COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE REPORT - CAO UPDATE

TOWN OF VIEW ROYAL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE REPORT

TO: Committee of the Whole DATE: March 8, 2018 FROM: Kim Anema, CAO MEETING DATE: March 13, 2018

CAO UPDATE

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated March 8, 2018 from the Chief Administrative Officer titled “CAO Update” be received for information.

PURPOSE OF REPORT:

To provide Council with information from the Office of the CAO regarding material events and happenings at Town Hall.

BACKGROUND:

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

INFORMATION:

Administration:

It has been a very active month in the Administration Department with the following initiatives completed or underway:

• Advisory committee appointments and re-appointments were made;
• a Grade 2/3 class from View Royal Elementary School toured the Town Hall site with special stops in Council Chambers, Archives and the Parks Workshop;
• the Spring/Summer Newsletter is being finalized and will be out in the mail later this month and into early April;
• final preparations are in process for the annual volunteer appreciation dinner where approximately ninety people will come together to celebrate the volunteer work in our Town; and
• with the local government elections moved up to October (from November) this year, activity has already begun behind the scenes on the organizing front with the development of website content, contracts, and training initiatives booked.

In the Archives, volunteers continue to work with community members to gather valuable stories of the past. The Oral History Project Phase 2 is well under way with three more oral histories recorded, including fascinating recollections of early days with Rosemary Griffiths and Alec Keiser (pictured below):

The Corporate Services Clerk attended a Justice Institute of BC course recently that focused on disaster and trauma phases and intervention models for responders and community residents following a major tragedy. Pre, during and post-disaster interventions were discussed with the goal of increasing support for and responsiveness to staff in our Emergency Operations Centre and on-site responders as well as to the municipality at large.

The Corporate Officer/Deputy CAO attended an intensive Capilano University course in February on the role and responsibilities of a Chief Administrative Officer.

As described in the October 2017 CAO Update report, work continues on the moving over of electronic files to the new shared drive. This work will facilitate a smooth transition to a future electronic document and records management system. In the past two months, thanks to the Records Management Team representatives from Engineering, Protective Services and Development Services, an additional 380GB of material has been moved. This figure brings the total volume of electronic records migrated and categorized according to the Local Government Management Association’s record numbering system to 663GB which represents approximately 95% of each department’s records. The diagram below indicates the volume of storage required for 663GB if these records had been in paper format:

Paper to Digital Calculations

Volume Data Unit

Volume Storage Media

What's Your Data Storage in Paper? Data Unit: GB (Gigabytes) Volume: 663

Your data converted to paper is as follows:

• 50,918,400 Sheets
• 22,630 Boxes
• 13,578 Cabinets

Finance:

Final steps toward completion of the annual financial statements and audit preparation are now underway. The Town’s auditors, Grant Thornton LLP, will be on site early April and financial statements will be brought forward for Council approval in early May, ahead of the May 15th legislated deadline.

The 2018-2022 Five Year Financial Plan was approved in principle by Council at the March 6th Council meeting and a bylaw has been prepared for Council’s consideration.

Initial steps are underway to carry out the 2018 portion of the IT Strategic Plan. Staff have engaged the Town’s IT consultants and are managing next steps to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation.

The Finance Department hosted the first budget open house in mid-February with the assistance of Admin staff. Administration coordinated the staffing competition to recruit a replacement for the Accounting Clerk 1 position. The Finance Department is excited to welcome the new Accounting Clerk 1 to the team, who will begin employment with the Town on March 26th.

Development Services:

Development Services is fielding many inquiries about potential development sites within the Town. We are looking forward to a busy 2018. Applications such BC Transit’s are moving ahead to this Committee of the Whole. We are working to expedite other applications before the summer.

On the policy front, the Parks and Public Places Bylaw will be coming forward for readings later this month.

We are looking forward to receiving a large quantity of census data about the Town from the Capital Regional District in April. This treasure trove of population data will help us identify past trends and may assist us in forecasting demographic change that we might want to plan for. We look forward to updating content on the Town’s website with refreshed data, sharing information with Council and the community.

We will be issuing a new Request for Proposals for an expanded Chilco Trail project in the coming weeks and are hopeful of a strong response. We are also working on amending the secondary suite application forms for new applications, well in advance of the 2019 renewals. These changes also help to position the Town for customer friendly online renewals once software systems are updated.

Engineering:

• Casino – construction of offsite works on Island Highway, including paving and sidewalk, should be complete within coming weeks.
• 280 Island Highway development servicing agreement is now in place and offsite improvement can commence; likely to occur this fall.
• The pedestrian crossing signal at the Public Safety Building is nearing completion and is anticipated to be fully functional by the end of March.
• The new traffic signal at Burnside/Watkiss has been in four-way flash mode to prepare commuters for the coming change while final details, such as line painting, etc., are completed. The signal will be in full function effective March 12. Staff and the traffic engineer will monitor and make adjustments to the signal timing based on traffic patterns over the first six months.

Parks:

• View Royal Park Playground Upgrade – equipment has been installed and the tot park opened for use; final work is underway for completion of the 5-12 year-old area.