Committee of the Whole

Thank you, Kim.

Good afternoon, View Royal, and welcome to the Committee of the Whole for February 14th, 2023.

Uh, before we begin, we'd like to recognize the Laquanguin speaking people known today as the Esquamalt Nation and the Songhees Nation, and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

This afternoon, we're here from the public during the public participation uh period that comes up pretty quick in the agenda.

And this evening we will also hear from the public during the question period portions of the agenda.

For the members of the audience and council chambers, is a safe, respectful, and inclusive space so all members of the audience are asked to refrain from clapping, cheering, or openly expressing your opinions when others are speaking or when you are done speaking.

When it's your turn to talk, do not speak disrespectfully about anyone else, including council and staff, and do not use rude or offensive language.

Do not make statements or allegations that call into question the character of anyone else, and do not speak or act in an aggressive, bullying, or harassing way.

Council wants to hear your views of those participating in the meeting in an open and impartial form.

So can I get an approval of the agenda, including the light items that should be on your blue list?

Seconded.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

None opposed.

Motion carries minutes of previous meetings and adoption of uh request a motion for uh the adoption of A and both uh moved by Councillor Mattsons, seconded by Councilor mcckenzie all in favor yes um uh just a correction uh uh yeah uh correction for committee the whole uh for um the so I'm just trying to get voted up here in um I think it was in December and there was the discussion of the uh council initiatives and I'd indicated that um you know, I believe there was an error in the minutes um for uh the last four.

So if if I can suggest your worship that um we do like um just what we have in in and the budget document in the council um matters and council initiatives use the phrase not endorsed by council or withdrawn.

So if we use that phrase like we've done in in um in the financial package, then that will I think clarify the ones that I did withdraw.

So just to confirm for staff you could unmute or uh mute your microphone now, Council Rogers, because the so just for for staff, then uh we what you're proposing is we use the same wording and the budget document to amend the wording from the last council of the whole meeting when it came to um to to withdrawing um the request staff have a comment yes staff thank you your worship the minutes before you are the amended version we did re-listen to the the tape is that satisfactory counselor rogers need to talk.

I still disagree.

Um there were uh items that I had withdrawn.

It's not a case that they were not endorsed.

I had withdrawn them.

So we need to get that clarification.

I disagree with the minutes.

So the the uh the other option, as I say, um uh Mr.

Bias is to do like we've done in um page 18 of the financial package, where quote not endorsed by council or withdrawn.

That gives a lot better clarity on the matter.

And um there you go.

But otherwise, I'm not uh I'm not in support of adopting the minutes at this time.

Thank you, Council Rogers.

Uh staff, do you see a problem with amending the minutes as councilor Rogers suggested?

We could go back and re-listen to them again and table these until the next committee, the whole.

Please do, and then if you could put that on.

And was that specifically a um which one of the minutes were you referring to specifically, Councilor Rogers?

Uh yes, it was um um the sorry I'm gonna have to go back up at the top.

It was December the 13th uh minutes, and it was in the evening sessions, and I believe it was um 28, 29, and 30.

Anyway, we'll sort that out when we get there.

Okay, so we got a motion on the floor right now to adopt.

We need an amended motion so we can adopt uh minutes of the committee of the whole meeting held January 10th, 2023.

Can I get a motion for that?

That's item B.

I'll move that we table whichever one we should be tabling.

All in the same motion?

So table A and carry B.

Yes.

Can ever get a secondary for that motion?

Second.

All in favor.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Petitions and delegations.

We do have one, Mr.

Brown, I believe, from West Shore Parks and Recreation.

Um you're familiar with the microphone, Mr.

Brown.

Okay.

Great.

Uh thank you for inviting me to speak to the 2023 budget for West Shore Parks and Rec Society.

Just waiting for the presentation to come up.

There we go.

Perfect.

As mentioned, so we're gonna look have a look at the 2023 to 2027 financial plan for the society.

Um, in the presentation today, I'm gonna cover some highlights from 2022, the 2022 financial projections and major variances that were that we're seeing um coming through for last year, some of the challenges we faced in in creating the 2023 budget, an overall uh of the financial plan is mentioned, some of the major expense increases that led to the 2023 increase, summary of the capital projects, a bit of a skate park update, five-year reserve continuity, where that sits right now, and then going moving into the requisition impact to each municipality and uh conclusion.

So, starting off with some highlights for 2022.

Um, we're continuing that bounce back.

Certainly by the fall, we were running at pretty much full full uh um capacity compared to the previous couple years due to restrictions related to COVID.

In 2022, we offered 975 swimming lessons to roughly 5,200 swimmers.

As a comparison for 2021.

That was about 2200 swimmers.

So we more than doubled the number of um swimming lessons that we ran in our pool.

There wasn't the same kind of effect on the on the arena.

We had 252 skating lessons.

That was similar to the previous year.

224 licensed care children positions, which works out to roughly 33,000 child days.

And so that's a mixture of our daycare, preschool programs, and after school care programs, which are all licensed.

And a lot of that is to do with the expansion of the upgrade we did to the upper floor of the JDF to turn that into the child care center.

As well as last year, we had 4,000 summer campers go through our programs, mostly on site, but also some of the programs that we do off site as well.

For silly facility rentals, we had a 20% increase in uh field rentals this year, just shy of 9,000 hours in field rentals.

So that's the lion's share of that is one to few soccer, but we also have triangle baseball, west shore rugby, and various other programs and some special events such as the car show.

Over 15,000 hours of ice were booked last year, which was a significant increase to the previous year because part of 2021 we had the JDF arena was closed during the replacement of the floor, as well as we had 4,600 hours in pool rentals for the different swim clubs, scuba, and some of the different aspects there, rehab programs, which is more of a more than a doubling from the previous year, similar to the swimming lessons.

For drop-in programs, we saw 105,000 fitness users last year, 115,000 swimmers, 16,000 skaters, 2800 sports drop-in users.

And one of our big successes was the as we came out of using some grant funding that we received, but coming out of COVID, as we've re-established and added a lot more youth drop-in options, in particular on Friday nights, where they have exclusive use of the pool for a couple hours, as well as they go into our indoor sports complex, can use the turf as well as the basketball courts.

And then we've got a youth room where they can go in and just hang out and video games and that kind of stuff as well, make snacks.

But we saw 3,800 youth drop-ins last year.

So that was been quite success.

It was so successful we actually added on Wednesday nights as well into the arena.

So they have exclusive use of the JDF arena for skate on Wednesdays.

And we saw 34,000 rounds of golf played, which was a slight drop from the previous year, mostly due to uh rainy and wet spring.

So we had a slow start, great summer, great fall, just like got a slow start to the year.

Another aspect we try to do is, and we brought back, which unfortunately didn't happen a bit during COVID, but was the supporting some of the events that happened in the region.

And so we have our community development team will set up tables at these events where they make do set up crafts and so on for kids to be able to participate in.

So around some of them around the region, we were involved with the change makers event in Langford, National Indigenous People's Day at Royal Roads, the Beecher Bay and a school celebration in Machosen, the Highlands Fall Fling, the Langford Lightup, and the Callwood Christmas light up.

And one of the ones I did want to mention there is as far as V Rural goes, there used to be some involvement with your candidate pre-COVID, and actually our community, our communications and also our uh community development program is going to be reaching out to all of our own, all of the owner municipalities and V Rural in particular, to seek out ways that we can try to support some of your events that you uh run within your municipality as well.

