March 4, 2024, at 1:00 PM

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The meeting is called to order at 1:00 PM it being noted that Councillor P. Van Meerbergen was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That consent items 2.1 to 2.2 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.1   Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act Report for Calendar Year 2023

2024-03-04 Staff Report - Public Sector Salary Disclosure

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports the report regarding the Public Sector Salary Disclosures Act, 1996, Report for Calendar Year 2023 BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.2   2023 Statement of Remuneration and Expenses for Elected and Appointed Officials

2024-03-04 Staff Report - 2023 Statement of Remuneration and Expenses

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports the following actions be taken:

a)    in accordance with Section 284 of the Municipal Act, 2001, the Statements of Remuneration and Expenses for Elected and Appointed Officials, as appointed to the staff report dated March 4, 2024 as Appendix “A” and Appendix “B”, BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    in accordance with City Council resolution of March 2012, the annual report on the Mayor’s Office’s expenditures BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    in accordance with City Council Travel and Business Expenses Policy, the Statement of Travel Expenses for Senior Administration Officials, as appended to the staff report dated March 4, 2024 as Appendix “C” and “D”, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.3   (ADDED) Government Relations Consulting Assignment

2024-03-04 Staff Report - (2.3) Government Relations Consulting Assignment

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, in accordance with section 15.1 (c) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy, that Coriano Capital BE APPROVED to continue to provide consulting services for government relations, strategic advisory services, and advocacy in addressing local issues and advancing the city’s interests at the federal, provincial, and local levels for a further two (2) months, which will extend their initial engagement till July 15, 2024.

Motion Passed (5 to 1)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

None.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential

None.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 1:18 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (39 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the fifth special meeting of the Corporate Services Committee. Knowledgement here. The City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, the Haudenosaunee, Leno Wapuk, and the Adwondron.

We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Please check the City website for additional meeting detail information.

Meetings can be viewed via the livestream on YouTube and the City website. The City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternative formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cse@london.ca or 519-661-2489 extension 2425. Looking for any disclosures of pecanary interest.

Seeing none, we have three items on our consent agenda. I haven’t received any to be pulled. Oh, to have— Thank you. Could you pull 2.3, please?

Okay, so 2.3 will be pulled. Looking for a mover and a seconder then for 2.1 and 2.2 to be moved together. Okay, Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Stevenson. Okay, so we have those two on the floor.

Any discussion on those two items? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries, it’s six to zero. Okay, so we have 2.3 now to deal with.

Could I get a mover and a seconder? Councillor Cuddy, okay, Councillor Stevenson. Okay, we’ll open that for discussion. Any questions?

Councillor Rhomme. Thank you, three of us sir. Any presentation or any other further discussion then what’s here? Okay, so I just personally after reviewing this and asking some questions just with respect to where we were with GR at this time.

I’m comfortable with what we had agreed to in the original engagement of a six month contract at the total cost. I understand the rationale behind advancing or furthering the contract for two months. However, I’m just not sure that as a Councillor I’m receiving the services I need from a government relations perspective and therefore I’m not willing to support it. Okay, does staff actually wanna add anything in terms of the contract?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose is to fill the gap. I understand the comment about not receiving the level of service once we have a person in place inside the administration.

And in addition inside the mayor’s office, I’m confident that will improve. This is to fill the gap. If we don’t have this, then there isn’t a body or a person doing this work in the intervening time period. Okay, I’m gonna, as Chair, take the opportunity to ask some questions.

Also to Councillor Romans point, I think it just providing some more information in terms of the services that are being provided. My understanding was obviously this is a contract. It seems like a lot of the work has been through the mayor’s office. And I’m just wondering in terms of the two month extension, is there anything that is pending that we anticipate we need them for?

Or this extension contract, would it be covering something that needs to be done? Or is this something that after the two months you could just have someone actually pick it up and do it? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There are a number of behind the scenes activities that Mr. Mathison has been providing, in particular assisting the mayor in terms of advocacy on a number of key files. If that’s not here, then that’s left to the mayor’s office with whatever support the senior leadership team can provide. There have been some key instances.

I can give a couple of examples where we’ve received assistance. I presented to the Federal Standing Committee on Finance in November, Mr. Mathison and his team assisted me in preparation of that. Mr.

