Committee of the Whole

I'd like to call the community of the whole meeting to order.

This for January 10th, 2023.

We recognize the Laquanguin speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation, and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

This afternoon we will hear from the public during the public participation and question period portions of the agenda.

If you wish to provide comments by telephone, call 778-402-9227.

And when prompted, enter conference ID 318-743-624-pound.

The time in the agenda, I will then announce the last four digits of your phone number, ask you to mute the live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you to use not use your speaker phone to ensure sound quality, and ask that you unmute yourself by pressing uh star six.

Uh to begin, please indicate your name and address for the record.

Speakers will have five minutes each to speak during the public participation period and two minutes to ask a question during the question period, and you will be timed.

And if you are speaking from the room, we'll go there first.

You'll notice that there's some coordinating lights for those that wish to speak during the public participation period.

Green is good, yellow.

You're getting close to the end, and green is your overtime, and it'll kind of be flashy and annoying.

So rather than me interrupt you and be rude, then uh just watch the lights, and that'll be a good gauge for you for the length of time that you talk.

Um so I think we can dig into the agenda at this point, and I believe there has been some uh changes to it.

So before I go ahead and say, can I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Let's go ahead and see if there are any late additions to the agenda.

And let's start with counselor brown, please.

Yeah, um, I wanted to approve the agenda with just one small change.

Uh uh item 6.3.4.a dealing with uh school crossing girds.

Uh I'd like to take that off the agenda and put it on the next agenda of the regular uh meeting, should be next week.

I would second that okay.

So that uh are we discussing the entire uh crossing guard, the the entire 3.3.46.3.4a that whole I'd like to see that on a regular meeting, the next meeting on the 17th of January.

Okay, uh just further to that for clarification.

I understand that um Mr.

Painter is not able to attend and make presentation, and I think that's crucial to have his input.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Rogers.

Any other comments or discussion?

Are we ready to approve the agenda as uh amended?

Uh Councilor Lemon.

I'm I'm just wondering if that issue might be best put off to the next committee of the whole meeting in February.

Uh open for discussion on that, Councillor Brown.

Yeah, I'd prefer it to be at a regular meeting because it'd be in the evening and then it would give opportunity for parents, uh possibly students to come or members from the PAC committees from the two elementary schools.

Um are there discussion?

Councillor Rogers, your uh at the same point as um uh uh councillor Brown is um um yeah having it in the afternoon is very difficult for people to uh to get to and address and uh we need as much public input on this important matter as possible.

It's a safety issue.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers.

Any other discussion about that?

Councilor Qualitage.

Which councillor's portfolio would this fall under?

Uh protective services or would it be in fact, transportation uh committee?

I I think it may fall through some cracks and have some overlap, counselor.

I think that there is a safety issue there.

There's a transportation issue there.

So I um point taken that uh that it may do well to assign uh it uh probably to a committee, but I think we're at the point where council could hear um uh the the issue as there is an issue for funding uh the crossing guard services, and that's really at the core core of this.

So if are we happy uh given the explanations by counselor brown uh for accessibility for discussion to uh consider deferring that to the next meeting.

Um I just have a question maybe to staff.

So turn on Councillor McKenzie.

It doesn't impact the because there's a payment for this year.

That goes ahead.

It that wouldn't impact it.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

So now I think we're ready to discuss approving the agenda.

Um Councilor Rogerson.

Yes, uh with uh another addition, if I may, um I'd send a document to you folks um uh for another council initiative, if if you wouldn't mind, um, and I was we proposing that we add that under uh Financial Administration Business Arising, you know, for the continuation of initiatives to be discussed.

And I'd forwarded the document for everyone.

And that document specifically uh counselors should have it on their desk.

That's to add street lighting for Watkist Way in St.

Giles.

Yeah.

Um so any other discussion about uh that addition to the agenda.

Seeing none, uh so what we'll do with that is wrap um the subtraction uh recommendation by councillor Brown that we uh uh remove uh the new business six point three point four, and that we add um the street lightning lighting um information provided by counselor rogers to the agenda so that's the motion as the agenda amended can I have a motion to approve the agenda moved second second all in favor all opposed seeing none.

The motion for approving the agenda carries um can I get a motion to adopt the previous minutes?

So moved.

Moved by Councillor McKenzie, seconded by Councillor Lemon, and now we're into petitions and don't.

Second.

Excuse me, just um on the the previous minutes.

Um there's a bit of a confusion or clarification.

Um maybe staff can help me.

The the items that uh under the council initiatives um that were discussed at the last meeting, um, some of the notations indicated that uh these were not endorsed.

In actual fact, these were uh some of these, and I'm sorry, I can't remember which, but some of them were withdrawn.

I had withdrawn them from the discussion of that evening.

So I think we could I'm and I'm sorry I can't have the note I don't have the notes in front of me, but I think um it's clearly evident by the um audio which ones have been withdrawn for future discussion.

So it was not a case of not endorsement.

Okay council Rogers, do you wish to amend the minutes then or how do you wish to proceed?

Um yeah, I'm sorry, I've I always table it asked for it to be tabled in terms of yeah you can bring back the chat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

So we can if that's re-agreeable, um, and maybe staff can help us, but uh, I'm not sure the best course.

But if could we table the minutes or could we um make some notation that these would be clarified?

I think it'd probably be best to table them and then come back uh and uh make those amendments if you could identify with staff the the um mistakes that you've uncovered.

So what we'd need then is to retract the approval and then we'll um go for uh a motion to table the minutes of the previous uh meeting.

Some of second all in favor, all opposed, seeing none.

Uh now we're at petitions.

Can I advance a little bit?

Petitions and delegations next.

Okay.

I think I'd like to welcome a presentation on the Welland Community Orchard and future goals.

And that should be in Council's minutes online that we'll be able to see that.

And welcome Mr.

Fryett.

If you could just activate your microphone, you'll see a uh nope.

Uh just the red light will come on when you press the speak button.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, so that should be activated now.

Sweet.

Um uh thank you, Mayor and Council.

Um, like the introduction.

Um, my name's Tim Fryett, um, and I'm with Life Cycles Project Society.

Uh, and we are uh, you know, thankful to be able to take care of Welland Orchard.

So I'll I'll give you a bit of a brief on like what what we've been doing there, um, some highlights, and then yes, like you said, some future uh uh visions towards which we're working towards.

So I first first I'm gonna start just giving a little bit of context of Welland Orchard.

Welland is a really amazing place.

It's one of in my mind, I'm biased, one of the most beautiful places in terms of urban parks in the city, in the whole region.

Um it's Welland was um Welland was the former backyard of Rex Welland, who is a longtime View Royal resident.

And he was a backyard orchardist and and a pollinator enthusiast and has done a lot of wonderful work across the region introducing us to things that are common, like the blue orchid mason bee and and helping us really take care of the grand urban orchard that Greater Victoria has the benefit of.

And on this property, when he first arrived on it, it had a few of these big large trees, like you see in the photograph.

But since his he, roughly, I understand about 20 years, he added over 200 fruit trees and vines.

And it's an amazing diversity of fruit.

You have all kinds of wonderful kind of throwback relics like quinces and medlars, uh, and you have some like, you know, biological oddities like shipovas and pluats.

Um, but you also have one of the largest heritage apple collections um in the region, which is a really important um repository for people who are getting into grafting and tree care.

When Rex passed away, his family wanted to make sure that his legacy continued.

And I believe it was that the TLC, the Lantra Conservancy, that was approached and the property was put on trust.

And Councilor Rogers is going to help me get the specifics on this.

But through a series of conversation, it ended up under the stewardship of View Royal.

Our relationship started in roughly 2013.

Well, View Royal was looking for some help taking care of the orchard and the trees.

And we saw it as an amazing opportunity to take this resource and be able to add some programming in addition to the maintenance.

And so we have been in partnership with View Royal, supporting the core of which is the maintenance of the trees, but we also have the opportunity to create a bunch of education programming on the site.

So kind of building on Rex's legacy, this is this is kind of where we've been orienting the park.

And we've been using this idea of this community learning orchard.

So, like already, the orchard, because of its wealth of trees, uh and all the work that Rex started and we continued, people from across the region already come and use it as a demonstration site to learn how to take care of their own trees.

So it already is an important like resource for the whole region.

Both View Royal residents and uh people across the CRD are often meet them in the park learning about the trees.

So we first of all we want to kind of learn lean more into that and think of the education resource.

But we want to build it into more of a living classroom, right?

So one part of our vision is to just enhance the demonstration quality that's already existing in the site, which would be just adding some of the sign-inch so people could cruise through and be able to see what Rex has already done and what these different tree forms and different things are.

The other thing is just adding more of our uh educational events uh and programs, right?

So just increasing the diversity of fruit tree workshops that we do there, um, and also we would look to maybe revive the apprenticeship program we once had, or give people more in-depth over a course of a full year.

Um, and also working to build it into a bit of an anchor site for some school programming across the region.

Um, because it is one of the very few places that both has perennial fruit trees, but also has the space to be able to like bring in a classroom or a group.

So the community.

Um, the first thing I want to say about the community is like how amazing it is to work at Wellend with the neighbors.

Um, the neighbors are so invested.

They knew Rex.

Rex was an important part of the community, and we still have really close relationships with many of the neighbors.

You you there was never more evident to how important the park was than when we were in the pandemic.

The park just became this this the end of this dead end block just being this place where parents could bring children, kids learn to ride their bike for the first time.

