January 14, 2025, at 1:00 PM

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The meeting is called to order at 1:01 PM; it being noted that Councillor E. Peloza was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That is BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That Consent Items 2.1 and 2.3 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

2.1   2024 Climate Emergency Action Plan Update Report

2025-01-14 Staff Report - 2024 Climate Emergency Action Plan Update

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken:

a)    the staff report BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to use the City of London’s Strategic Plan Performance Dashboard format for the 2024 Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP) Progress Report;

c)    Agencies, Boards and Commissions of the City BE REQUESTED to submit Climate Action Plans no later than May 31, 2026 that would be included in the 2025 CEAP Progress Report and to measure progress on their respective plans every year after starting with the 2027 CEAP Progress Report; and

d)    the list of active, proposed, and future potential projects to be or that could be submitted to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund identified on Table 3 and described in Appendix “C” as appended to the staff report dated January 14, 2025 BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.3   Update Regarding Service Review Training Sessions for Agencies, Boards and Commissions - Mayor J. Morgan

2025-01-14 Submission - ABC

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the communication from Mayor J. Morgan regarding the recent service review training sessions conducted by KPMG for representatives of the City’s Agencies, Boards and Commissions BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2025-01-14 Staff Report - LTC Review

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager and with the concurrence of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the Deputy City Manager, Legal Services, the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services and the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the report dated January 14, 2025 regarding the London Transit Commission Review Recommend Approach BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   1st Report of the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee

2025-01-14 Submission - ITCAC Report 1

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the 1st Report of the Integrated Transportation Communication Advisory Committee from its meeting held on December 18, 2024 BE RECEIVED and NO FURTHER ACTION BE TAKEN; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from R. Buchal, Member, Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee and Chair of the Mobility Master Plan Subcommittee with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (11 to 3)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the delegation request from R. Buchal, Member, Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee and Chair of the Mobility Master Plan Subcommittee, BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.2   Covent Garden Market - Board Member Resignation

2025-01-14 Submission - Covent Garden Market Board Member Resignation

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors:

a)  the communication dated December 18, 2024 from J. Fyfe-Millar, Board Chair, Covent Garden Market BE RECEIVED;

b)  the resignation of Zeba Hashmi from the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors BE ACCEPTED; and

c)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to advertise in the usual manner to solicit applications for appointment to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors, with applications to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.3   Eldon House Board of Directors Change of Governance Structure Request

2025-01-14 Submission - Eldon House Board of Directors

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the request from the Board of Directors Eldon House BE REFERRED to the Civic Administration to draft a revised Eldon House by-law and report back to the February 4, 2025 meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated January 2, 2025 from Megan Halliday, Secretary, Eldon House Board of Directors with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.4   Confirmation of Appointment to the Hamilton Road BIA

2025-01-14 Submission - Hamilton Road BIA

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Jim Dean, of Jim Dean Law BE APPOINTED to the Hamilton Road BIA for the term ending November 14, 2026; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated December 18, 2024 from C. Luistro, Executive Director, Hamilton Road BIA with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential (Enclosed for Members only.)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session to consider the following:

6.1 Personal Matters/Identifiable Individual

A matter pertaining to personal matters, including information regarding an identifiable individual, with respect to employment-related matters; advice or recommendations of officers and employees of the Corporation, including communications necessary for that purpose and for the purpose of providing instructions and directions to officers and employees of the Corporation.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session from 2:22 PM to 4:15 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 4:18 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 (1 hour, 38 minutes)

Colleagues, if I can ask everybody to take their seats, we’re gonna call the meeting to order. It being one, we’re gonna call the second meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order. I wanna begin by acknowledging that the city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabic, Odenishone, Lenny Paywalk, and Adawanda and peoples. And we honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the Indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. And as representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. The city of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact sppc@london.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425.

Colleagues, before we move into our agenda, I just wanna acknowledge Councillor Palosa is joining us remotely today. She’s not quite feeling 100%. Councillor Palosa, I know you’re with us online. I wanna apologize that the soup today was not potato and bacon, so there will be no delivery after meeting of soup for you.

I also want to acknowledge Councillor Stevenson is absent today, and I just wanna share with colleagues with her permission that it is the occasion of the passing of her father-in-law yesterday that causes her absence today. So I know that I speak for all of us when we send our condolences to Rich and Susan on the loss of Rich’s father. So I want to begin by looking for any disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, I’m gonna move along to the consent agenda.

There are three items on the consent agenda. I’ll look to see if colleagues wish any of those to be dealt with separately. Acknowledging that, of course, colleagues can ask questions about the items on the consent agenda. Councillor Trossau.