For 2022, uh our projection have us one percent better on revenues and two percent um lower in operational expenses, looking at a surplus of 230,000 uh for last year, which is 4% better in budget.

Those major variances for last year, a big part of that, the lion's share at the top is related to unfortunately open positions.

We've been struggling with hiring as many have.

Um, we had eight full-time maintenance positions in particular that sat open for the first seven months of the year, which is a significant significant cost savings, but also challenged the staff to be able to make things to be able to operate the facilities, keep things clean, and so on.

Um, happy to say that right now we've got all but one position filled, and that's posted right now.

It didn't lead to any restrictions or reductions in our services.

So we're definitely making a comeback as far as that goes.

I believe in the we had one day we had to close the pool early, and that was it.

Unlike the unfortunate circumstances many of the in the region have run into where they've had to close facilities early and not offer the same amount of programs related to staff, and we've been having a much better time at that.

Community recreation did a lot better last year compared to budget.

A lot of that was related to a conservative budget coming out of 2020, not or 2021, sorry, not knowing how COVID restrictions would still be in place, as they were still affecting us at the beginning of the year and at the time of making the budget.

Some of the areas that really produced well in community recreation in particular were arts and culture, pottery did really well.

Sports programs made a quite uh rebound in community recreation, as well as the 4,000 summer campers as mentioned, was great, was more than we expected and putting us back into pre COVID numbers.

Fitness and wellness, particularly on the specialty fitness, so that's more yoga, Pilates, spin bike classes, those were really popular through the year.

Sports programs, as I mentioned, a lot of that was on related to the field rentals on administration.

Some of the areas that we spent over budget last year on administration, but most of that was related to those savings that we were realizing, but up above, it's higher revenues and open positions.

We actually went ahead to try to ensure that our requisition increase for 2023 wasn't higher than we ended up bringing forward.

As we did some purchases such as um software or sorry server backup, we had some trans high power transformers in the arena and the Q center that had to be replaced, and they were scheduled to happen in 2023, and we're able to use those funds and take care of that at the end of 2022.

Um, the weights and rehab, so that's more the fitness drop in into the weight room.

Uh, it was down compared to last year.

If you recall, January was still closed, the restrictions still affected us in January, and then we had a slower um uptake of annual pass and uh holders than we expected, just as people were trying to get comfortable with coming back to the weight room.

By the fall, it was full on compared to what we've seen before.

And as of right now, um, staff are quite excited.

We had our first New Year's resolution rush in two or in three years this year, and it's been quite incredible actually.

They uh to see there's a lot of pent-up recreation desire by the public, and so we're seeing that.

Into our dry floor, which is the indoor sports complex, it didn't do quite as well as expected.

The previous year we had a large Netflix um movie rental, so we budgeted a little bit of we reduced what the expectations on that, but we didn't see any movie rentals or uh movie shoots on our site last year, so that was a little bit of a draw up there.

And as mentioned earlier in golf at a slow start to the year with a wet spring, and then some other minor variances through the year.

But all of that wrapped up together, we're expecting about a $230,000 uh surplus for last year, and that goes into our reserve, our capital assets reserve for doing mid-capital projects.

So moving into 2023, some of the challenges that we dealt with, and and this is addressed through our budget is we had some of that restart funding, which was great.

That was carried over that was not used in 2021, used in 2022 in order for us to not bring forward an over 8% requisition increase request for 2022.

But that started off in 2023 as we're doing our comparison against taxation, as putting us roughly 3.22% behind.

But due to our increased performance as mentioned, what we're seeing now, but what we started to see in the fall, we were able to overcome that in this budget.

There was also a number of legislative increases to labor costs last year around employee sick time and statutory holiday pay.

We're very much we're a $12 million budget, 75% is labor.

So it's any labor changes like that have a significant effect on us.

Those two major ones there were uh our full-time staff already have that, but auxiliary staff receiving loop pay.

On top of that, now due to the legislation, they receive five days of pixel of paid sick time, which it was a rough cost of $65,000.

We weren't expecting for last year, and the change into the stat holiday pay was another $32,000 increase we weren't expecting last year.

Again, we've addressed both of those into the budget for 2023 through some of the regional wage increases we put in place.

So I can't remember if this affected V Royal, but some of our partners through the QP development and so on and the much larger increases that were that happened due to the situation in the economy.

So what we negotiated ours ahead of time, so we're not in that same cycle.

And so ours was at a 2% increase, which has now put us significantly behind the region.

And so we're roughly 5% of the region going into when we go into 2024.

So this budget, we've included a contingent wage contingency to help us through that process as we go into the next contract negotiations, which will happen this fall.

And lastly, inflation.

Everything's gotten way more expensive on our maintenance side as far as supplies go.

When we've had roofing projects, we had to do it was astronomical, how much that went up.

So we're not immune to that.

We are, as as I'll mention later on, the the 5% we brought forward, we're happy to say is below where the average has been.

So we've been able to control some of those costs by going through.

So the five-year financial plan 2023 sees a 13.8% increase in revenue expectations for 2023 over 2022, which is significant.

But when you go into if you actually project our fees from 2019 forward and pretend that COVID never happened, it's right in a line of where we should be.

And as mentioned, by the time we hit the fall last year, we're seeing registrations, program use, rentals, everything exactly in a line.

How is it you how it how we would have expected and numbers we would have seen before?

In particular in areas both in our pool field use and in the weight room, we're actually seeing numbers greater than we've ever seen before in some of that demand.

Moving forward, we go back to a conservative three assumed three percent increase year over year.

Um, we saw a budget or an increase of 7.7 percent.

Expenditures.

Some of the the difference there, all that the increased revenue, of course, is driven.

There's expenses that come along with that, increased staffing, supplies, and so on.

The reduction there, why it's not as high as a percentage as the revenue side is related to our ex increased expectations on performance.

And then moving forward, we go into our our um historical three percent conservative expected increase year over year.

Some of the major expense increases that we addressed in 2023 are not in discretionary.

So wage increases is mentioned, it's lower than what others have, but still 2% of a large our large budget budget is 234,000 increase for next year.

Or for non-discretionary increases for the wages, it's 103,000 for regular staff, 45,000 for auxiliary staff.

We have significant rate increases around utilities of 41,000 and insurance of 45,000.

So the insurance is one that we've been mentioning.

The board has been our has been well aware of that.

We're they're struggling right now to find companies who will bid on insuring us, similar to what led to the creation of the municipal uh insurance authority was the same thing.

Years ago, people weren't stopped the risk level for a municipality, so companies weren't bidding on the insurance, so that was created.

We're now running into that.

We're a municipal service.

So we're having that same challenge as far as finding bidders, and which has made it a according to our broker, a hard market, which has made the costs go down.

There's not the competition there.

Last year they went out to 22 different insurers, and only one came back and bid on our insurance.

And we have a significant amount of equipment and so on that has to be insured.

The discretionary increases, we've added three team leader positions into our after-school care position that require class four driver's licenses.

That was one of the positions that has been a big struggle for us and actually and all the license care programs around the city to find people with class four.

So we created these new positions that require it as a training.

That was some extra responsibility to help out with the running of the program, allows us then through our collective agreement to create pay them at a higher wage, which makes it more incentive for people to apply for that.

And that's really helped us out.

Last year, as we were struggling, we ended up contracting out a few of the routes on our after-school care program, which is definitely a lot more expensive than staff.

As mentioned, we included a 1.76 wage contingency to help us out with negotiations that'll be coming around the corner.