The parking lot was covered in chalk art.

You know the the sledding hill when it did snow and it was such an amazing place for people to come and grow and learn and be part of the community.

I got invited to many impromptu gatherings with lawn chairs and parents at the end of the road.

But it's also you see dog walkers who come through there regularly, who we know many of them.

Um, there's a couple of daycares who bring their children there to have some outside space and to learn about the fruit trees.

Um, and the Galloping goose connection is really useful.

People that's it's one of it's now becoming a destination when people are the galloping goose want to stop off and see the park.

Um, but also in terms of our organization, like is on the slide.

We had over 300 people come out to the orchard just last year.

Uh a big part of that was work parties, you know, to to kind of increase our capacities.

We have work parties, they happen almost every weekend, but we have a core group of volunteers.

We have about 50 dedicated people, but a list that stretches up to 500 people interested.

And they come and they put energy into the park, weeding, pruning, helping with irrigation.

Um, and so just putting a lot of energy into the park.

Um, we also ran an orchard day uh two falls ago.

Um and we had 75 people come through and do apple tastings and tour the orchard, which is something we want to repeat.

Again, it's just, you know, there's just so many amazing diverse apples it's worthwhile for people to experience them.

The park has also created relationships of reconciliation because of the work that we've been doing in the park and and and starting to talk to people in the community about Knock and Hill.

We're approached by folks from the Wasanic Nation and they're restoring Todd Inlet.

And so we're able to give some of our pruning expertise over to them to help them kind of take care of some of the trees that were left from residents when the it was in limestone mine.

And recently last summer, we had um we had a a researcher fly all the way from Australia because the park has actually gained a reputation in terms of the size and scale and the community commitment internationally.

And so he flew here on a Churchill fellowship and spent a week with us learning about the orchard.

So next slide.

So, like I said before, we we have a lot of education activities already happening in the park.

The main thing is around tree care.

So we have winter and summer pruning workshops where people can come and learn how to do that.

We also started some pest management because that's always a it's it's a big question mark, it's a huge thing to learn about.

And so a lot of backyard tree people are always have questions.

Um we started grafting to be able to you know take that that heritage repository and be able to share it with other people and the skills around that.

Um did some pollinator workshops and hope to do more.

And we've been doing some just more fun stuff.

We played around with the printmaking workshop, which was really fun.

Um another thing that we've been doing is you know, we've been running a pilot project with a number of schools, and so we have schools with like in the last two years, we had about eight, I think it's actually nine, different food school field school trips, and they'd come in on bus and we'd give them a kind of breadth of activity.

They'd press apples, um, they learned about native plants.

They took a walk uh up Knockin' Hill to like learn about the relationship between those two ecosystems and some of that history, um, and just get exposed to what it's like to you know what preno food growing and what like a permanent food system would look like.

Um, and then we also use the park for internal education.

We have a program called Seed the City, which is uh it's for high school students to get some work experience, and we do a day out at Wellend where they come and we teach them about perennial food growing skills, including grafting and pruning and other things.

Um, and that program has supplied us with some of our uh employees, so they have now come back and have helped working on Wellend, either returning from the horticultural program, or we actually had two students from Seed the City um come in.

So, yeah the next slide uh well end is amazing um but there's always little things that we've been doing so over the course of the pandemic we did some was just reshuffling we moved some of the compost to a more like hidden out of the way trying to increase the like the um the the park's feel um and make uh the composting farther away from the main thoroughfare these fences were something that we put in um the there was when we got the park, and for a long time it was just rebar with some like page wire around it, which was getting pretty rusty.

And so we this is last year we decided this is not something we want anymore and put in these better fences.

These fences are uh actually protect the heritage collection that Rex has put up.

Um and then we didn't we we fixed some of the irrigation, we found some leaks and fixed those.

Um we also had uh with this was in partnership with View Royal, we had a hydro grant, which we won.

Um and uh that helped us plant a bunch of native plants and pollinators, um, which was really great.

So we've increased the biodiversity of the place.

Um and then next slide.

Right, so future activities.

So um recently we just applied for a grant from the federal government uh which was about freshwater ecosystem or yeah, freshwater ecosystems.

What we had looked for at the in the site, we were looking to increase the water catchment and infiltration in the site.

This gets really dry because it's south facing and that slope dies every year.

So we're looking away to slow that urban runoff.

Part of the goal then is also to have that as a demonstration of swales and infiltration basins that people can look to, like be they residents of View Royal or they're somewhere else in the region, can see how you can capture and divert some of this rainwater uh runoff.

Um another thing that we're looking at is like we've got some more signage that we've been working at.

People want to know what these varieties are.

Some of these are really rare.

The Pluot and the Shapova, we don't know anyone who has a Shapova anywhere close by.

So that's another thing we're wanting to look at.

They're extremely rare.

We also want to increase that biodiversity, like I said, so bees, bats, and birds, like building some more infrastructure, houses, some kind of things to protect those populations and increase them.

And eventually we see like, you know, we'd like to have a covered area where we can run some workshops in the winter or when it's when it's raining.

But part of that is like we would really like to get potable water access down near our main teaching area uh and electricity because then we can both you know right now we're like we're very thankful again the neighbors we're able to borrow an extension cord and run our press out there but we really like to be able to do that off our own supply somehow so those are two ones we'd really like the help of V Royal to like try and figure out I'm sure it's engineering questions would be how to do that.

Yeah and so just last slide you know I just want to reiterate how important the relationship has been for us.

Like um well end it's uh I I got the great chance of during the pandemic to take care of it and now it's very dear to me.

And I think it's it really is such a unique opportunity for life cycles, but it's also a really unique opportunity in terms of municipal park systems.

Like there is very few cities uh in the country um that are able to build a partnership like this, to be able to offer so much through through like this perennial food growing style and the relationship that we've created.

So that's just something we're really thankful for and look forward to continuing.

So if I have a few more minutes if they have any questions.

Well, first of all, thank you, sir, not only for the presentation, but the work and investment that you and the team have put together.

I I walk my dog through this place about every day.

So uh it's a wonderful space and uh and and certainly you're you're correct.

I've never seen it used more than during the pandemic of just having a an external space to go to that's got some got some likes to it.

And uh yeah, it'd be interesting to dive in a little bit deeper and see what else we can help you with with uh with potable water and uh and electricity.

Any other questions uh at all?

Mr.

Rogers, please.

Uh not so much questions but uh comments, and if I may.

Um uh thank you for for coming.

Life Cycles has been a an extraordinary example of um municipal um society partnerships um and uh with the expertise that you've had over the years, uh Matthew, JJ, uh amazing people with huge skill sets as as you've got right now.

And uh they are so credible um bringing in volunteers that want to learn um about the whole thing.

I think a lot of this um you you mentioned um Rex Welland um uh he was such a a a pillar of uh society in that area, High Street, and and um uh the neighbors uh had such high regard for him.

And uh when he um he had leukemia and when he suddenly passed away, it uh the neighbors pulled together.

And and I think under the extraordinary leadership of Mayor Screech, um he uh has had the the contacts with TLC um to uh make it happen.

Uh TLC had had uh secured us a very important parcel of property 101 High Street um and attached that to Knock and Hill.

So we brought them back and worked uh uh uh diligently with the brother and and uh and made this uh portion uh available.

And I think um uh you know, as you mentioned the heritage trees, this these go back to the gold rush.

So these these are testaments, if you like, of um these these species, and but I hope that we'd also be able to bring back the crab apple, uh the native crab apple that is so significant to the First Nations uh cultural practices.

And I know where we can get some.

That's good.

Malice Fuska is on our list, so yeah, yeah, for sure.

So um, yeah, thank you so much.

It uh it's a huge achievement.

And and uh I had worked with uh with you and the um fruit testers association uh to identify the species, and I think we can.

And one of the initiatives I'd love to get is a is a booklet of of all the books, uh the apples, and and that gives the the pictures of the apple and identifying them, and that's where the fruit testers come in.

And I have to speak about one particular one, Gord Baird, uh, who I think is president of the fruit testers.

Um, he put in the uh club uh washroom, bathroom there, the portable toilet, and I helped mud that uh years ago, and it's still standing and still a resource.

So you're right, let's bring in the other amenities.

Yeah, so thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers, Councillor Loving.

Hi, Tim.

Thank you very much.

Boy, do I have questions for you offline?

Um just a question about the fruit.

What do you do with the fruit?

Yeah, I kind of uh skipped over that, but um so most of the fruit, um, it depends on the year.

This year is really light because it was a very cold spring.

Um, and so Austin was new to the orchard.

This is Austin, he's our well-and orchard coordinator, sitting beside Julia Gelman, our new executive director.

Um, but the fruit was really light.

So what Austin did was he just bagged it up and offered it to people walking through the park.

Um so anything that was ripe, a small enough announce amounts that we put it on the wall, what it was.

And we have a plan to build a box in the shade.

So just take and and and be able to have the descriptions on the trees.

In bigger years, we're able to absorb the fruit back into the fruit tree project, which is one of our bigger projects.

So we harvest back our fruit and redistribute it back into the community.

Um and so that fruit is then sorted and shared through the food rescue, and then it goes back out to schools and food programs all across the the the region.

Yeah.

So yeah, very well.

I think my time is up.

The one last thing I said if you ever want to come down for a tour, we'd be happy to tour you through the orchard as well.