Mathison and his team assisted the mayor’s office with respect to the development of a pre-budget submission for the provincial budget. And there are a number of other activities like that. There are materials that we can rely on through our membership that we pay for as an organization for AMO, FCM and OBCM, where there are briefing notes and materials that are provided on a regular basis versus having a staff person rewrite them and submit them to council. So we’re suggesting that there be an opportunity to look to those available resources.

In terms of what’s coming up over the next couple of months in the intervening period, and this would be the period between May and July. The big one would be the preparation for AMO and AMO delegations. There’s a series of timelines to meet largely in the June timeframe where that assistance would be helpful. There are a number of other aspects and perhaps the mayor would like to comment on some of the support that he’s received.

Okay, thank you for that answer. Mayor Morgan, do you wanna provide some more information? Sure, yes, I’d be happy to. So I would say that I rely on Mr.

Matheson and his services regularly. In fact, I’ve spoken to him three times this week already, leading up to a meeting that I had with Minister Flack in his staff on Friday on builder fasting fun criteria. They’re also actively working on the advocacy related to the making us whole, particularly through Kelly, an associate of dance who knows the provincial government and are working very well. They’re also asking for specific, working on a specific ask I have related to supportive housing before the province to ensure that we can bring on some of the support of housing opportunities that you would have heard and say to the city sooner rather than later.

And I would say that the rationale that I saw for bringing this forward to fill the gap is, could we move forward faster with the new model? Sure, but we’d be doing that and putting a person under the new city manager that we’d be picking before they got here. And so extending the contract would allow for that person to be hired by the new city manager after they get here and allows us to start the preparation work for the AMO conference in the summer, which as you know, having gone through it once, like there is a lot of delegations that we ask for. There’s a lot of preparation material that comes in the background.

So that’s the rationale for the report. I use their services all the time and I think the two other pieces I would add is letting the city manager have a say over the staff person who will work directly under them, the new city manager, I should say, and the preparation for AMO are the two critical things on the horizon. Great, thank you. Ms.

Livingston, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to add this additional piece of information in that I have met with Ms.

Dater’s beer. And so we are posting the position now, the internal position to the civic administration now so that it is posted and ready to go when Ms. Dater’s beer arrives to be able to do the interviews as quickly as possible. Should that mean that someone could come sooner than perhaps we could reduce the need for this extension till mid-July to a shorter period of time?

But this was to, sometimes people have to give notice and those kinds of things, but we are trying to move as quickly as possible to get this resource in place. Okay, thank you for that. And we also do have FCM coming up as well prior to that. So I’m also wondering then with AMO, so would that be through the new government relations representative then?

Like obviously the work would get started, but then whoever takes on that position would also be leading that. Yes, Mr. Chair, I think the mayor sent in an update note to council last week on the outcomes of the review, which suggests that we put a position inside the city manager’s office, support the mayor’s office, but also that there be an ongoing and regular planning, if you will, where the mayor leads that discussion with the city manager and this manager of government relations. That is the individual that will carry forward the work.

Any other questions? Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I just wondered, given Councillor ramen’s comments, and I know I’d be appreciative of any internal briefings or memos that might come regarding government relations, ‘cause it seems as though really we just get what comes in the public realm.

So would there be a way to include us a little bit more just on what is happening without too much of an incremental cost? Would staff like to take that or the mayor? So you’re looking for more information in terms of lobbying efforts? Yeah, just any kind of update would be great.

Okay, to staff or the mayor? I don’t know if you can provide some more information. I’m not sure what the Councillor wants to know. I’m happy to meet with the Councillor any time about their council positions that we’re lobbying on.

So we’re out trying to actually pursue those lobbying positions. There aren’t like internal memos about it. It’s the support that’s being given directly and the work that’s being done engaging with provincial officials directly. So I’d like again, I’m happy to sit down with the Councillor and find out what the actual desire is on this.

And again, I think when the new manager of government relations comes, there’s like, part of this is the return actually in situation of the services in the city manager’s office with the support for the advocacy arm, right? I think as the note, which I circulated to you, articulates like there’s, I don’t think it’s been, I want to say this in the right way. I think we could have done a more effective job in both the services the Councillors are getting, the utilization of the opportunities through AMO and FCM, as well as the streamlining of the advocacy on behalf of the municipality for all the motions that Council has made over the years with better follow up and connections back on those points. So the whole point of this was to make the improvements that I think Councillor Stevenson is referring to on getting more information.