And furthermore, the last piece is 60,000 annual transfer increase to our capital reserve, which was direction we received from the ownership back in fall of 2021.

And that's to help ensure that we work our way forward of fully funding all of our capital asset reprovements as they go forward.

So overall, the total expense increase for 2023 was 461,000.

We increased our fees, program offerings, and performance expectations for 184,000, which left a deficit of 277,000, which is the amount of the total requisition increase.

Within 2023, a couple areas that we're looking at for future capital needs.

So we've got a couple feasibility costing studies we've included in the budget, one of which is pickleball.

So that's the hot topic that keeps going around through the province, through the region.

We've spoken to our ownership.

Of course, the a lot of the Victoria Pickleball Association is approached.

The challenges, as you're all aware, is putting those near residential areas.

It's an enjoyable fun game, but it's very loud.

And so that leads to a lot of complaints, which a lot of the region is dealing with.

We recognize on the society's grounds, we don't have that issue.

It's a good place to potentially put those courts.

And so what we've got into the budget this year is to hire a consultant to do a costing study for us so that when infrastructure grants come out, we've got a shelf ready project that we can go for that.

And pickleball ticks a lot of those boxes, outdoors, multi-age, multi-level.

Um, so it's a pretty good chance of getting that.

The other big project on the horizon is the twinning of the JDF arena.

Um, so there's always a high demand for ice.

Uh, and in some of the recent news, although that's not on the West Shores, it will have a somewhat of an effect is the change that UVIC is doing with theirs come 2026, I believe it is.

And so there is going to be a demand for more ice.

So on the West Shore, because we used to have the curling rink, our ice plant can run two sheets.

And so there is the it is cost beneficial to twin our rink versus building another standalone rink.

So we're gonna look at hiring a consultant to help us up with the pricing of that.

The one caveat with that police is it's good our aspect is gonna take away a significant amount of parking to do that.

So we need a parking solution to tie into it, of which we already have a challenge with seeing as though there's the transit parking nearby.

When we do big events, shamrocks games and so on at the queue, it filters through the whole the whole ground.

So we need some solution there.

So that'll tie into that, but we're gonna be going out to a consultant to uh work on some of that this year.

Capital projects into next year.

So we're looking at $2.7 million in projects.

Um, one some of the areas to point out is we're replacing all of our cardio equipment in our fitness room.

In the past, we used to do a small portion every year through COVID because there was less usage, there was restrictions.

We didn't do any of those replacements.

We're now moving into all of everything needs to be replaced, unfortunately, due to wear and tear, um, but it's also going moving into a new plan where we do that process every four years.

So we get a re reboot on it all.

It's all the same make and model, which goes a long way for customer aspect to it.

They get used to using a certain kind of machine, certain brand of machine that way.

We do already contribute to that on an annual basis to reserve, so that's fully funded out of a set reserve we already have for that equipment.

So there's no tax effect on there.

In the major site maintenance, there's a few there.

The one I wanted to point out is the roof.

So we're doing a major roof that covers our pool fit or fitness area, the hallways, change rooms.

It was originally half of that was originally in the 2022 budget.

We went out with it last year.

All of our quotes are more than double what was budgeted.

So we shelved that and put it all together, created a new budget and putting it out this year.

Also with the hopes with some of the change in the economy that we'll get a little bit better pricing.

Unfortunately, because of that large ticket item, we did have to move some other projects into future years.

The hope is we'll get some better pricing this year, and then we can go through the board to bring back some of those projects that we had to push out into future years.

And then the other one in there is the skate park.

So that's the gracious funding through the ownership as well as the federal grant funding.

Portion of the work was done last year, but the majority of it's going on right now.

And as mentioned, so that's covered through reserve.

And then we've got capital reserve that's covering a fair amount of the other pieces.

We also have library work in there as well, as we act as the landlord for that library.

So that's a flow through, in essence, it's a flow through on us.

There's fees based on the library pay contributes to that.

The other foreigners beside yourselves, because you guys contribute to the one downtown, and it flows there is a net zero within our budget, but we act as the landlord for that piece.

Some updates on the exciting skate bar project that took year years in the making, and Vureau was always a very big proponent of getting that in place, which is wonderful.

Um, excavation is complete, construction has begun.

Um, they're doing molds.

There's already parts you can see now.

There's framework up there, and I can't remember the exact what it's called, but the high-pressured concrete where it's blasted high pressure, so it sticks to the wall.

Watching the trial work of those guys is pretty incredible what they can do.

Um it's looking amazing.

Every day you go down there, there's quite uh quite the change into that park.

Uh, as mentioned, the total cost for that was 1.2, um, roughly $350,000 was last year, and the remainder was this year, and we currently sit on schedule to be completed by the end of March.

In the presentation, a couple photos, some renderings of what the project will look like.

So the picture on the left, we will have some picnic areas.

The plan is in the future is to cover that.

That's a view looking from the parking lot that is adjacent to the field house where the PAR3 Pro Shop is for the golf course.

And then looking down the hill more from where the tennis courts are is the picture on the left.

So one thing is when you see it in person, the pictures don't do justice, just how large it is.

So it's it's a significant size skate park, which is really exciting.

That uh will be coming up in just a few months.

Reserve continuity.

Um, if you recall, that's been one of the hot topics when it comes to the society for a number of years, where we've been working towards getting ourselves to be well fully funded eventually, but um getting out of the red.

So we've the society has been really strong for years operationally, but due to due to a multiply of factors, capital projects is a large number, large amount of capital equipment, buildings, and so on on site, the ability to fund that has been a challenge.

Um, if you recall last year, as of 2025, we started to dip into the red if things weren't changing.

I'm very excited to say that we're in the black all the way through 2027.

A lot of that is to do with that increase that happens on an annual basis to the contribution, as well as what we've just been able to do within our budget process, and we keep trying to increase the amounts that we transfer over into the reserve to ensure that we're not running into issues moving forward.

Those growth will the growth on that 60,000, we plan on continuing at some point.

We can look at it, but continuing that so we can stay on top of inflationary increases and so on as we go through.

But very excited to see that uh we're not dipping into the red on that anymore.

So the connection into that um amount that I mentioned before and how it works, the um breaks it up between the ownerships.

So the ownerships uh is based on converted assessments.

So this is updated every year through information that's passed on to us from the owner, the finance departments from the owners.

The average converted assessment increase for last year across the region was 25.43.

Um, to point out, if you see on the bottom, view royals was lower at 21.81, which has resulted in an ownership decrease of 0.39%, and also increase results on the next page of instead of the 5% average, your at your requisition increase is lower than that for the year.

And as mentioned, as the requisition going into it is 5% for the year.

It works out for View Royal as 1.97%, and that's related to that decrease in the overall percentage of ownership related to converted assessments, which is an overall 14,852 increase from 277,022 to 200, 3.9% or 217 is an increase related to operating expenses, and 1.1% is that 60,000 additional capital reserve contribution as mentioned before.

So our estimated taxation impact.

So we just look at we took the 2021 Canadian census on population and looked at the individual owners' financial plans just to give a picture to what that actually means compared to your own taxes.

Again, it's lower than the average.15% related to the society or $1.28 per capita on the expense side.

And that concludes my presentation.

Any questions?

Thank you, Mr.

Brown.

That was uh great.

And it was very concise.

And uh that's really good news with the rebound from COVID and uh good to see you up and operating and obviously in high demand.

Uh for council.

Do we have any questions?

Counselor Batson.

Sure.

Thank you for your presentation.