And you can come and see it through our eyes so that we get to see it every day.

And just like this when's your next uh workshop uh our next workshop is the 28th which is a winter pruning workshop.

Winter pruning yeah okay so I guess any of us that have uh fruit trees we can learn how to prune.

Yeah we'll we'll at least set you on the right path.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

I think we have one other speaker in uh Mr.

Painter wasn't able to make it uh as amended in the uh agenda, but I think we had another speaker, did we, sir?

Duncan.

Yes, uh presenting online.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Please go ahead with your petition and delegation.

Yeah, good afternoon.

Uh thank you first of all to to Maritobias and Council for accommodating us this afternoon.

My name's Nicole Duncan, and I'm the board chair of the Greater Victoria School District.

Uh SD61.

And I'm joined this afternoon by our Secretary Treasurer, Katrina Stride.

And we're here today to discuss funding for crossing guard service provision at schools within the town of View Royal for the 2023 2024 school year.

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge that since the inception of the Crossing Guard services over 20 years ago, municipalities have continued to commit funding that is required to provide these important services.

On behalf of the Greater Victoria School Board, we would like to thank the Town of U Royal and Merrin Council for funding to support Crossing Guard services during the 2022 23 school year.

After being served by the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association, who provided these services with the support of municipal funding for many years, now that the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association is no longer in operation this school year, for the first time our district has successfully taken on the role of administering crossing guard service provision, utilizing school district EA staff and supported by municipal funding.

So I understand that you are about to or have already maybe entered into your budget process and your budget discussions.

I do note that you have amended your agenda this afternoon and you'll be considering crossing guard services again at a future meeting.

But our board would respectfully request that Mayor and Council consider providing funding for the 2023-24 school year, again on a cost recovery basis.

I wanted to just give you a little bit of background about the current service provision in place at the moment.

So currently we have crossing guards at Eagle View Elementary and at View Royal Elementary.

We require crossing guards at three intersections at these two elementary schools, and this results in five hours per day in EA staffing costs.

The three intersections in the town of View Royal that have crossing guards in particular are Telcott Road and Watkins Way, Watkiss, sorry, it's Watkiss Way, Watkiss Way and Burnside, and then another crossing at Helmkin Road at the school entrance between Rudyard Road and Pleasant Lane.

So currently our estimated cost to continue to provide the services at these three intersections in 2023-24 school year is approximately $40,050.

This doesn't at the moment take account of benefit cost adjustments, which we have not confirmed yet.

So the only other thing I really wanted to raise for your consideration this afternoon was that we are hoping that this year we can start discussions about the possibility of entering into a memorandum of understanding with the school district and our municipal partners in order to formalize the funding arrangements, hopefully for the benefit of both future boards and future councils.

We are hopeful that by working together we can continue to provide safe access to schools by way of municipal streets and roads.

And thank you very much for your consideration this afternoon.

Happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Councillor Levin, we'll start on that side and work our way across.

Good.

Thank you, Ms.

Duncan, for your presentation.

Just to be, you know, up front, I want to say that we all are advocates for the safety of children.

And in the in past years, it was an organization, a society that provided the services, and now it's under your jurisdiction.

And I think a sticking point has been that or is that people now under the within the employee of the school district, people on salary will be doing this job.

And uh perhaps you can make make you know confirm that point first.

Yeah, well, first of all, I guess since uh to be clear, so for many, many years the the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association as a nonprofit funded by uh municipal partners provided staffing uh and so provided the crossing guards themselves since they've ceased operations.

Uh the district has stepped in to administer uh the service provision.

So what we've done is we've um in the spirit of partnership, uh, because we all I think have a mutual interest in ensuring you know that students have safe access to school grounds.

Um in the spirit of that partnership, we have um offered EA time.

Uh we've offered to administer um that time.

So both scheduling and actually you know paying for the for the services with the with the support, the continued support of that municipal funding.

So what we're hoping is that we can continue this kind of a partnership in future.

We had to react quite quickly.

So we we had to move quickly.

And I'm very pleased to say that we've seen both the partnerships grow and strengthen between our municipal partners and ourselves in order to fill that gap during the the last school year and we're going to continue to provide that administrative function for the rest of the school year but we we're hoping that what we can do is enter into a partnership where that where we can um clarify the terms of that partnership in a memorandum of understanding with all of our municipal part partners so that we're not all back at the table every year during our budget periods um you know negotiating something um from year to year so we want some stability moving forward okay may I just follow up on this um got it so um the EAs they're already in the school um and would you know after school they would go outside would they be there anyway would they all are the are they already on salary on the grounds or or they this would be extra time for them yeah this would be extra time so yeah that's a good question so um to be clear uh EAs they they are employees of the district uh but they are employees from Bell to Bell so they have a role during the school day and what we're doing in order to help fill this gap that was created when the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association no longer uh was in operation was to um basically have EAs come and do that crossing guard function after both both before school and after school and again that that funding has been um the result of our municipal partnerships.

Okay thank you very much thank you counselor levin uh counselor McKenzie or counselor forget it's a long break i yeah no my question was just whether there was an expectation that the municipality would be paying for school board staff and so I understand that that's the understanding that's that was correct understanding so the rest of it I guess we'll when we have debate at next meeting thank you counselor Matson Counselor McKenzie um thank you uh I was wondering if other, I guess, providers or um possible options for the crossing guards have been explored, such as you know volunteers, parents.

Have you looked into that at all as well?

Yeah, I don't know if um Secretary Treasurer Stride has any um information about what past practice has been.

Um it it does require training.

I I will say that.

So um crossing guards do go through uh uh you know a training in order to to be a crossing cards.

Um so I don't know if uh Secretary Treasurer Stride has anything to to add in terms of what options were explored.

Um again, the the the period between the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association no longer operating and then us uh as a as a as partners needing to come up with a solution in order to make sure that the crossings were safe for the for the school year.

Uh it was a relatively short period of time.

So um, Secretary Treasurer Stride, did you have anything you could add?

Um unfortunately I wasn't uh a part of of these conversations, but I do believe I saw some information around the possibility of using um volunteers.

Um I believe there may have been a liability issue, but I think we would probably have to get back to you on that just to to cover off exactly what was discussed about alternatives.

Great, thank you.

Thanks, Councillor McKenzie.

Any other comments?

Councillor Brown.

Just a quick one.

The the EAs that do the school crossing guards and the uh in classroom would they also be doing noon hour supervision or is that different different staff?

I know at one time teachers used to do it but it was that was taken out of the contract.

And I think principals and vice principals may have been doing it for a while too but I wonder if the EAAs are doing the noon hour supervision.

Secretary Treasurer Stride did you have anything you could add around that?

I believe there are uh some EAs that do noon hour supervision.

There are also uh separate positions that are specifically just for supervision.

Thank you.

Thank you counselor brown councillor Brown.

Counselor Rogers.

Yeah that thank you very much for for coming and giving us the benefit of this background.

What is happening with the other municipalities in School District 61 and their involvement in this partnership?

What we're seeing so far is that municipalities are really stepping up and continuing to provide that funding.

On the whole, been very appreciative that the school district has been stepping in in order to provide both a staffing solution and also acting in the role of administering the program moving forward.

So it's been very positive, but again, you know, what we're hoping is in the next year, what we can move toward is some kind of a memorandum of understanding between municipalities in the school district so that we can see some stability moving forward.

They've been doing it for many, many years.

municipal partners and um come to an understanding that provides some stability um from council to council and from board to board uh so that folks know what to expect each school year thank you yeah go ahead thank you so how things are being handled in for crossing guards in schools district 62 any idea i'm not sure um i don't know if uh secretary treasure stride has any uh background on on sd 62 um i i do not but um you know what i would say is that you know if there is any other information that that you require and i i know that you've you've i believe you've tabled this or referred this this item to a future agenda um you know, please uh you know just let our staff know, and we're happy to provide further information to assist you in your deliberations.

Secretary treasure stride, did you have anything else that you wanted to add around uh SD62?

Um when this came up a while ago, I believe I reached out to SUC School District.

Um, I don't know what they're doing now, but I feel like they were using QP staff uh for that.

And I think it was different at the Sandwich School District.

Again, like if that's uh information you'd like to know, I'd be happy to collect more current information on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I see no other questions.

Thank you very much for uh enlightening us and giving us some some background this afternoon.

And uh I know this is an agenda item coming up, but uh you're able to answer and satisfy a lot of the counselor's questions.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Thanks again for having us.

Take care.

Thank you.

So I think that Sarah, I'm looking at you for confirmation, but I think that takes care of our petitions and delegations, and now we're into a public participation period.

So as a reminder on the screen, and thanks those that have uh have offered uh take them up and uh just checking in to see if we've got anybody on the line initially for public participation.

Mayor Tobias, we have no callers at this time.

Thank you.

And uh we have a few people here that are here for other purposes, but just to confirm nobody wants to have a discussion, counselors excluded.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think we're down to business items, and I can pass the chair over to counselor Brown.

And uh just counselors, if you could just pass it on to each other.

It should be marked in the agenda.

You there's no need for it to go back to me at the end.

You can pass it, for instance, Councillor Brown to Councillor Lemon at the end of yours.

Thank you.

I'd like to call to order the Protective Services uh committee.

And I'd like to start off just by saying it happy New Year to everybody.

It's 2023, and you may not be aware, but it's the 150th anniversary of the RCMP.

And I'm certainly proud to be a small portion of that, uh, though not all those years, but certainly 32 years.