Councillor Trossau wants 2.2 dealt with separately, so we will move that to the end of our items for direction and into deferred matters. Looking for any Councillor Van Mierbergen. 2.1, you want dealt with separately as well. Okay, so we will put that to the end.

We just get you to use your mic so that it’s recorded and on YouTube. Thank you. We can, it does not be separate. Yes, and so just, again, to repeat to colleagues, you can ask questions about anything on the consent agenda.

It’s only if you want to deal with it separately that you need to pull it. So item 2.2 has been pulled. Do I have a mover to put 2.1 and 2.3 on the floor? Moved by Councillor Cuddy and seconded by Councillor Van Mierbergen.

Now we will look to any questions or comments from colleagues on either of those items. Councillor Van Mierbergen. Thank you, Chair. My question regards, I brought this up before and that is it was in the proposal to ban natural gas for the heating of homes in 2030.

Is that still the thinking? Is that still the direction that we are taking? Look at our staff. Well, I know Mr.

Stanford is with us and Mr. Chair, this falls under your area. So if either one of you want to respond to that? Thank you, through the Chair.

The item still remains part of our overall action plan. And as you see in the particular report here, it is still an item under review. So there’s been no further information brought forward to committee and council at this time, but it will be an item that we’ll be reporting on further. And Mr.

Mathers may wish to add to that. If not, it is still an item, as I said, that is on our plan and we’ll continue to follow the progress at the provincial government level and the federal government level with this particular item. And Mr. Mathers, did you have anything further to add?

Seeing a no there, Councillor Vameer, we’re gonna. Yeah, it just seems with natural gas being the cleanest of the fossil fuels and so plentiful and relatively cheap in terms of cost for residents, it would be counterproductive to go into the direction of working towards somehow phasing or banning that precious fossil fuel that so many rely on. So I just wanted to bring that point forward and I think staff for the comment. Thank you, Councillor.

And I think before we look for any other questions or comments, I’m just gonna go back to Mr. Stanford on this. This is in the plan based on a direction that was indicated by a senior level of government. Is I think what I heard you said and I’m just gonna seek clarification that that is in fact, it’s not something that the city of London is doing unilaterally, but it is following along with a direction from a senior level of government.

Mr. Chair, this item was one when we built and brought forward the climate emergency action plan. We came forward with 200 actions. This was an item that we brought forward and listed under the perspective of bringing forward further information on what one could do in the future to reduce our use of natural gas.

It is a fuel that is considered a fossil fuel and it is an item that alternatives do exist. There’s been no further information brought forward on the ability to do so. We continue to track what other municipalities are doing in this field and most important what can be done under the building code, what can be done through provincial government, regulations and policies, as well as the federal government. So there’s been, that is why it is there.

It was not directed to us by council. It was just one of the areas that one is going to look at net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. One must look at the burning of all fossil fuels. Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to make sure we were clear on that ‘cause there was the reference to the provincial and federal government. So I wanted to make sure council had a complete understanding of that. Looking for other questions or comments. Councilor Raman.

Thank you and through you. So to follow up on that point, I’m just wondering based on the Ontario government’s stance on this issue, whether or not we need to provide direction on what this council believes to be in alignment with the province on that item or if there’s a need for any updates in terms of that matter. My understanding is that newer thinking on this is that we know that there’s the potential if we use the arbitrary date of 2030, that this could lead to blackouts in the province just based on energy use and consumption if we were to phase out natural gas. So there are some considerations.

I think that we have to have at the municipal level and again, when better information and better thinking on these things are changes. I do think there’s opportunity for us to review. I’m just wondering what the mechanism is. Is it through these updates or is it through other conversations at committees?

Mr. Stanford or Ms. Cher? Mr.

Cher, I’ll begin. On the item of this importance, we’re happy to bring forward further information with our annual progress report. What is before committee today is our update report. Usually we tackle the larger items in time for the progress report and this would be a very important item to report on because of course that will either help or hinder progress on this long journey ahead of us.

So at that point in time, we could bring forward the most up-to-date parental policy and the most up-to-date federal policy on these matters if that is of assistance to committee and council. Yes, I am seeing council Ramanad and indicating that because the question was further direction from us needed and you’re indicating that updates will come with the second report on this, which is actually the update report rather than the report we’re receiving today. So seeing consensus that satisfies the question, Councilor Ramanad, do you have a second question there? Thank you and I’ll just share my comments more broadly on the report that’s in front of us.