Uh it's great to see you again.

A couple of questions.

I'm just you mentioned pickleball, and I'm just curious as what sort of um user fees would be associated with something like pickleball.

Um, we probably we would be looking at running it the same way as we do for tennis.

And so the ability to rent the court at a at a fairly low rate, but for the most part, it would just be free access, first come, first serve, um drop into the facility.

And so the right now there are rental that they can rent the courts for.

I don't have the number off the top of my head, but they can rent our indoor courts and the indoor sports um complex, which is indoors, but these will be outdoor courts, so we're looking at somewhere around where the tennis courts are.

So we don't charge for that unless people want to book the whole facility so for example if there's a tennis camp or something like that um and speaking with Victoria pickable they're interested in potentially trying to run programs and whatnot so we'll look at that as we move forward.

Okay thank you and and my last question uh years ago if you were all tried to uh we had a deal with um sanitage so that our kids could go over and use their drop you know on Friday night drop ins and we we got some funding for a bus etc unfortunately nothing ever it didn't seem to work out too well because kids decided not to do that commute.

But I was just wondering what for the drop-ins.

Um youth drop-in, do we do any pickups currently?

We don't, but it's something we could look at.

I mean we have a full we've got four buses related to our after school care programs.

Maybe uh who's our pack person here?

So it is something we could we could entertain for sure.

Yeah.

Are you maybe that's something you could chat with the the PACs about?

Thanks.

And then of course then to thank you Counselor Madison we'll go to Councillor Lemon and then Counselor Brown next.

So Councillor Lemon please.

Thank you.

Thanks Grant that was very concise and better to be asked than Highlands.

A question, Re, the youth youth drop-in.

I think that's terrific.

I I it's wonderful how you were expanded it and is open tomorrow.

Is is there a charge?

And if there is, can it is it still accessible to those that cannot meet the fee?

Yeah, it's at a reduced rate, so it's $3.

Um, and then we've always got the potential.

We have the life program regionally, which is the leisure involvement for everyone.

And so anyone that potentially can't afford or has it sitting in a lower income bracket, they can come in and they get 52 free visits a year.

So that would qualify for that program if they're able to.

And a secondary question that, and this is, you know, I guess it's kind of separate from this, but I'm wondering what the relationship is with the uh senior center.

Is is there a rental relationship?

I know they do their own programming, but but is is there is there revenue from there for you yeah it's sort of it's a a kind of a a lease so we're the landlords and we take care of the maintenance of the facility they run it for the most of the day daytime hours on weekends and evenings we have some programs um their membership fee goes to us which basically covers the renting of the building so they look at it all day long but we've got a mate one maintenance person every day that's assigned specifically to that facility we do all the cleaning of the rooms and any of the um um upgrades that happen during the shut they do a three week shutdown in July, and we do all of those upgrades for them, and that's all covered through that uh membership fee that we received.

If they do any bigger projects, it's usually on a partnership, depending on if our staff have the skill base to do the work.

So, for example, they upgraded their kitchen, I believe it was four years ago.

Um, our staff did some of the work, we contracted some of the work, and they work through us.

They make use of our operations department to find the contractors and and do that work, and they they uh fundraise for those through their membership on that aspect.

Okay, great to know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lemon.

Counselor Brown.

Yeah, I really like public private partnerships, and I do a lot of walking in Royal Roads, and I walk by the tennis courts there that haven't been used in years.

Uh it'd be nice to see the pickable people, uh, Royal Roads and Glessher Parks work together to build.

You could build four pickleball courts in the existing two tennis courts.

It's fully paved, it's fully cut chain linked, fenced all around.

Uh, needs some weeding because it's been sitting for quite a long part, and of course, lining.

The pickleball people have players places to play.

Uh, to me, it's a win-win-win.

There's a gym there as well, shower facilities, everything else.

Um, the pickleball people would love it because they got more places, and and and Royal Roads would like it because it's a nice store right now.

And it's a shame to see that space sitting there empty that could be used.

It'd be great to see a partnership between the three groups.

Uh just an idea.

I don't know.

Uh I know I've mentioned it to Counselor Kowalichuk before.

I'm not sure how much discussion has ever come about that, but again, it's just sitting there wasting away, and rather than having to build new ones or build new ones and use those ones as well.

To me, it's a no-brainer.

So I don't know if you could take that back to your your group.

And yeah, we can look and explore that for sure.

Really good.

Thank you, Councillor Brown.

Uh Counselor Rogers.

Yeah, thanks very much for the report.

Um so relieved that uh indeed we are reinvesting and putting um a substantial amount into the reserves uh uh to to look at the difference between um what was 1.2 million down to 170,000.

It's uh it's thankfully we're doing that.

Um question about the fees.

Um are the fees that and I know this has been an adjustment and I I see it's justified.

How is those uh fees stand with uh other regional uh recreational facilities in the region?

We're right in the middle.

So we through that process evaluate, we do a survey actually through through on the program side and also admissions rentals.

Um so some examples are we're on the low end for field rentals, we're right near the middle for ice rentals, we're the second highest for adult admissions, right in the middle for senior admissions.

So we try to make sure we're not the highest and we're not necessarily the lowest.

We try to float right in the middle as best as possible.

Um, in all honesty, for this year, due to some of the cost increases, we did that same process, but we didn't weigh that comparison as much into our decision on where we move the fees for this year as we normally would.

However, we still ended up right smack in the middle of the of the pack as far as um all of our fees go.

Thank you.

Uh, another question.

With respect to the skateboard park, and uh it'll be really exciting to see it open up.

Um, when I was doing my ride along with the RCMP, um uh it was an interesting comment that it might become or be a um um for lack of better term, a security issue being tucked away down in the bowl and all that.

Um so is is there going to be the additional investment of uh security lighting and and uh so forth to uh to monitor the site?

Yeah, there's lighting included.

We also now block and we've actually since um for the last number of years, we actually at night close the gate um that locks down to the lower park.

Um and some of that that wouldn't prevent people from walking in, but it certainly deals with some of the issues we were having with RVs and so on on site.

Um so we've done that, but there'll be lights on site.

We do have a security patrol.

The commissionaires come through our site every night at around two in the morning, anyways.

Um, and then one of the aspects down there is there's the middle of the night issue potentially when we we will have that patrol coming through, but through the day, there's actually pretty much constant foot traffic between the different between staff and different patrons stuff going by that site.

So we're hoping that will hopefully mitigate some of that risk for sure.

Yeah, hopefully.

Uh, I guess the concern is um, and I I hear you above the gate, uh, but that could also block the police car that's been called down to uh you know, you know, to assist or something like that.

So you know that's a factor to consider.

And I guess uh, you know, you mentioned about insurance.

Um, does the skateboard park when that g opened up um present another additional insurance cost?

Um, yes, it will.

It's not significant though, because uh just the our what if from um we deal with Aon and on the the risk assessment of that compared to everything else, it's not a huge change from where we already lie.

So there will be an increase related, just there's more property to insure, uh, more equipment to insure, but it's not a significant change.

Um on that gate, we do have maintenance on site 24 hours a day.

And so those that number, so whenever if there's an emergency or so or whatnot, they do come through and they can contact our maintenance staff because of the um ammonia plant.

We have to have staff on site all day.

Um so there's always always someone there that can come and open that gate.

Thank you, Counselor Rogers, Councillor McKenzie.

Um thank you.

Yes, thank you for the report.