And Inspector Rose is here today to make a presentation to us shortly.

But I'd like to thank you, your staff, all your municipal employees, your public servants, and all your members.

1873 was created uh by the uh government at the time to uh, well, for many things, it was to to ensure the West was settled in a peaceful manner, not like uh our neighbors to the south.

Um, certainly helped uh make sure the national railway was built.

Um, um it kept prospectors safe during the uh during the big gold rush.

Um and as I can go on and on and on.

The the the RCP members even met Chief Sitting Bull at the border with two members uh after the battle of of uh Bighorn um with General Custer, uh fled the country and and settled peacefully in Canada.

Um yeah, so uh again, thank you very much for your service and your member service.

And that's my report.

And I see the next item is uh from the minutes of the last meeting.

Is there any comments on that?

Anybody?

No.

Next item is the building inspection.

Good afternoon.

I would also like to wish uh mayor and council a happy new year.

Hope you all had a restful break.

So here we have the building report for December, and um, we're just looking for a motion to receive.

Second, Council Lynn.

And Councillor Rogers.

So on the building report, is there any uh I see we have uh permit fees um as a as a column?

I wonder if it would be any benefit to have uh a column for um community amenity contributions so we can see what uh which would be contributing.

All right so th through the chair um the purpose of this report is really to um communicate to council the building permit fees that have been um taken in um by our building permit applications uh so I'm not sure if that's something we um it's really to demonstrate um the current status of our building permits and so I if we're gonna start asking for community contribution or the amenity contributions then what about DCCs and things like that?

So which kind of sort of extends the scope and yeah, that's right.

It would be like at the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah.

Perhaps uh you know but it would be useful, maybe not in this report, but somehow that we could um uh be able to have a you know by development, a a breakdown of other benefits and like you say, reserve amounts um um and CACs.

You know, because we get a general sense of it, you know, when the application comes in, but what happened at the end of the day, how much did we really get?

Those kind of things.

So just to put it out there and for some consideration and see if we can have that feedback.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, not so much a question, but just a comment to just know at beginning of the 2022 for good portion of the year, we're lamenting at how low the uh permit revenue was, and I'm delighted to see we've now set a new record.

Any further questions?

All those in favor of the motion?

Any opposed?

Carried unanimously sorry.

Training division, busy as always.

Um, if you had a chance to look at the numbers, the numbers were very high for actual hours put in, and that was because we had three members complete their fire officer one as well as their fire officer two.

Fire officer one takes people pretty close to 100 hours by the time they put all that effort into it.

And fire officer two is about 50.

So, right there alone, that was about 350 hours between the four people.

So that's really kicked that number up quite high.

Um training continues at night, which is going very well.

Um emergency program.

Uh Troy's doing a great job.

Everything's moving along perfectly.

Just a couple of things as is going back through past um meetings.

Our radio program now with Callwood and View Royal together.

We're looking at about 15 members, as well as with ESS, as well as the radio between the two.

We're looking at about 50 members of the ESS radio program between Callwood and V Royal as well.

So yeah, quite a large number of um yeah, of volunteers.

It's great.

Extra stuff that was done.

Um we did the Santa drive around which is almost a big hit raised $4,200 for the the food bank which is by far the largest.

I think we were just over $3,000 last year and we thought that was amazing.

So to walk away with $4200 plus the ATV trailer full of yeah I think we were overloaded the tires were like so that in itself was uh outstanding um yeah it's been it's been steady it's it's been a it's been a good two months um any questions for the acting chief?

Mayor Tobias uh thank you, Acting chief and and uh what were your uh concerns about the snowfall?

Was there any uh challenges there with the amount of snow we had on in response?

You know, with the amount of snow and the response, um we we definitely changed the way that we respond.

So instead instead of sending a crew of four people out in one of the big rigs as we normally do, we broke it down and put two people in a Tahoe.

So that gave us that chance to get to first responders quite a bit better.

Uh as far as snow removal, we take engine 39, so our first out engine, we put the small cable chains on that one, and then we put the large link chains on 38, our backup engine.

So as far as being able to get places, we can pretty much get anywhere.

Yeah.

Um and the snow removal, it was good um and then when I went to Sanich in Victoria it was phenomenal right it was just the the snow removal here was incredible compared to neighboring municipalities for sure.

Yeah thank you yes uh thanks you know the uh there was a dramatic event um at VGH with the uh the steam uh events blowing whatever um and uh I was really impressed with the the amount of turnout and and the concerns uh from all the departments and and uh the response to it the one thing that struck me was um uh the challenges of uh being able to go in and rescue the uh the two men with very poor visibility is you know i know the containers you have in in the back the training containers do those those help stimulate um visibility and uh and finding victims yeah so what we have done with the the training is that we have a a smoke plenum uh so we have a smoke machine and the smoke machine pushes into the plenum and we can put smoke in we don't have any in the top level but in the first and the second so we can completely smoke it out and then with the the use of thermal imaging cameras and stuff like that we can walk through so yes, yeah, we can.

So with that with that practice, you know, do the thermal image cameras help in in a steam room where uh the temperature is already very excessive?

Yeah, it definitely will because it'll pick up the different temperatures between you know high and low and stuff, and and your body is still putting off uh a lower amount.

So even if we go into a structure fire that's full of smoke, we can still see through the smoke.

Okay, thank you.

Um if I may just a couple more points.

I'm really impressed in the year end that um uh in terms of delivery of service, that the fire department's uh saved us seven million dollars in in structural damage, and I think that that's really a testament of how effective um this the service is to our community, and beyond of course, shaping lives and and so forth, but that's that's really good.

I am um I'd note that the number of calls are significant, getting significantly higher and higher and higher.

Uh and portion to that is the number of alarm calls they seem to be going back creeping up year and year after again yeah definitely speech of that so uh the two of on on both of those so fire fire loss being saving that amount of money uh is definitely with the automatic aid agreement that we have between uh Callwood and Lankford we we haven't had a structure fire go beyond room of origin so knock on wood um that in itself is working fabulously uh and the alarms uh working with our our bylaw division we've actually been uh I think we put out twenty six hundred dollars uh to Victoria General alone for farce false alarm um fines as well so yeah we're definitely trying to get on that and uh get our repeat offenders yeah to start taking care of that and they thank thank you for your your um offer so that we can go and observe the radio operators yeah i'll let troy know and for sure we'll hook it up counselor mattson thank you uh yes i'd noted you have an adult day program not quite the same as when i had a there was an adult daycare program.

But also so what what exactly happens at the adult day program?

So sorry.

Yeah, they's like every night dealing with that.

Um so what it was is it was um it was a group of uh adults with adults with learning disabilities.

Uh and they came up and it was just uh it was kind of like a show and tell of the fire hall and uh absolutely amazing.

Yeah, just a great group of I think it was about 15 to 20 adults.

And you know, we just went through fire safety and stuff like that.

And uh it was funny that you should mention that because we were at Quality Foods the other day and there was a small group of them.

And one of the guys came up and he high-fived me, and one of the other girls came up and she had put a sticker on her cane and you know, gave hugs and stuff.

So yeah, it was um kind of like a publication education instead of for children, it was for adults okay and I guess I was just wondering if you could do something well maybe not quite similar but the same sort of thing for council just give us a tour of the fire hall and oh I'd love to and show us maybe I don't know absolutely throw up the yeah fire up the smoke venom and you can take camera that go up the ladder.

There you go.

Yeah absolutely I know I once got forced to climb up to the top of the old fire ladder but that was oh the old one yeah uh yeah I think they were hoping they I think they were hoping I'd fall off.

I didn't like the old one either.

So yeah, I mean so if you could set something like that up, I mean I certainly would like to go.

Thanks.

Yeah, and who would we who should I do that with?

Anyone?

I'll I'll send you an email.

Any other questions?

Yeah, for you perfect.

I just no question, just a quick comment.

And I want to thank you for well for everything.

Um but your your Christmas drive is so fantastic.

And I had to and and the truck went a little fast this year, but uh but but they did a second I ran around the block and then I I thought, oh, it's getting ahead of me.

So I ran back and I got the car.

But they can't go but I I think because food is so expensive, people were more inclined to give cash.

I don't know.

Yeah, cash is amazing because um it goes they say one and a half to two times further at the food bank than you can do with the the store with with their buying power and what they can do.

Anyway, thanks Heath.

Yeah.

Councillor Rogers, you got another question?

Uh good question to the chair.

Will we have an opportunity to speak to the uh bylaw numbers?

Uh yeah.

Yeah, I was gonna talk ask Jim to come up when we had a yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

In fact, you can do it now because we haven't made the motion to approve the uh report as yet.

Is that an order?

Or should we accept the chief's report first and then yeah, okay.

Someone can make a motion to that effect, please.

Councillor Matson, Mayor Tobias.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

Thank you.

I didn't forget you, Jim.

All right.

I knew I knew you were.

Thank you, Don.

Um, did you want me to speak just in general to the numbers?

Um, I'm actually making a few notes on some of the changes between 21 and 22.

Um, some of them are I I mean, there's slight changes, which don't really indicate anything significant.

Um, some of the significant changes are uh with respect to numbers of graffiti files.

Um, as you're all aware, I instigated uh a bicycle program, which got me out on the trails and into a lot of the areas where I started to see that we were suffering from some you know constant graffiti in a lot of the areas.

