think uh you know there's there's some debate uh we've got to do, and just to be clear and remind myself and council, there are some parameters around the spending of that 4.66.

And what was clear to me in reading it was if what you're proposing is covered in any way by any other type of grant, this is not to be used for that.

If you're just waiting for that grant, then you wait for that grant, don't use this money for that kind of thing.

So just keep in mind when we're um bringing that down to priorities.