What we got is a little bit of runway left before that new model is actually implemented and hence the request today. So again, I’m happy to sit down and chat with any member of Council about what’s actively going on, but I think moving towards the new structure as soon as we get it is going to be much more clear, transparent and effective for what Council’s expected because the whole point of this process was to make things better and I think that’s what’s going to come out the other end, but there is a little bit of a gap period here. Councillor Stevenson, do you have a follow up? Nope, okay, Councillor Raman, next.

Thank you and through you. So further to my comments. So I understand that the Mayor has a more significant role as head of Council in advocating to the province and to the federal government. Completely understand that.

My issue is that as a Councillor, I feel as though I have been inadequately informed of things that are going on at the provincial and federal level in terms of this timeline with this gap. And so because of that, I won’t support this. As a committee member for AMO, I do not feel as though I have the resources I need to be effective as a committee member and that’s something I’ve also heard from others that serve us in roles with AMO and FCM. So I think there is a gap here.

I don’t think that this two months of a further extension address those concerns. I do think that unless there is conversation around the fact that we’re not adequately being supported from the consulting piece of this, it won’t change. So that’s the reason for my pushback. I also think with the timing of AMO being August and as you, my understanding is we’re not getting support for FCM that again, I just wanna be clear that I don’t think that this is an effective personally for me in terms of advocacy at this point.

Okay, an offer mayor wanted to take that as an opportunity to respond or? I think the council is sharing her opinion. That’s fine. I find it effective for me and again, I think we can all make improvements in the future.

We’re working towards a new model. The whole point of the process was to actually get to that point. Certainly in the interim, I’m happy to, should this be approved to talk to see what additional supports they’d like to have that we could try to do. But I mean, it’s before council decide whether you wanna extend it or not.

So that’s what it is. But I think people can have their opinion, just recognize that we’re all working towards something that will be, I think, better for all. Okay, and thank you for those comments. But I think really, again, just taking this opportunity to speak as chair, I think what I’m looking for and to the mayor, have you found it effective?

Because really from a councilor’s perspective, I’ve had zero engagement from this consulting firm. So really, I think to make a vote on this for myself, I would just like you to maybe speak to like, have you found value in this service? Obviously, this is the interim period. We just need it for the two months to get someone new.

But I don’t want work the year doing currently to stop completely. So really, I just wanna get a sense, have you found this useful? And do you think that this needs to continue for the two months for now? I would say yes.

I will be blunt. The focus has been at the provincial level, which is why I think this particular firm has been helpful, Kelly Mitchell’s background at the province, as well as the connections he has, has been very helpful, not just in the advocacy at the political level, but also of which I take the lead on most of it, but the knowledge and connections with the deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers within the provincial government, as well as the understanding of the structure of those processes and the connections that he has has been quite helpful to me in the work that we’ve done thus far. And again, I know it sounds like I’m ignoring FCM. I mean, they have helped with a little bit of FCM stuff.

For me, I’m a lot, I’ve served on FCM many years. I don’t tend to utilize services for things that I’m pretty knowledgeable on already. So their help has really been effective at the provincial level and continues to be, there are a couple of live discussions right now that they’re helping with an act of on. So the continuation of those for me, for continuity is important.

That being said, this is a council decision. I hope you support it, but I certainly don’t, certainly don’t disagree with any of the comments that have made about people desiring to get something different in the future. And I would reiterate, that is the whole point of the review process is to land in a spot that is gonna be, I think, much more effective for all. Okay, and thank you, Mayor Morgan, but I mean to be in the hot seat, but this is all information that’s very helpful for this committee to make a decision.

Are there any other comments or questions? Okay, seeing none, we will open this for voting. On survey on Mayor Morgan, closing the vote. Motion carries, five to one.

Okay, thank you. We do not have any scheduled items, items for direction, deferred matters, or confidential. Before we get to adjournment, I do just wanna take this opportunity to thank our city manager, Lynn Livingston. This is probably the last corporate service meeting that I’ll be chairing with you as city manager.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you. And with the exception of the mayor, on behalf of the rookies on this side, thank you for your guidance and service while we’ve been here. So I know we’re not supposed to applaud, but silent clap, thank you. And we will look for adjournment.

Councillor Cudi, seconder, Councillor Stevenson. Okay, we can do a hand vote on adjournment. All in favor, hand opposed. Motion carries.

Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.