First, I wanna thank staff for the report that’s in front of us. It’s a lot of good detail and I appreciate what has been provided and how multifaceted is and how it touches on all the different service areas and the things and actions that are being taken. So I love that it’s very global and that we’re able to see those results and have those reported to us. And I like the way that they’re reported, although I’m happy to see that, you know, as we roll it out to the community, there’s usually some additional graphics and things that go along with it, which is always helpful to tell the story.

So appreciative of what’s here. And I was happy to see that we’re moving forward with conversations with our ABCs as well as part of this direction as a next step. So thank you for this. And I’ve got Mayor Morgan next on the list.

Yeah, so I’m gonna comment on a different item within this group and that’s the update that I provided to Council on the service review training related to the agency’s boards and commissions. First off, I want to say thank you to the almost all boards and commissions who participated in the service review training process and over 35 representatives of various ABCs did end up contributing and my understanding is the feedback was very positive and they were happy with the experience. And I think it’s, I want to thank Council as well for essentially, you know, making the decision to actually pay for and provide the training to our boards and commissions so that they can take advantage of some of the great training that our staff has had and the implementation of our own service review program. So I just wanted to make sure Council was updated.

I know, you know, there was a point in this process where I brought it forward to Swarg. Swarg approved it, came to committee. We approved it to close the loop on the training. I just wanted to provide that brief update for you that you see in your package today to say it was well received, it was well attended and it was appreciated and now they have that training and can engage in all of that good work in the development of their future budgets and the running of their operations as well.

Thank you, Mayor Morin. I’ve got Councillor Layman and then Councillor Hopkins. Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair.

Bringing back to 2.1 regarding climate emergency action plan, included in that plan is a direction to our ABCs regarding submitting a climate action plan. The first question is just to want to be clear on the terminology, when you say be requested through you, Chair, is that something that they must comply with or is that discretionary that they do not have to comply? Well, it says be requested, not be directed. So we are asking them to, but I will go to Ms.

Chair on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, it is a request at this point of council which to provide that direction.

Each of the ABCs has slightly different governance models that require different wording. I will share though that the request has gone out informally to let them know that it would be in this report and the feedback from all of the ABCs we’ve heard from, which is the majority of them has been, they’re working on it and they welcome the opportunity to partner with us. So I don’t think we’re gonna see a great deal of opposition. Councillor Layman.

Okay, okay, thank you. That’s kind of what I thought, but I just wanted to be clear. I have a concern and I’d like staff through you, Chair, to address this, are boards and commissions or some smaller boards and commissions and there are some big ones like transit, for example. I did have experience working on a smaller board and that was, for example, I’m just gonna use this as an example, Covent Garden Market, relatively small volunteer board, small management structure.

And when I see requirements to bring forth a report that can have some pretty in-depth time and expense in producing reports such as a climate action plan, I just wanna know what are we putting onto these certain boards as far as time commitments and expense? If they are not able to produce it on their own, will they have to go outside and spend money to assist them with that report preparation? And we know that funding and taxpayers’ money is very important to keep an eye on right now. So through you, Chair, I just wanted to ask the scope of work that’s expected by the boards and commissions to staff.

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can start and Mr. Stanford may have something to add. The scope of this response from each ABC will be individual to the scope and scale of the ABC itself. So the large complex ABCs were already well underway with this.

They are using external resources in some cases. Maybe they have fleets or many facilities. And then we’ve got some very small ABCs and their response to this might be quite a bit smaller. And we don’t expect them to encourage additional expense to do the work in those cases.

Staff are here to support with them and to work with them to find something that’s tailor-made to the degree of their impact as well as the scale of their operations. Councillor Lehman or did Mr. Stanford, do you want to add to that? Mr.

Chair, if I may, because one of the reasons for engaging this way and our goal will be minimum requirements that they all meet. And that will be actually kept at a very reasonable level. It is to get everyone on the same page and as well to establish the collaboration. When I look at some of our ABCs, some of the expertise needed sits in those ABCs.

And in fact, they have a resource to bring to the table. So as we begin to unite and collaborate and cooperate, as we do now, but on this particular area, I see a lot of good things happening. So I believe this will be overall well received and will keep everything in check. And we have allowed 15 months.

So we do believe that that is an appropriate time frame as well. Thank you, Mr. Stanford, Councillor Lehman. Okay, thank you.

That’s good to hear ‘cause I guess what I was worried about is we’ve done a lot of work at the city and to see either duplication of efforts or smaller boards not being allowed to just go with whatever the city has already done. Again, I go back to the workload that are on some of these smaller groups. And the fact that I’m really pleased to hear it’s a collaborative effort. So the sum of all is greater than just one, even including the city.