Um, just on the back of um Councillor Rogers' comment there, and the skate part will is there any way to generate uh revenue from that from like rentals as well, or is it um we've actually received a grant from the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association.

So we're going to do learn to skate programs.

Um, and the plan is to run camps through there in the summer, um, as well as that it was designed in such a fact to potentially have events.

So, one of the pieces they want to be able to do it's at a level, it's being designed at a level so that we can actually have skateboard events.

So there is a plan to have some, it's not looking at as a significant like compared to the rest of the offerings we have, it won't be a significant revenue maker, but there is plans to have some revenue generation from it.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And uh just a comment.

I would love to have a tour one day.

So I will get in touch afterwards.

Thank you, Councillor McKenzie.

And I think uh maybe that would be great for for council as well, just to have an offering and we can discuss that at a later date.

Uh, Mr.

Brown.

That sounds uh that'd be fantastic.

Yeah.

Uh to help us uh in awareness.

And staff, uh just wondering if we could have a discussion at some point about how we might be able to advocate with other municipalities uh who have recreation facilities and the insurance issue just to have the discussion.

I'll bring it up with the West Shore Mayors and CRD, but we're not the only municipal recreation uh organization in the province, and and maybe there is some appetite to uh to have the discussion for insurance similar to what we've done for municipalities.

Um so we've got a recommendation on the table that the committee uh recomm or that uh sorry, the wrong one.

Uh that the committee recommend to council that the draft 2023 West Shore Parks and Recreation Society budget be approved.

They have a mover.

Second.

A seconder with councilor with councilor Lemon.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

So that was their petitions and delegations.

I believe there are no other petitions and delegations staff just to double check my vision.

I'm having to switch between glasses on and glasses off.

It's that wonderful point in life.

Um and I think we can move to public participation period.

Is there anybody in the room that would like to address the committee of the whole?

I see nobody on the room.

Is there anybody on the phone that would like to address count uh the committee of the whole?

Mayor Tobias, we have no callers at this time.

Not as busy as our last meeting.

So I think we I will turn the chair over to Councillor Brown for Protective Services okay uh no chair's report um I don't believe there's any business arising from previous minutes um and can I get someone to uh um uh move the staff report or the the staff recommendation that the building inspection report uh be received for information councilor Matson and Councilor Rogers all those in favor approve so inspector rose can you update us to what's happening at the West Shore detachment how are the electric vehicles going?

Thank you uh counselor brown uh the electric vehicle, I guess, is in play um we're currently training our staff on the nuances that are associated to the operation of the new Tesla that's been added to the detachment fleet.

It does come with some nuanced differences than your regular vehicle, certainly as many of the operation or ways in which it's operated are voice activated.

And of course, that that's something that we need to adapt to.

We also have loaded a lot of equipment into the vehicle, which doesn't go into a regular uh vehicle for personal use, and so we've had to adapt our equipment and storage.

But by and large, uh the feedback has been pretty positive, certainly from the public.

Some of our officers are, you know, working through those nuanced differences, but the public has been extremely receptive of the vehicle and the movement to the potential for adding e-vehicles to the police fleet.

As you can appreciate, we use a lot of fuel annually, and so any cost savings we can have there is certainly a movement in the right direction.

And it's consistent with both provincial and federal expectations around reducing carbon emissions.

So it's it's a nice addition.

With respect to the detachment uh crime figures for the January 1st uh to 31st period, I can provide a general overview.

And I'll certainly uh if I forget, I'm sure Council Rogers will remind me uh to differentiate some of those mental health calls uh from the town of Uroyal proper uh from those at the hospital, as we've now modified the report to ensure that that's captured uh to see the difference.

Uh so last month uh in View Royal, we had 253 uh total general occurrences uh within the municipality of View Royal, and that's a 5% increase over the same period last year.

182 of those uh were founded offenses, and that represents about a 17% increase over January of last year.

Uh did you say founded occurrences?

Founded, that's correct.

Does anyone else have a not know what that means?

Okay.

I get it, but I'll let you explain.

Uh so we report all of our calls for service to Statistics Canada, and we have to categorize those so they can be compared across jurisdictions.

Um when I say general occurrence, that means somebody called the police and a police file was created.

Uh not all of those police files are reportable uh to Statistics Canada.

Um, for example, something like a bylaw complaint is an occurrence that the police attend.

The file is dispatched and an officer deals with that, but that's not something that's reported to Stats Canada.

It's not included in the crime severity index when calculated annually and compared across jurisdictions.

So the slight difference there is comparing the total number of files that our officers attended in the 30-day period to those that were reported to Stats Canada by way of substantive reportable criminal offenses.

So that would be the difference between the two.

Only 10 of those founded occurrences were violent crime.

And of course, violent crime is inclusive of things like common assaults or uttering threats.

Violent crimes within View Royal did increase from 2019 through 2021.

However, so far in 2022, we have a, or in 2022, sorry, we had a slight decrease overall within View Royal.

If we further look at the types of calls, property crime accounted for 25 founded occurrences, and that's about a 32% increase over the same period last year.

The main offenses captured there include mischief under $5,000, fraud and shoplifting being the top three types of property offenses.

Property crimes decreased from 2019 and into 2020.

There was a slight increase in V Royal in 2021, but fortunately it decreased again in 2022.

In keeping with an earlier question for the previous presenter, when it comes to property crime, and that may be what's a consideration with the new skate park, I can say that that will be an area, of course, that we will patrol.

And despite the presence of the gate, uh, which I'm sure our friends at the fire department will help us uh traverse if needed in case of an emergency, uh, we definitely have the ability to be on foot, and we also have our four-member uh bike unit uh that will certainly spend some time uh in this particular area, uh even more so after hours and at night.

Um if I speak to a couple of the drivers or I guess more common locations of offenses, uh of course the casino is one that we touch on uh each month.

Uh there were 12 uh calls for service there in January, and that's a 250% increase over the same period uh last year.

Uh when we move over to the hospital, uh 14 of the calls for service occurred there, and there's uh no increase from this year over last.

So January last year was also 14.

Of note, only two files, only two of those 14 involve mental health considerations, despite the fact that there were 14 mental health calls overall within View Royal in the month of January.

That is a 40% increase over the January last year.

So specific to the question that came up at Council of the Whole, or sorry, Committee of the Whole from last month, certainly those calls are attributable to View Royal proper and not necessarily the hospital uh specifically I am very happy to report uh despite those mental health calls uh there were no reports of suicidal persons uh within the jurisdiction in the month of January that is what I have uh with respect to the um common statistics of course that we provide at each of the meetings and I'm certainly open to any questions that council may have.

Thank you Inspector Rose does anyone have any questions for the Inspector?

Uh counselor Lemmon Thank you very much thank you Inspector Rose um a couple of questions um one regarding the casino uh and a two hundred and fifty percent increase over last year.

Was the casino open last year at this time?

Yeah.

Yeah I think so maybe just barely, because that's quite alarming.

Um and I'm wondering about uh uh the RCMP have had terrific presence on Burnside Road um in response to, you know, our our request and uh but I I have heard from property owners who on the pr you know next next to the property that or the property that was most impacted, um, saying they're they're not aware of um police presence in the middle of the night in the in the wee hours.

Are you present?

Is there is there what they they hear the roar of the motors and and the gunning of the engines and and uh just wondering if there's more presence at night as well as the ticketing during the day.

That's a tough uh tough question to answer, to be honest, uh Council Lemon.

I I can certainly advise that we have as many officers working during the day and night and throughout that 24 hour period.