Some of those areas are um some of our partnerships like MOT and SEERD, etc., but they're all in our area.

So we um we worked with um uh sponsorship through Canadian Tire and using some of already designated money with engineering uh to get um the uh Victoria contracting, just getting it as soon as it was occurring.

And from my old career and from speaking with some of my old uh co-workers who deal with graffiti regularly, that's how you attack it and kind of beat it down.

So we we did that, and I and I she was just speaking with Alex in Engineering today, that I was of the opinion that we are getting ahead of it right now.

So that generates the big increase in those numbers.

Um there is a few others, like the referral to other agencies.

Some of those are um similar types of incidents or um people camping, leaving a lot of waste.

We had a lot of waste uh garbage issues on MOT land in our area.

So we were dealing with uh the area managers for MOT on those.

Um the signage issue of that is what we became a little more aware of and uh um use the word aggressive with real estate signs.

Uh we send out uh notices to the real estate board to be passed on to realtors, but we were just seeing a lot of realtors abusing the the little you know temporary signs, which we don't want to let go because it'll just snowball on us.

So we were generating a lot of those files.

And for almost all of them, they come and grab them and take them away without any any uh complaining.

Um the other one which is a significant um increase was the streets bylaw.

And that's obviously multifaceted, but a large a large number of those uh files were generated through the bike program because I was sort of out and about and coming across a lot of things.

So there was a significant increase in the number of bylaw generated files this year, um, just because of uh awareness of just getting out and doing it.

And they were um for the most part dealt with by the same process by warning, just uh either you know uh notices on uh vehicles or um there was a few that went to fines and there was an increase in the number of um mtis this year not to pick on any one specific spot but a large number of those came from the um large condo project on erskine the the street erskine lane is very hypersensitive to their residential only parking uh west urban, it's their decision, but chose to leave, uh stay sort of stay out of the um argument with their uh contract people and let them kind of be the ones to take the brunt of their decisions to park there or not.

So they haven't been completely uh without assisting us, but for the most part, they they're not doing a lot to dissuade it.

So it's continued and continued.

And uh it's gone down again because I went out through another volley of tickets and some uh suggestions that tow trucks may be coming.

Not typically what I do with parking in a residential area because it's a significant penalty to the person, but they're I think starting to get the message that it's it is for the residents there, not for them.

They have a huge parking lot that was built over by the hospital, which I was very happy came to fruition, and it's been for the most part very successful.

So um we you know, we have a good relationship with Bylaw and West Urban, but um that street has generated a lot of files for us.

And other than those uh numbers, the most of them are fairly consistent with previous years that I can see.

Any questions?

Councilor uh Rogers first and that's a uh thank you.

Uh you know, the yeah thank you for that report.

And uh the one number I note that's gone down is the unsightly premises that that's been cut in half.

So uh I guess people got the message and things are working out.

We there are a couple of outstanding files for some unsightly, the the significant ones are challenging to uh to tackle.

There's one significant one that we're working on right now, which uh we're working with.

Um I have a feeling that the owner will continue his same tack that he's been doing for years and years and will refuse to do anything.

So in a in a matter of a month to two months, we'll be forced to sort of make a decision on if we're gonna step in and do the work that needs doing um or if we take some other action.

But it for the most part, the the community is looking pretty tidy.

Counselor Madison.

I I had sent a note to Paul, but he gave me an excuse of being in Ushuayo and not wanting to do anything with it.

So but there's uh an old beat up motor home at the end of Hollywell that looks to be abandoned.

And like some of them come and go, but that one's been there for looks for some years.

Yeah, I I I had it.

Um it wasn't a complaint, it was a question from a citizen on Aldersmith about that motor home.

Um and the unfortunate piece is as soon as you cross the tracks now, that piece of property that used to have trio and all the other uh piece on it it now belongs to the provincial government and that is to be I think uh turned over back to Squamalt Nation.

Um I don't know that that's happened but it has been taken out of our um clutches.

So I don't have authority on that.

You know if he was moved them back about 30 feet I I got 'em, but I don't.

So uh I explained that to the to the the um lady from Aldersmith and she was thankful for the information.

I don't know what to do.

I what I did was I directed her to call the band office and ask them what was happening.

I don't know if it's somebody from their um somebody that's like lives there or it's a relative or someone who's just temporarily staying or what have you or if they have a you know the the homeless camper person that's decided to park there.

I can't see them turning a blind eye to it.

So um that parking lot on the corner, kitty corner to it has become for reasons unknown to me very active in the last couple weeks.

And I don't know if it's being used for some project in the area, but there's a lot of activity there right now.

Councillor Cole.

Thank you.

Uh, first of all, I think it's really important to say thank you for everything you do.

We know that you are the only bylaw enforcement officer out there flying the flag on a daily basis.

You're busy.

And we thank you.

My question is uh with the new contentious uh parks bylaw being explored and uh investigated by all of us.

Have you received any public feedback uh out and about when you're in the community so far?

Just anecdotal comments from from anybody that you're willing to share.

Um for the most part, I have not been approached by the public.

Uh in there's been the odd person who's you know pointed out, oh, you know, so-and-so was staying over there.

You know, it was back a while ago when there was a few people that were camping in the areas.

Um but for the most part, um, because there's no real active um sort of encampments for Lang Ruhr, uh, there's not a lot of um things to re directly uh approach me on.

Um a lot of it is people's opinions and and their uh ideas on how they want to see moving forward, which have been directed to uh I think the Facebook page and council's attention.

Um but for the most part, no.

I I especially when I was on the bike, I was just getting for the most part really positive feedback because people are able to stop and talk to me and uh they like that, especially if I'm stopped at a light and there's other cyclists that are like kind of looking at me like, well, holy cow, who are you?

Um so um for the most part for quite positive.

Not not a lot of uh discussion over uh the the actual bylaw itself.

And there's only like one spot right now that's an issue at Eagle Creek.

Okay, thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you, Jim Sick.

Can I have a motion to receive uh officer Henley's report?

Moved by Councillor Madison.

Second, second by Counselor Lemon.

Uh all is in favor.

Any opposed?

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Last but not least, we saved the best for last.

Inspector Rose.

I don't know if uh that's the case.

Don't disappear Council Brown, but we'll see.

Uh Mayor and Council, thank you uh for having me uh today and staff.

Um and first off, before I get into the uh the report from the detachment and what uh the West Shore has been up to, uh I'd like to thank Council Brown for the uh the nice comments regarding, of course, the 150th anniversary of the RCMP.

Um we are also going to be uh fortunate to uh have the commissioner visit us here uh in the next uh next eight weeks or so.

So looking forward to uh to welcoming her uh to the West Shore.

Um so unlike some of the data that I just heard from my my peers, uh, I'm gonna talk about some decreases, um uh which will be welcome news, I think, all around.

Uh I'll give you a snapshot of how uh uh 2022 finished up from a police perspective, and then I'll speak uh generally to uh the month of December and some of the um occurrences that we specifically attended here in View Royal.

Uh so first off, when we talk about uh 2022 compared to the previous year, uh 2021, uh there was an overall 18% uh decrease in uh calls to the police or or reports to the police.

Uh we would generally we'd call those general uh occurrences.

Um specifically, uh that was uh 2963 uh general occurrences uh the previous year, or sorry, last year compared to 3,621 the previous year.

Uh so that's nice to see that there's been a decrease.

Uh when we look a little closer at those at founded occurrences, so where we've substantiated uh the report to the police, uh there was a similar uh 19% decrease in those overall calls.

When we speak to violent crime uh specifically, uh there was an 8% decrease compared to uh the same time period for 2021 uh compared to 2022.

And when I speak of uh violent crime, that's more inclusive of common assaults, uh harassment, uttering threats, um, and things, files of that nature.

Um if I jump over to property crime, uh, which tends to be a pretty common call for service here in all the municipalities that uh that our detachment covers, um, there was also a 16% decrease in overall uh occurrences.

And that would mean uh 321 founded occurrences in 2022 compared to 384 uh the previous year.

Uh if we talk about you know the the offenses captured by that, it includes mischief, um, theft from motor vehicle and general theft.

So that is reassuring and good to see.

Uh, if we look at one of the drivers of some of the calls uh for service in the jurisdiction, of course, uh the hospital uh is part of that.

And unlike the overall calls for service uh seeing decreases, we've seen an increase in the number of occurrences uh requiring police assistance at the hospital.

Um in 2022, we had 246 specific uh calls there, so just shy of sort of one a day.

Uh, but that's a seven percent increase over the previous year being 2021.

Um another large entity uh that I that I'm speaking to today, of course, is the casino, which also attracts uh some calls for service, and we've seen a 16% increase in calls uh specifically to that location.

Um the general calls um from there relate to uh traffic related incidents.

So that's where we're getting calls about uh people potentially leaving uh the premises under the influence, and so we're being uh notified to go and check on their uh sobriety, of course, before they head out onto the roadway.

A common theme that we're seeing with our calls for service overall is an increase in the prevalence of mental health linked to that call.

So overall, we've had about an 8% increase in mental health related occurrences.

And those include files including check well beings, missing persons, or specifically mental health calls about persons in crisis that we're asked to assist and intervene with.

20% of all files in View Royal have some sort of mental health component.

So that's uh that's about one in five.

That's I mean, obviously, that's that's a big contributor.

Um, and 13% of um suicidal person service calls were also in View Royal in 2022.

Um we don't yet have uh the statistics can produce data regarding the crime severity index for 2022.