So thank you for that. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

And just to follow up on Councillor Lehman’s comments around this service review training. But first of all, I’d like to thank the Mayor for giving us this update and for bringing this forward. I’ll just sort of speak on behalf of a board that I sit on, which is the Upper Thames Conservation Authority Board. Big board, they had five members and understand the feedback coming from them.

It was helpful regardless. And I really like that collaboration that can happen when we do these reviews. So thank you to staff for making this happen and the work and thank you to the Mayor for advocating for it as well. I’d like to just make a few comments on 2.1, which is the Climate Emergency Action Plan Report update.

Again, thanks very much to staff. I do have one question as it relates to the items. And it is the tree planting, advancing tree planting. And I understand that further review is required.

It’s delayed a little bit. If you could give a little bit more information on what that review is looking like at the moment and why we need to do this. I’ll start with Ms. Chair and then see if she wants to pass to anyone else on her team.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I didn’t actually bring Mr. Yeoman to this meeting, but I have talked to him about this on a number of occasions.

As Council knows, we have recently brought forward a proposal to update our Urban Forest Strategy and you will soon be seeing an update to the tree planting strategy as well. That information will inform the further course of this action as it evolves. Councilor. Yeah, thank you for that.

Just a couple of comments as we go forward. I do want to acknowledge the work that the city and Upper Thames Conservation Authority has done too with their public information sessions, very impressed with the amount of turnout from Londoners coming to these sessions. I think that is a really important part on how we engage with the public as we deal with our climate emergency plan. So thank you to the city and to UTRCA for undertaking these events and really looking forward to the next update and report.

I think getting information, knowing where we stand with the provincial government too on what we can and can’t do is going to be an important conversation for us to have going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. I have no further speakers on the consent agenda.

Second call, seeing none, seeing none on Zoom. I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

Moving on, we have no scheduled items. So that brings us to section four, items for direction. The first item on the agenda is the first report of the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee. There’s an added request for delegation status from Mr.

Buckle from the committee. I’m going to look to see if there’s a members of council who wish to move or second the delegation. Councillor Trussow. We generally have a standing roll that the committees can without leave could present our reports here.

I don’t see any reason why we can’t do this, but I just do want to note that this is a standing advisory committee. It’s a subcommittee chair, it’s not the chair, but they typically would have the ability to make their presentation here. But I don’t see him as you online. So Councillor, two points to that.

Yes, he’s waiting for us on Zoom. Second, the standing delegation is specific to the chair and the policies and procedure by-law, which is why we need a motion for the delegate because it’s not the chair of the advisory committee. It is a member of the advisory committee. So looking to see if there’s a mover and a seconder for the delegation, Councillor Pribble and Councillor Trussow.

So we will open the vote on that. Opposing the vote motion carries 14 to zero. And Mr. Buckle, I understand you’re with us online.

Okay, we can see you now. If you’d like to unmute, you have five minutes to speak to your community advisory committee report. I’ll give you a flag, just let you know when you’ve got about 30 seconds left. And you can proceed when you’re ready to go.

Okay, thank you for this opportunity to address the strategic priorities and policy committee. My name is Ralph Buckle. I’m the chair of the Mobility Master Plan Subcommittee of the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee. According to the Council approved term, the reference, the mandate of ITCAC is to provide feedback and advice regarding all matters related to transportation.

ITCAC members have contributed hundreds of hours of unpaid expert time in studying the MMP reports and presentations and have provided detail comments, concerns and recommendations. We feel that our feedback has been largely ignored or discounted to date. And we have never seen a detailed response from the MMP team addressing our concerns. On December 9th, 2024, after two and a half years of study and consultation, the MMP team released four conceptual maps showing proposed road transit cycling and walking projects.

There were no details provided about the study and analysis done to arrive at these candidate maps and similar maps could have been drafted right at the beginning. The supporting slides have statements of general goals and examples, but no details. Our committee, subcommittee reviewed the maps and documents and found none of the previous noted concerns or recommendations were addressed. The public has been invited to comment on these maps and to provide direction on two questions.

One, what should we build first? And two, what do we need to know before implementing? Public input is important, but it should not be the main basis for planning and decision making. These questions should already have been answered as a result of detailed consultation and study done over the past two and a half years by professional engineers and planners.

If this is where we are after two and a half years, how is it possible for the MMP team to have a finalized list of projects within a couple of months from now? Our only interest is to ensure that London has a mobility master plan that truly meets its stated goals. The MMP maps, slides, and reports that have been released to date are two conceptual and the lacking in detailed analysis to show how these goals will be met. Our concerns have been echoed by other independent expert assessments.