Um, where they are in the jurisdiction is sort of call dependent, depending on, of course, the volume and where those um files are being reported as occurring.

Um but each of the officers uh on day shift and night shift are also in designated zones.

So daytime and nighttime, uh the watch commander of the day does assign each person on shift to a particular area on the west shore that we police.

So is there a presence consistently?

Yes.

Is it on a particular street or road each and every night?

I can't speak to that beyond saying, you know, the officers are present where we have an increased volume or calls for service where they're asking for additional patrols.

I can't speak specifically to how much time or you know how many officers are on each road within uh the jurisdiction.

Mayor Tobias, you had a question?

Uh firstly, thanks for your patrols there.

Um, I've noticed um I've had to slow down a few times, and ironically, um there was uh a neighbor that was implicated of the complaint initially uh who got a ticket from uh from so it's obviously working.

I'm not sure if it's slowing people down again.

I'm meeting tomorrow with uh the mayor of Saanich to discuss that whole kind of road because it it is dangerous.

But to uh counselor um Lemon's remarks, I I just live a little bit down from that, and I can certainly hear the the engines gutting.

And I think what what where the safety issue is is somebody either potentially impaired or not used to driving, a little bit wet, uh, bad traction, going around a corner that's slow grade that turns quite sharp, and they're ending up in the rhubarb.

So uh anything that you could do to kind of uh provide a bit of presence at uh after hours, I think is that because coming this way during the day, there is no such thing as speeding because it's pretty much traffic jammed.

So uh it's the after hours part that I think is is the dangerous part.

Um but thank you.

Thank you for your uh your patrols and everything that you're doing.

Counselor Rogers, you had a question?

Yes, thanks.

Uh thanks for the report and and coming back with these statistics relevant to uh on the mental health and and in view.

Um I also want to thank uh the RCP for the ride-along um that uh you invite us to.

It's really very helpful.

And and uh one of the practical examples was uh were um Councilor Brown and and uh management RCMP management managed to sort out the uh enforcement of um uh speeding in the school zones at the equal view elementary so my compliments to to both for getting that addressed and i know the crossing guards there will be uh are is is also very happy that it's been addressed thank you just just one quick comment on the Teslas the uh I know a lot of people have concerns about the well the range of course but I know the vehicles there have have an extra battery pack I believe to to allow for vehicles to be sitting long periods of time with lights uh all the emergency equipment line of course is gonna draw on the battery but what I understand is extra battery packed than a normal person would get buying off a car a lot.

Uh I can speak to that um the Tesla model that we do have the model y does have the extended um battery uh additionally all of the auxiliary equipment that has been installed in that vehicle run from a separate battery so it's not tied to the main battery that's installed um during the manufacturing of that vehicle it's ran from a secondary um battery that's stored in the trunk any further questions if not gonna be a motion to accept the uh inspector's report just just one question so somewhere along the line, I'm gonna be getting a call for a ride along.

Can I ride along in the Tesla?

Uh Councilor Matson, we can definitely facilitate that.

Um, I will caution you though, uh, there's not a lot of room in the passenger seat of the Tesla, uh, unlike some of the other vehicles that we have in our fleet.

Okay, thank you.

I I've lost a few pounds, so I should be all right.

Are you making a motion to accept the inspector's report?

Approved.

Second by counselor Rogers.

Approved moved by Councillor Matson.

Uh all is in favor.

Unanimous.

Thank you, Inspector.

Thank you.

I won't take a ride along.

I've spent enough time in police cars.

Thanks.

The ride along is certainly uh is certainly valuable.

And you know, it's one of the old adages that uh until you've walked a mile in someone's shoes, you can't truly appreciate uh what that path uh can be.

And so we definitely encourage our elected officials and community members, you know, uh under the right circumstances to come and speak with the police to participate in a ride along to gain insight into what our men and women do uh daily so uh thank you to counsel for participating in that and and allowing us to uh to show you what the role does bring chief hirst do you have a report for bylaw fire no okay great uh can he talk to us about his uh our linking up with the sister city in Argentina that just came back that's the end of the uh my my uh committee meeting then.

Thank you, Councillor Brown, and we can uh turn it over to Councillor Lemon.

Thank you very much.

Uh just a um uh uh the Greater Victoria Public Libraries um system we had the the board held its inaugural meeting a couple of weeks ago, and uh we voted for a new chair and vice chair.

New chair of the board is Andrew Appleton, counselor for Oak Bay, and the vice chair is Shahira Carr, who is a citizen rep from Sanich.

Um committee appointments will happen.

I think the next board meetings next week or the week after.

Um committee appointments will happen then.

And I have thus far been on the planning and uh policy and planning committee, and I hope to stay on it because I bring more value there.

Um and uh well we'll see, and and the committee chairs and vice chairs will be selected then too.

I don't I've not decided whether I would let my name stand or not, probably not.

Um, but we'll see.

Um and um you will see on the agenda that um we have a copy of the proposed budget for the GVPL for the coming year.

Um it does reflect an 8.5 percent overall system wide hike, um, bringing it to 22 million lots, lots.

And that would mean a 7% increase for pure oil.

I do hope that you know the committee of the whole will approve it and pass it on to the board or to to council.

And just as an aside, our beloved reading center will be coming to us for a grant in the next couple of weeks or a few weeks.

For those who are unfamiliar with it in general, it's it's very likely the oldest volunteer run, continuously volunteer run library in in British Columbia, I would argue, is 80 years old, still entirely volunteer run and depends pretty much entirely on us, apart from my late fees, um for its for its survival.

I will be asking the CEO of the GVPL if there's a way that they can help the uh I as a on an you know a side conversation a few years ago I had a comp I spoke with Maureen Sawa, who's the CEO, and she said, you know, we can help, you know, to keep it going keep it strong you know bring it you know in any way we can bring it into you know more current modes or whatever we could do so I'm going to I'm going to renew that conversation and see what can be done because it's it's a it's it's a gem um very likely underused often unrecognized but I I think it's I think personally it's it's worth supporting.

And arts commission um Marianne Alto, Mayor of Victoria um is the new uh chair of the arts commission, and she's challenged us as directors on, well not directors, we're trustees, no commissioners, that's what we are, commissioners, to push board members, CRD board members and member municipalities to encourage and celebrate arts and culture within the communities.

And I think a part of that, perhaps not a small part, is that the arts commission, which and and the the role is very much a um supporting small arts organizations, community arts organizations, and and and um approving funding requests that have been um uh have gone through the the eyes of and approval processes of an arts council.

So people who are very familiar with the arts bring it to us and say and say we recommend you approve the funding for this, and we generally do on their recommendation.

Um but there's only nine commissioners, and there that's just over half the representation of all of the the the um the regions and areas and municipalities that are part of the CRD.

So I I think perhaps um this uh request that we encourage um arts and celebration of the arts in the region would also be you know in encouraging the other municipalities and regions and and areas um to participate so at at the last meeting we we um approved six about six hundred thousand dollars in operating grants for smallish um arts organizations across the region and that's my report.

Any questions?

So we will be discussing the budget, etc.

afterwards?

Um I think well, I think that the budget is in, you know, if if there's a request for um the CEO and board chair to come and speak to council, um, I'm sure certainly they would do that.

I don't know that would that's been done before, but um, I know they've come.

No, I was just curious whether was that the chair's report and the item on the agenda for for the library will is another item.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, that was that was my report.

So is is there any questions about my report, and then I will see if there's any questions about well, I do have a library question and it may as well come now then in the budget.