Uh I only have you know the data from 2018 to 2021, so I won't speak to that uh specifically today because that is uh about a year old.

Um, and then if we hone in on some of the actual calls and what we were up to in the month of December in View Royal, we had quite a traffic presence both here and throughout the jurisdiction.

There were 31 traffic interactions or infractions, sorry, and 18 warnings issued on the streets.

And there were two substantive school zone patrols in December.

As you probably read in the local news, our crime reduction unit had a very successful investigation, a property crime investigation originating from View Royal that resulted in the seizure of about $100,000 worth of stolen property having been recovered.

That property involved six different files and included thefts that had occurred sometime between September and November and then culminated with the recovery of stolen property, a lot of tools, and also a five-ton uh moving truck that had been used to move uh some of the stolen property.

Also notable as a result of a fairly prolific drug trafficker uh that found uh View Royal as as a home base and had been active for the past couple of years in the jurisdiction, was finally sentenced on uh December 6th, having been convicted of five counts of possession for the purposes of trafficking uh illicit substances, which include fentanyl, methamphetamine, uh and both powder and crack cocaine, and uh received a very substantive sentence of five and a half years uh in custody, including a lifetime fire ban, firearms ban.

Um that was an investigation that our drug unit, our integrated drug unit, definitely uh invested a lot of time on, and uh were very pleased with the subsequent um result uh coming from the uh the justice system.

We did have um unlike uh fire who uh did some food collection uh internally at the detachment in december all of our staff uh all categories of staff both the regular members um public service employees and municipal employees all contributed to um the creation of uh hampers for uh for a variety of families um we created nine hampers internally and then they were donated to families uh throughout the jurisdiction uh that were in need um leading up to the Christmas season.

Of course, we did do the Cram the Cruiser uh and canoe uh as part of a food drive.

And that uh which I'm sure you saw publicly in the media release and also on Twitter, garnered substantial support from the residents of View Royal and the West Shore.

Our members are out there all the time, 24-7.

You know, we provide policing coverage throughout the jurisdiction.

In December was no less uh busy than any other month.

Having some of our officers out here in View Royal resulted in the apprehension of a prohibited driver on Admiral's Road on January 1st.

Of course, we had officers, including our general investigation section, attend uh the workplace accident at the uh Victoria General Hospital on December 30th, as we had to rule out as in any workplace accident that there was any criminality involved in that.

On Christmas Day, we had a hit and run reported to the police involving two unoccupied, sorry, two occupied vehicles.

And it was subsequently located.

And upon interaction with the driver, a driving prohibition for 90 days was administered, having uh determined that alcohol was involved.

And in uh on January 3rd, we initiated a uh mischief and arson investigation out on Cragflower Road.

Again, uh, that's one that's made it into the public forum as we've looked for and asked for witnesses to that vehicle fire that had been discovered.

Um we have some information from neighbors, you know, leading up to that, but certainly have had to canvas the public uh for some additional information to hopefully bring that file to a resolution.

Um lastly, I'll speak to a very specific file.

I know that uh there is a property on uh Norquway Road that has captured uh both this new council's but also previous councils's attention.

Um I just want to advise that you know we, as the uh the police of jurisdiction, continue to make efforts to address you know residents' concerns on that street.

Uh, we're very alive to the challenges that are present, and we've worked with our partners at bylaw uh in a coordinated approach to try to deal with the issues that are available to us from a criminal investigation perspective.

But obviously, there are options under the municipal bylaws as well.

And just in recent weeks, um we've we've tasked our bike unit uh with including that location on the proactive patrol route that they take.

And that has already uh resulted in the collection of some pretty interesting information that hopefully uh will lead to us being able to address that property in the in the short to medium term.

With that, uh that sort of concludes uh my summary and certainly open to taking any questions that council may have.

Counselor Cole, what's your council?

Thank you, Inspector.

Two quick questions.

First one to do with the statistic involving the 25% of total calls being related to mental health issues.

Do you recall that I do?

I just want to flick back to the worries.

Uh the only thing I wanted to just uh ask or for your consideration is do you think that possibly that those numbers could be skewed because of the Victoria General Hospital in our jurisdiction?

Um that's a possibility that some of those calls for assistance at the hospital are mental health related.

Okay.

Uh yeah.

Okay.

And then the other thing was the casino.

You mentioned that there was an increase in potential impaired drivers leaving the casino.

And I don't know the result of those investigations, but I'm just wondering if there's any consideration for your traffic safety unit to proactively communicate with a casino regarding over service of liquor.

Just a thought.

Yeah, certainly that hasn't been um the main driver behind some of those complaints and uh the staff uh has been very cooperative with the police to say the least in uh trying to address any issues that are are originating in around or or departing the property thank you counselor thank you inspector uh just a quick question which this council and counsels before and before and before uh have all been well familiar with.

And I I believe there is a what's the word, you guys?

Uh to it uh the court ordered forfeiture.

Thank you.

Thank you for the word.

Um uh with the owner of that property.

Uh I'm not sure of the implications or the status of that at all.

But my question is um, you mentioned municipal implications, and I'm wondering what you see those to be.

Uh I'm not sure of the question, counselor.

But in your statement, you said um there are you know, police implications there and and um municipal actions that could be taken.

Yeah, that more related to the fact that uh police and bylaw enforcement are working in tandem to try to address the challenges that uh service on Norquay Road.

Uh some are available to the police in a criminal investigation context, some available to bylaw under municipal authorities.

Okay, so you're talking bylaw.

Okay, no, that's good.

Thank you for your answer.

Councillor Matson.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Insector.

I was delighted to hear there was an 18% reduction in service calls.

I'm wondering, is that just because of the great police work that you're doing, or is there some other some some some other reason that you can attribute the reduction to?

And the other question will be is how did we compare to our neighbors like you know we're just Calwood and Langford?

Uh I'd like to say that it is solely the related um related to the outstanding service that we provide, um, Counselor Matson.

Uh however, I I haven't been able to distill why there's been a general increase decrease, sorry, in those overall calls.

I did speak with uh our crime analyst uh this morning, you know, when reviewing the material to try to decipher what has caused or prompted uh that decrease, and there isn't a single um source.

Some of the general discussion points were that you know our plain closed support units, both crime reduction units, um our drug enforcement unit have been very proactive in project oriented enforcement.

And as a result of some great outcomes, you know, the classic example being one trafficker with a five and a half year sentence, that in and of itself would decrease the overall call volume per year by dozens of what neighbors would normally report as suspicious activity, drug trafficking, you know, suspicious vehicles, parking issues in and around the house where that person lived.

So although I can say definitively that it's simply our effort that's resulted in that decrease, I can say that some of the successes we've had over the past year likely contributed by removing some of those um uh prolific offenders from the jurisdiction.

Thanks.

Yeah.

And how our comparison between Colburn and Lankford?

Uh unfortunately, I didn't bring the data with me uh today, so I can't speak to globally whether um those two communities are also increasing or decreasing.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Coolidge.

Sorry, quick question.

Um, you mentioned the commissioners coming to the West Shore.

Are you able to share whether is there a special occasion or is it a routine visit?

Uh the area veterans association uh I believe, is hosting uh the commissioner, and uh she's going to be in the jurisdiction for a couple of days.

Yeah, it's the 150th anniversary which I already mentioned.

I can clarify that.

It's a huge region-wide, 150 people invited to Royal Colwood Golf Course.

February 1st.

I'm glad it's not February 2nd, because it'd be groundhog day.

You have to keep doing it over and over and over again.

And the honorable Janet Austin, who happens to be my cousin, will be there as well, Lieutenant Governor of the Province.

I'm going to give her a little dig for not giving me an invite to the January 1st levy because I didn't get, I probably got lost in the mail.

But anyway, who knows?

But that's what it is.

And it's going to be the deputy commissioner for the province is going to be there as well.

Uh McDonald.

I can't remember his first name.

But uh yeah, it's going to be a really good big deal.

Um, and so not some not so important persons like myself, because I was the first detachment commander for the for municipality of Souk when it became a municipality.

Indeed.

So I got to introduce the members from SUK there.

So I'll see you there on the first.

And so any other questions?

Uh Councillor Rogers.

Will you crash the party?

So uh uh thank you very much.

I I want to pick up on on um um uh a previous question with respect to the mental health calls and and uh the 20% uh VL files.

Um I I'm really taking uh quite an exception to uh the this number, uh, and I think we need to start dividing the numbers a little, right?

If it's got a VGH hospital on it, then let's uh let's bring that out, make that a separate number so we can start tallying uh specifically the number of increases that's that's coming or going or whatever at VGH, not View Royal.

And uh Emma, if we want to take it back a further, if we want to uh perhaps get an address of the client that uh that caused the disturbance, if there'd be Langford, Colwood or any other place, uh that might be useful too, but that's probably digging too deep.

So let's let's uh refine those uh mental health calls, I think, and and then we can get a really good idea of what uh our municipalities' issues are.

Yeah, intriguingly, um the number is similar in that there were 246 calls for service um at the hospital in 2022.

Um, when I mentioned to those that had a mental health component, uh there were 269.

I don't know if those numbers are independent of each other, meaning in the 269, they exclude all hospital calls.

Based on how the data is summarized for me by the analysts, I would say they are.

But I can definitely confirm that and report back to the chair of the public safety committee and let you know.

Council Rogers, second by Council Manson.

All those in favor?

Opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Well, under arts and culture, I'm going to take the liberty of expanding the term to mean community and uh to include community, or to mean community.

Um, and uh we had a very successful Bureau light up.

Um people rose to the occasion of the of the season, and we happily presented um awards, tasty awards, to a house on uh Prince Robert Drive, one on Kingham, and to a unit in Glentana for the first time.

So that was that was really great.

Um, and I think maybe I was thinking maybe next year um we could consider some kind of plaque or something to you know, because who eats chocolates?

Um and uh another out, you know, outside of the realm of my position on council, but it was a community thing.

Um, I promoted the idea of a first ever polar bear swim dip um at Portosh Park, and um I am proud to say that the entire female contingent of Bureau Council participated nobody in trunks on this council was there um and uh some I don't know 30 30 people you know actually went there for the event to watch it and to cheer and it was fun so um I hope and intend for this to become a um an annual event and do we have any questions?

Oh, really sorry Councillor Lemon, I think that everything that you described had everything to do with culture.

Thank you.

Good.

That's a comment.

Yes.

Yes, the I think the light up uh again was a tremendous success, as you say.

And and I think um we've also had some good suggestions about uh how we can uh improve it and make it even more uh more fun and yeah and recognizing the uh the achievements of that and congratulations on those who actually went into the harbor.

Thank you very much.

And any other questions, comments?

I will pass the chair to you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Lemon.

And and uh I will forego a chair's report because we meet next week and I can give a report there for the mayor's report.

I think the new business arriving from previous minutes, I think this is where we want to insert uh counselors Rogers email as we so agreed to with the amendment of the agenda.

Uh and you should see this on your desks.

It looks like thus.

It is um adding lighting for Watkas Way and St.

Giles.

I will pass the baton to councillor Rogers.

Yes, thank you very much.

Um these uh these two points are are come from uh two different directions.

One uh is a uh probably an outstanding one from um Councillor Mattson and uh the advisory committee uh a few years ago, and I just want to bring this back again.

It uh as you can see along Watkiss Way, you've got uh blue circles, and there's a great distance between those two circles in which individuals have to walk along, uh they have no choice but walk along the galloping goose because there's no sidewalk, uh, very, very restricted width of that road.

And um consequently, the uh the uh the lighting and the darkness um and the safety issues um uh so my request is is for staff to um uh bring back um an assessment of um what for our consideration um at the uh the budget process is a capital item.

Um so that's part one, and the other additional uh safety lighting uh situation is a point that the CIO mentioned in his email of October 4th when I was identifying the issues of St.

Giles.

And the suggestion is that it would require lighting and a capital expenditure to consider light two additional lights on St.

Giles because it is indeed really dark and dangerous.

So with your indulgence, I'd I'd like to submit this and ask staff to bring back reports for our consideration at the budget meeting.

So that's a motion.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers.

Any other discussion, Councilor Must.

Yeah, I and I do know for the uh, especially for the Watkiss way that staff had looked at this before, and there were a number of reports, so maybe they could also bring those back to us.

Councilor Mackenzie.

Okay.

Thank you.

So when I went on the cycling tour, I did ask the um uh consultant whether the lighting would be part of the whole uh active um transportation network uh and they said I believe they said yes I don't know if that can be clarified uh through the chair um lighting is always part of active transportation and just looking at the needs report and the previous what we heard summary uh street lighting and lighting in general um especially along the gallop and goose if I recrawl correctly uh has been um that has been out of them that we've heard from the public so right now i can't really comment on what is going to come out of report i'm sure that's the consultant that we're using is going to incorporate that somewhat somehow in their in their um in the report and probably uh in future uh uh public engagements as well i do know that uh we have finished our our um second survey and upcoming is the open house so certainly opportunities to contribute to that um but generally speaking, street lighting is it is part of the transportation corridor, so it it would be spoken upon.

Okay, thank you.

Councillor McKenzie.

Other comments?

Councilor Brown.

Do we have a seconder?

If not, I'll second the motion.

Or do you second everyone second?

So all in favor?

Any opposed?

Sorry, what was the motion?

Uh motion was to uh task staff with investigating, I think.

With investigating the uh the previous um uh work that has been done as well as looking at solutions for citizens concerned or residents concerned.

I'm bringing back as a as a line item capital budget capital budget uh initiatives and cost.

Thank you.

And uh I think we're happy with that.

So we've got a couple of staff reports coming up.

Uh one is budget variants projects update report to September 31st.

And I think uh Don, you're gonna speak to this.

Thank you, Mayor Tamias.

Uh nothing uh too significant to report other than just updated numbers than was presented to you in December.

Um, I do note a couple of things.

Uh one is that uh you know, just a little bit of caution about these numbers, particularly because year end they they aren't representative of of 2022 as a whole, as year end is not complete yet.

So do take that, uh keep that in mind, uh especially in reference perhaps to the building permit numbers that were previously reported this afternoon.

Um, that the building report I notice uh does report the numbers on a cash basis, as does the report in front of you right now, and that is always adjusted at year end.

Because if building inspection work is not complete for particular building permits at the end of the year, that revenue is deferred to the year in which the work would be complete, presumably 2023.

So do take those uh those building permit number revenue numbers with just a little bit of a grain of salt in, and uh we will come back to you with those numbers in the future.

Uh also I noticed a question about community amenity contributions.

Again, when we do bring the budget package, um we report on all of the reserves, the contributions that were made in the prior year and the the balance forward for uh the future financial plan.

Community amenities reserve is one of those numbers as well.

But in the meantime, you can see uh contributions from developers.

I note on page seven of nine of the report, which is uh schedule A on a line item in revenue that's labeled contributions from developers and others.

You'll see a figure there in 2022 year to date column of $629,000.

$623,000 of that is a community amenity contributions for 2022.

So just to answer that question for council.

Happy to answer any other questions if there are some.

Councilor Roger.

Thank you very much.

Great report as always.

And I noticed the um uh we're it's still like we're we still have 70 percent budget remaining.

Um, and I'm calm my nerves.

Are we going to be able to come in under budget or uh on budget for this particular item?

Yes, it will be uh on budget.

Uh there was weather issues in December and November that's uh that inhibited it, but generally speaking, the work's supposed to be get done in December.

Uh our staff are talking with the contractor and the contract administrator to make sure that they are doing everything under contract.

Amazing.

Well done.

Thank you.

Uh Councilor Matson.

Yeah, I was just uh someone sent around a report, which I think went to all members of council and it took a look at the surpluses various municipalities were gonna have.

And I was amazed at how big some of these surpluses were.

And so I'm just wondering, are they, you know, especially if you compare it to what would normally happen in for up for us.

So I'm not sure if they're just doing really bad budgeting and and taking in a lot more money than they need or uh whether that's intentional and so I this might not be a fair question but any thoughts as to to that I I through through the chair thank you for the question uh counselor matts and it that that is a little bit of a tough one um I I did not study that report in any depth so I cannot speak to uh surpluses that are being reported by other municipalities I do note that that there is a little bit of a difference um between how financial statements report surpluses um and and what we might consider a budgeting surplus.

Those aren't necessarily the same thing, so we do always have to be careful when we compare numbers that we're actually comparing apples to apples.

The way that we report surpluses generally for the budget is more reflective of just like an operational surplus.

And you know you might think of that a little bit more like a like a cash surplus as opposed to an accounting surplus, right?

So just a little bit of caution that way.

In my my comment um about you know whether municipalities are over budgeting or or you know to what extent the tendency might be to over to you know budget more than we actually need.

Again, it is a fine balance.

To the extent that we don't budget enough, a lot of staff work is created to amend the budget where where needed, and and that takes resources and time to do.

So the tendency might be to budget for all the eventuality that we think might occur in the year, and it doesn't always play out, or as as you you uh just noted, projects sometimes go a little bit longer than expected, so initially it looks like you're under budget.

So all of those things will contribute to you know what looks like a surplus.

Um those are my comments.

It I again there's there's not a very simple answer to that question.

I I know that where the source of funding for any service is taxation.

I think council plays an important role in helping us not over budget for those.

Um noting though that for projects that are either funded by casino revenue or some other reserves, the consequence of over budgeting uh for any project is is uh there is no consequence because the money that is not spent will always remain there to be spent in the in the following year.

Thank you.

Thanks for their further questions, Councillor Brown.

Excuse my ignorance, but um I know when you have a stratic corporation, you have to put aside a contingency of 10% every year.

I don't know, I don't know if Ms.

Pellet's even allowed to do that, I'm not sure.

But there was a gentleman here from uh District of O B, a financial guy, that gave us a kind of a dismal picture looking at a hundred-year period of replacement of uh capital, particularly capital, and it was pretty depressing.

I found it very depressing.

And like uh, I mean, I'm not gonna be here in 50 years, but my grandchildren may be around, they may be in V Rural, I don't know.

But yeah, first the first question is can municipalities carry a surplus over?

And how much is that, or uh can you even have a line, a contingency fund line?

Is that even a possibility?

One of the things that I would like to offer to council uh when we when we start the budget uh process is just a little bit of an overview of um you know, basically, if you will, budgeting 101 for municipalities for those who may not be familiar, because it is a little bit of a unique um uh you know area.

And and you know, honestly, thank you for com comparing it to a straticorp.