So, how far away are we from getting out of the book business in terms of library and just having it all electronic?

Because I know there's like there's a million dollars for which I guess is mainly new books, et cetera.

And I'm just wondering how that transition's going.

I don't think we'll ever get out of the book business.

Um so I there's not a move to get out of the book business from, but there is a um I mean hard copy books.

Yeah, yeah.

People still read books, you know, people still go to the library.

Yeah, I do.

I pick up a book.

Yeah.

Um, and as for the library's financial plan, um what's your what's your pleasure, people?

Do you do you want to have someone come and speak to it or are you comfortable with with approving it as it is now?

I like to move the staff recommendation that the committee recommended council, the Greater Victoria Public Library 2023 budget and five year financial plan be approved.

Second.

And before we go to vote, if I can uh just add my concern is not about the budget at all for the library.

My concern is that not enough people in View Royal know that they can go to the Greater Victoria Library.

And if there's a way to cross-pollinate our modest library with offerings that would promote the greater Victoria Library or maybe request a book there and have it dropped off there or or what have you, I think there's all kinds of options.

I uh we we the the town invests a lot in the library.

I sign things um uh every month and it's a significant amount of money.

Uh like the West Shore Parks and Recreation, there are some incredible services that were um responsible for governance and and funding.

And I would like, you know, council to do as much as we could to promote it.

That's my point.

If we're gonna spend the money, then let's make sure that everybody knows that they're entitled to.

Um thank you.

Um Councillor McKenzie.

Thank you.

Um I have a question for staff um so how much discretion does council have on these budgets so for the library and equally to the the uh um parks and rec um with regards to the budget is it and the increases council can choose to explore further the details of the budget presented by both organizations we do have obligations to provide an approval of the budget by the end of February.

Okay, so if if council um just wanted to ask questions, I guess, regarding the certain amounts, that's what we would do before making a decision.

We could uh engage the library and have them do a presentation similar to the presentation received today from um from Grant Brown.

I think given the amount, it's quite a significant increase.

I would prefer to have a presentation.

I found the one for Parks and Rec um quite helpful in in seeing the reasoning why.

Sure.

So um that would be my preference.

But sure.

Okay.

That was what I was gonna ask.

We are putting in six hundred thousand dollars a year, so it'd be good to have a presentation in terms of how the money's spent and just to ask whatever other questions we have.

Okay.

All right.

Council Rogers, you had a question?

Yeah.

Um, well, see how the motion goes, and I I thought the uh the information uh provided um um basically said it all, and I think one of the key points, of course, is the uh the province's failure uh to increase its amount, they haven't increased it since 2009, and it uh it's still what six hundred and forty-two thousand since that time, no percent increase, and um uh despite the pleas um from all the municipalities.

Uh so I I know it's a it's a steep call, um, but uh I think um uh the report indicates and gives a good rationale as to to why that's uh that's this the situation.

Um with respect to the reading center, um uh in the years uh gone by uh we know that um um the unionized GVPL is really not going to respond to a volunteer um organization um and how they uh uh so I I I know we've we've had that discussions when I've been on on the uh uh library board we've continued to have that discussion with uh no success.

We've gone to the province to no success.

So um I think it's still going to be on our hook um as far as the reading center is concerned.

I hold no hope um despite best intentions.

So I'm I'm certainly uh I understand the the the um the need for a a rear a report but I'm happy with but it's been presented.

Okay, so called question all those in favor of but that so are we approving the budget or or are we requesting a presentation before we approve the budget okay all right all those in favor approving the budget all those opposed i want to report first to be clear the motion is that we're recommending the council that they approve the budget right not really approve the budget uh at the end it's referring so all we're doing is referring this back okay council for legal approval at the same at the same time, I recommend that we could um uh I don't do we require a motion to have them come and do a presentation.

Council Lemon, your best.

I think I can I think I can simply just ask.

Okay.

Okay.

Prior prior to the council meeting that this shows up on.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Okay, then I then I can screw it.

Okay, great.

And I'm passing the chair to Mayor Tobias.

Thank you.

Um this is a fun week, of course.

If you don't know, we have a couple of extra days of uh of finance and and budgeting and some some good discussions and uh uh I said so in my email, but thank you very much for staff for reporting for getting that tremendous amount of work together, uh, including you know the options that are available and really made it clear to us to discuss.

Um I just finished uh a financial round with the province, so I'm just looking forward now to do this one.

Um, but I'm I'm in gear for it.

Um I've reached out to a number of mayors in the area, and just so council and staff are aware, um those mayor meetings are are uh almost monthly now, and that includes Suk, Machosen, Langford, and Callwood.

And there's no agenda for it, it.

It's just getting to know each other with wanting to find out more.

Good things come out of these things, mutual aid agreements, CREST cooperation.

One of the items on the topic right now is the potential of doing some.

Corridor where they touch other communities, doing some cooperative looks at what that might develop as.

For instance, it could be mutually beneficial if West Shore Parks and Rec puts in an arts and culture place, and there's a hotel that's required that happens to sit on View Royal property where we've got the space, being able to have those discussions as a complete community to me makes a whole lot of sense.

I think if we treat the boundaries as a wall, we're not going to keep people happy, including our own residents.

And I particularly see that as important on the Esquimall Admiral's Road corridor with our borders with First Nations there as well.

So I don't have any nefarious agenda here to say is that we're talking.

Has already invited Leanne and I into a cooperative session with Langford about kind of the Callwood Triangle and just having some open discussions there about it.

Callwood has also reached out to the same consultant, uh PhD Eileen, who's the um who's currently, I believe, doing the negotiations or coming up with some data for the Esquimalt Victoria policing scenario that, if you've seen the news, has been kind of a bone of contention that's bounced back and forth through the province.

So, what she specializes in uh is municipal data.

And uh so Callwood is hosting a mayor's discussion because uh all of us newbie mayors have questions about how our DEDI is being used and and that it's being used uh consistently.

So the first meeting will be for mayors, and then the second meeting will be for councils, and they'll organize that but it's just uh a comparison of of the strategic documents and data that we have on our shelves and I'm quite looking forward to it because it's going to be a fascinating dive deeper into uh into where our data lives and how we can better make use of it.

That's all I have uh for kind of an update uh uh lastly um there is a large concern right now uh with the biosolids for um CRD and uh we've got a meeting tomorrow, as most of you might be aware and watching the news.

Um Lafarge, the way we handle our biosolids from the waste treatment, the initial plan and only plan was to send them to a cement uh processing plant uh called Lafarge in in uh Surrey, and they would be used in the manufacture of cement.

That plant has not been able to accommodate all the biosolids historically, uh, is closed more often than not, and is just coming out with a four-week remediation plan where it might be able to accept our solids again.

CRD, because it had no other options, uh, has been landfilling it against provincial regulation since that time.

Um, so that's not a happy place to be that we're landfilling 10 tons of biosolids a day, meaning that it's landfilled sand, landfilled sand, so it's eating up a lot of space really quickly.

Uh CRD has passed a notion of uh or a motion that uh no biosolids would be spread on lands in the CRD.

Um that is currently going against provincial directive that they're saying in order to create a a circular economy, we need to do that.

And of course, none of this stuff goes on agricultural land, even though they are.

So the only option that we had at the time um was to truck the biosolids to Nanaimo, where they did permit the spreading of biosolids on land.

Um I'm not sure how that will go over with Nanaimo.

Um, however, that's kind of an option that got voted in.

One of the promising things, and we we are literally between Iraq and I don't know what hard place, but um one of the interesting options that is emerging is gasification of the biosolids.

It tremendously reduces the mass of it.

And if you could think of something like literally compost that you would buy, that's what it's coming out as, as well as eliminating many of the heavy metals.

Um, so one of the things that Vancouver did is invest heavily in a gasifier.

And there's no good option here.

There's no brilliant option that you make all risks go away immediately.

But even Europe is turning to gasification and creating biochar.

This project is magical for growing absolutely anything.

Um and uh is relatively safe, particularly with monitoring, right?

To ensure that it's tested before it goes into a bag.

So the city of Vancouver now is in the position that this gasifier is in the point of making money or the potential to.

So right now the CRD pays to ship all of this stuff wherever it goes and has to pay people to take it.

So if we get to a point where we don't have to ship, that lowers our carbon footprint from just the shipping because it's shipping to a ferry, the dump truck's going onto a ferry, the ferry's burning carbon all the way to Vancouver and then driving to Surrey and then coming back, right?

So any way that we can reduce that will be good.

So staff is coming to us next month with some data on a gasification plant and what that might look like.

Some of the product is also being sold for the um used like coke and the um construction of steel right now.

So some of the biochar is being used for that.

So if you hear the difference between biosolid and biochar, you now know.

Um if I've helped educate anybody in the process, and uh just looking forward to coming with a long-term solution uh for for um our problem that is not going to go away.

That's only going to increase with our population.

Uh, there needs to be some stability and it affects us.

Uh so I just wanted to add that.

Um, and uh there is an opening of the Victory Hill Daycare that I'm attending on Sunday, which is, I believe, in your neighborhoods for three of the counselors here that live in the harbor district.

Um, so that's uh gonna be happening Sunday with I think the uh Minister for Education as well.

Um so I had a what time are we looking at?

About quarter to five.

I'm gonna go through things really quick because I know Don's eager to get on to financial stuff, and uh as is Kim.

Um there's a couple of slides that I want to highlight.

Would it be possible to bring up my committee restructure plan?

Thank you.

And you could gently flick through this, and when I say stop, maybe that'd be the best way to go.

Otherwise, I'm used to tabbing through it myself.

Uh so yeah, so the rationale for uh the committee restructure as this uh as discussed.

We've decreased the number of committees uh we've had for the last decade.

Uh there are now just two uh remaining committees.

Uh we've referred and I've heard back from uh the committees and kind of an open, I didn't want a um, you know, a motion.

I wanted people to say positive negatives for the experience they've had on committees.

Um and the current structure consumes significant staff resources, and I don't want an expansion of committees to further um uh impede uh those those resources that could be used in other places, and I don't want to burn staff out.

Um so the problem with condensing committees is that some of our applicants may just be interested in environment or parks or rec.

Um and when we combine them, they're we're not best able to use some of their talents or their interests, and they're donating their time.

So that needs to be uh better defined.

Um, and too many meetings are canceled.

We've got people that are coming out to volunteer their time, and meetings are being canceled where they would like to dig into things that matter to the town, and I believe that staff and council could use them.

Uh, next slide.

So what I wanted to come up with was something we could discuss.

And you know, the end state for today that I'm requesting is to go away and look at it.

I'm very willing to take people's comments back and retool this thing to a point where it's workable that we can start to actually get into the business of using those committees and the committee members as uh uh with as much respect as possible.

Um so um yeah, we want to be able to encourage uh committee members uh to talk to their neighbors to get out and see the things that the council is concerned about.

If you're in an instances for somebody who's going to be on the transportation committee, I'd like to see a variety of people there.

Some that bike, some that might have accessibility problems, some that commute by bus every day.

Um but having having folks in there that never have used a bus or rode a bike, I don't think is going to add us the variety.

You'll also see I'm I'm recommending a youth member on each one of the committees because I think uh uh many other municipalities do it.

I think it's a great way to get folks involved with um the exciting prospect of committee work for later on in their career.

Next slide, please.

So the current advisory structure, we all know and love them.

So they're the community development advisory uh committee, CDAC, and the Parks Recreation Environment Advisory Committee.

Where certain things come up that don't fit, we try to slide them into either both those groups or one of those groups with uh with something to go ahead.

Next slide, please.

So here's our number of committees.

And granted, yes, it is based on population, but even compared to Machosen, we have fewer boards and committees than a population of 5,000.

Next slide, please.

So there's just another look at kind of our breakdown for boards.

So we've got committees and a board of variants, and there's kind of how the other ones stack up.

And I tried to do some analysis on who has what.

Does everybody have, and they're all over the place.

Does everybody have an environment committee?

There's no consistent things to kind of bleed across that would make sense to it.

However, there are some, and counselor Brown has been, as I'll get to later, uh appointed to an intermunicipal committee for accessibility that's provincially required.

What a wonderful way to do things to share resources with Callwood that's very, very well run by somebody who and chaired by somebody who who has uh challenges with accessibility and has been an enormous benefit in consulting uh new developments and building and making sure that they're acceptable.

Next slide, please.

Uh so need for committee effective restructure.

I I think we collectively sit on 25 boards with no real interface to the public.

So I sit on a lot of CRD boards and wonder where a report that I would like public feedback in, and I've got nothing.

Really no way to say I want some opinions or options on this that's now before CRD.

And I've got no real way to exercise that with our current committee structure.

And and as we've seen, I think with the convoy protests and everything else, that the lack of information provided by all levels of government provide the misinformation and speculation.

Because if you don't know the truth and we don't have it ready and we haven't communicated it, and people haven't been involved with the process, they're gonna go to Facebook or wherever to find the truth, quote unquote.

So it's important that we allow as many opportunities for citizen engagement as we possibly can.

And one of the methods of doing that is committees.

Who has sat on a committee for counsel before they became a counselor?

And it doesn't have to be within municipality.

Has anybody sat on a committee before they became a counselor?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So not a lot of committees outside of the town in View Royal are options for committees that are part of something.

All I'm saying is it's a it's good for the leadership of the future to have access and experience in those committees.

Um, and that's my point there.

Next slide, please.

So here's some of the benefits that we've gone down, and all of these benefits have come out of the provincial government's recommendations about having uh community advisory committees.

So there's two types of kind of real committees that both the community charter and the Local Government act are concerned with.

One of these are community advisory councils, and they're led by uh a counselor.

We have a counselor liaison, and the other one is a standing committee that the mayor appoints, that there needs to be one counselor to one each resident that is on there to create a balance.

Next slide, please.

And next slide, please.

So the restructure will require more uh after working hours, perhaps for for uh the staff concerns.

That if we restructure this, what are we going to look at?

And I think as we dig into this, um, staff directors would be at the request of the chair or co-chairs of those committees that would be arranged at a date uh prior to the meeting, like a week before.

And it may just be for before a particular agenda item or maybe for the whole meeting, but that I'll leave that up to the committees to request and advise.

Extra funding required to support extra the extra work that might be involved with uh having staff resources that are not directors because they're salary to come in and take minutes and be able to support them.

And uh, you know, the there there may be concern about the benefit uh from a staff perspective that these committees would actually bring.

Next slide, please.

So the residents' concerns, and there's always different sides of these uh equations, is kind of a lack of openness because we haven't uh allowed participation in many committees, and we haven't turned over the people in those committees because we haven't had a lot of applicants to the committees.

Lack of transparency, and they want opportunities to provide meaningful input.

Next slide.