There are a lot of similarities in that it it is important to think towards the future and you know what expenses might um be lumpy you know if you will um and and cause big spikes in um in requirements for revenue um as a part of the budget package we do bring forward um a reserve continuity schedule so it it has uh um three pages of what you might consider in in the strata uh corporation con uh context uh basically contingency reserves so the short answer to your question, Councillor brown, is yes, absolutely the uh municipalities do put money aside on purpose.

So, you know, for future expenditures, I would consider a surplus, you know, just kind of as a the term is commonly used as like an unexpected excess of revenue over expenditures.

Whereas a reserve is a purposeful uh contribution of excess revenue, if you will, a planned excess revenue that we put aside for a specific purpose.

Some of those are capital purposes and some of them are operational purposes, and they can they can be a wide variety.

So we'll we'll be looking more at that specifically when we go into the budgeting process.

Thank you.

Did I answer your question?

Yeah, you certainly did.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh Don.

Uh Councilor Lemon.

Move your seat.

None opposed.

All in favor.

Uh motion curious and I think now we've got uh an action list update for the fourth quarter.

Thank you.

Welcome back.

Thank you, Mayor Tobias.

Oh and and congratulations Councillor Lemmon on your polar swim.

I too had a polar swim this year while I was in Mexico.

It was wonderful.

You brave man.

So the action list is uh is intended to um communicate to council what the status of decisions that you make are today.

And so every decision that council makes during a council meeting is recorded in this list.

And when the action requirement is completed, it's highlighted in gray and taken off the report in a subsequent meeting.

Um so the the report itself it it describes the uh the type of meeting that took place, the date of it, uh the action item, who is named to lead the the action requirement, what departments are in, and then the comments column is probably the most important column and it describes where we are with respect to that action.

Um it's not intended that we get into the debate of of any single item.

It's just to communicate to you that we're doing your work based on the decisions that you made.

And so the uh request is that the uh report be received.

Move received.

Second.

Council Rogers.

Yes, thank you.

One of the uh the challenges I have is is going through I'm looking for a particular one and I can't find it.

Um is is this uh is there any ability to have this in in some kind of Excel spreadsheet or something like that where I I one can do a search, a word search, and uh see where it is.

The um the action items are tracked in an Excel format and um items are removed or added as decisions are made or action items are completed.

If you're looking for a specific item you can send me an email and I'll have somebody look up what happened to that particular item.

So it's to to that, you know, if if uh the items are removed but the items are kept somewhere, right?

We're not is it not just a delete but we will have a record of those items that had been completed so for historical context?

Well the reports you can certainly go to each quarterly report from each agenda that we have had in our past and uh and look them up that way.

That would be challenging in the next last five years.

Which makes it um probably better for you to give me a request and I'll have stuff look it up.

Okay.

Okay.

So here's my quick question.

So send me an email with the detail and I will forward that to stop.

You're here right now.

So in my as you may recall, um the we had uh had made a a request um for a review of the cannabis bill um business bylaw.

Uh and the Councillor Rogers, let me interrupt you politely.

Um this isn't to get into the specific ones.

So I think what you're requesting is a more accessible searchable list that you can have access to.

So again, this is not to go through granularly each one of these action item lists.

I think we can take that um, you know, as a as a member of you following up.

It is on yeah okay thank you that's all I need to know.

And it's on the list.

Was that that one is on the list.

But I think uh Kim if we could in the future if there is a way and Don if you're wondering on how you might solve the dilemma then you and I can talk to have it available at least for counsel online to make it searchable but also it would be a document that you can you can have an update that might um um you know satisfy some of the counselor's requirements to see it being tracked and just to make sure that it's up updated for authenticity for that that way we could avoid some email correspondence as well.

We'll work on that.

Thank you.

So we had motions we had seconders did we actually I don't think we got to um move receipt with a vote.

So I've got uh oh counselor or uh you're okay you don't have a question okay so we've got uh councillor matts and uh uh motioned and uh counselor lemon uh second and uh all in favor that opposed.

So uh the next one is the CAO update.

And I noticed I noticed you haven't moved, Kim, so I'm assuming it's you.

Thank you, Mayor Tobias.

I I I don't have a presentation to make.

Um the the report is relatively straightforward.

If I were to highlight anything, I would highlight our success with snow removal during the month of December.

Not many municipalities have had that kind of success, and certainly not the airports.

And were you in country just to clarify while the snow came down?

Well, I would say I was in touch with with stack only until the 22nd of December.

I I was just joking.

Yeah, that the uh for the first time, I of course live on the other uh side of the highway.

Uh for the first time in a long time, I saw uh everybody being coordinated.

And to some of V Royal town staff that live just on the edge of View Royal, they were watching our contracted services plow them out but stopped because they live in Sainich, uh, just before theirs.

So our back streets on day two look like the main thoroughfares for most other municipalities.

So uh job really, really well done.

More than satisfied, and and lots of good stories about uh town staff, parks, crews exceptionally, and and even the contracted folks given uh uh citizens' residents a hand, um uh and and not blocking them in their driveways uh with uh a big load of snow.

So uh great job.

I think we were the envy of uh most municipalities uh through that.

So that was awesome.

Thank you.

I just got to get you to concentrate on my backs steps so I don't slip down those and uh and uh break some more ribs.

So but great job for staff.

Ouch.

I do have a question.

Uh councillor Matson.

Yes.

So again, accolades to staff and our contractors who did the work, great job.

Uh on the way over here, a neighbor asked me, she said, Ron, can you ask about the maps in the our CAO's report and what exactly the maps were?

And I have to admit, I read the report, but the maps didn't jump out at me.

I I'm not sure if they jumped out at you.

On the last page, getting maps for your sheet.

Okay I'm just wondering what sort of maps which maps they were I guess they were requesting which maps they were for the OCP.

My understanding of the the updating mapping is per for the OCP highlighting the proposed changes in land use development and development permit areas.

Okay.

Well, the we we have these maps up here.

And if I remember correctly, some of them might include the development permit areas, particularly the uh environmental development permit.

So it's that flavor.

Okay, so thank you.

I'll be able to explain that to them.

Okay, thank you.

And thank you, Councilor Rogers.

Council.

I read your report.

Um the uh I'm really impressed with uh the number of uh rebates that have been issued for the heat pump.

I I think the total of 15 now.

Um how are we doing that?

Have we used up all our our funding or are we are still in good shape for helping folks out?

We still have quite a bit remaining.

Uh Sarah can update us.

I can update you for for sure.

We originally set out council has set the budget um we were around 10 000 uh we subscribed in late 2021 i want to say 2021 we have a little under five grand left so that will be in the budget till we spend it out in 2023 so every six months we renew the agreement uh with the agency that the doles that out so it's a partnership agreement they administer that on our behalf along with other municipalities doing the top up so yes, it is exciting.

We only first started rolling those out in January, where was our first subscription of 2022, but it was the fall of 2021 when we signed the agreement.

Thank you.

That's great.

And another question, please.

The uh folks are really excited about um the prospects of having fast charges at the new redeveloped Canadian tire site.

Um, I'm assuming that um that all that is progressing now and and um um there's not any issues to achieve that goal.

I recall there's a uh item in the action list that refers to the um installation of those.

I think I saw it as well.

I can I can't I can answer the question.

So um so through the mayor, um the applicant is currently working on the legal agreement.

Uh council Lemon.

Quick question.

Um Kim, in your report, you uh you mentioned that you have a 30-year handed out a 30-year long service award in December.

Who who was the recipient?

Yeah, we purposefully excluded the name to ensure that we're not releasing information publicly.

We can certainly send you an email getting more detail.

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Can we get a picture of him with wearing this him or her wearing this silly hat?

Isn't that part of the process for getting those awards?

Sarah?

There will be no silly hat photos, no.

Uh thank you.

Is there anything else?

Nothing else.

A motion to receive would be appropriate.

Thank you.

Seconds.

Councillor McKenzie, all in favor?

None opposed.

Any opposed?

None opposed.

And so that takes us over to we've got no committee reports.

The other reports, I believe we're under an agenda item that we've deferred or tabled to the next meeting.

And I think I'm stand to pass the chair to uh councillor Quelch.

Sorry, am I able to ask a question about 6.3.4?

No, it has to be tabled.

Okay, not yeah.

Okay.

I was I was just wondering if we could get in because this has been before council previously, and I would I would really be interested to know what discussion took place for this resolution that's included in here.

I think that'll be attached to your minutes, but if you had further information you'd like to have added to it, you could revisit an old agenda item or we can ask staff to provide that as part of the package any other previous um minutes that might be associated with that.

That would be that might uh help some of the new counselors along.

Sarah.

Okay, so we don't have a lot of information that's that we could access for that.

Okay.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Um but maybe if we could do a summary of what was has been decided, maybe the the points that were challenging for council, that would suffice for counselor McKenzie and and Councillor Brown and myself to just become acquainted with some of the historical challenge with the agreement.

Councilor Brown.

So I think we would enter into a new perspective if there was a member of under or memorandum of understanding or something like that that was on the table, uh, as opposed to year over year funding.

Councillor Brown.

So I I think we could treat it as a as a new item.

Thank you.

Um, so I don't have a chair's report per se, but I would like to take the opportunity to plug um the Greater Victoria Green team's uh work that's going to be on January 21st.

Um they're gonna be continuing the restoration of Burnside Watkiss Park.

Um yeah, 9 45 a.m.

on January 21st.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this time, but I hope to be able to in the future.

Because I when they did Portage Park, it was such you could you could it was great work that they did.

So yes.