Within the next few months, the MMP team will finalize infrastructure projects for approval by council at a cost of we expect to be hundreds of millions of dollars. Important decisions like this must be supported by thorough and transparent analysis based on data and evidence. Alternatives must be clearly identified and evaluated using clear and measurable criteria to ensure that the best alternatives are chosen to best meet the MMP goals at an affordable cost and within a reasonable timeframe. ITAC has been scheduled to be dissolved before the final recommendations are made, so we will no longer have a formal channel to provide our feedback.

We feel it is important to have independent, informed advice and feedback on the master mobility plan as it is finalized over the next few critical months before the establishment of the proposed mobility and transportation working group. That is all I have to say. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Mr.

Buckel. Appreciate you making the time to join us today and filling in for your committee chair. Before I look to any colleagues for questions or comments, I’m gonna go to Ms. Share.

There were some comments made about these designs and you go through professional engineers and some timelines and consultation. Can you provide us, please, for perhaps a response in terms of what level of engagement you’ve had so far, what your team is doing with respect to best practice and those sorts of things? ‘Cause language was made suitable alternatives and things like that, and so I think on something like that, it’s important to hear from civic administration on what steps you’ve undertaken to date. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr.

Chair. So from the beginning, the mobility master plan has used care for expert analysis to understand the needs of our community, considering factors like growth, income, housing, education, employment, family structure, and social circumstances. It’s my opinion that the work advances best municipal practices for long-range multimodal transportation planning. It builds on other good plans from other communities, and I think we’re doing things here in London that actually advance that work as well.

Our internal team includes well-qualified professional representatives from nearly every service area providing expertise to the project on financial matters, ecological matters, transportation planning, urban planning and design, anti-racism and oppression and communications. There really are very few areas of the city that are not part of this project because it really is this project about how our city moves and grows over the next site to almost 30 years. So in addition to the two and a half years of very detailed background work, consultation for the MMP has been extremely rigorous and comprehensive and it started very early from a foundation of engagement. We’ve had more than 100 different engagement events ranging from ward meetings and pop-ups to formal PICs to all sorts of drop-in sessions, and we’ve had 4,000 completed touch points, whether they’re online forums or they’re forums at meetings from the public providing feedback to this process.

We’ve had regular discussions with multiple advisory committees including at CAC over the last two and a half years, and we actually very much appreciate the ITCACs input, and it has helped inform and shape our plans that are currently out for feedback. We bring forward methodologies and strategies to advisory committees. The work remains with staff to be done, and the direction and decision-making remains with committee and council. So we’re currently seeking feedback from all engineers on the draft mobility networks.

The intent is to take that feedback, finalize recommendations to SPPC in the spring. Continuing with this schedule though is extremely important because there’s a need for us to be in a position to meet the development charge background studies, which requires us to have this work done by the end of 2025. There are any questions? Mr.

McCray and I are both here and we’re happy to answer them. Thank you, Ms. Chair, just for providing us that additional background. Councillor Layman, you had your hand up.

Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Through you, Chair, to staff, in the delegates’ comments, it was stated that we have ignored that advisory groups input or recommendations. Can you comment, or can staff comment on that through your turn? Mr.

Chair, I can certainly start. Mr. McCray can perhaps provide some additional advice. We are looking for input from a variety of Londoners who are working with interested parties from the development industry, from different multicultural organizations, and ITCAC is a really important part of that conversation and their voice is heard in the work we do.

That doesn’t necessarily mean every recommendation they provide to staff is going to be something that is implemented in the plan the way that they have recommended it. But they have all been carefully considered and where appropriate they are integrated into the plan. Councillor Layman. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, this is a process. I know staff have been working on this for quite a while. We’re not here to make any decisions today. We have extensive public consultations ahead of us.

I know personally I’m going to be at Cherry Hills. The staff is putting on a public participation meeting there. I’ll be there Thursday. Councillor Ramen, I are hosting our own public participation meeting on the Mass Mobility Plan next week.

I’m concerned about the comment made, quite frankly, by our delegate to say that they were ignored. ‘Cause I believe that’s not true. And I think there’s a process that we’re going through where you are taking into account advisory committees, comments, public, ourselves. And at the end of the day, it’s going to be up to this council to provide direction based on everyone’s comments and feedback as well.

So, Chair, what I would like to do is I would like to move a motion to receive this report and take no action. Okay, there’s a seconder in Councillor van Mirbergen. So we have a motion on the floor to receive and take no action. We are dealing with receipt of the report in that motion.

So comments on receipt of the report itself are still in order, but that’s the motion that’s on the floor at the moment. And I have Councillor Hopkins, who’s next on the speaker’s list. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And I do have a follow-up question from Ashir from her comments. And I wonder if you can expand a little bit more on DCs and the importance of getting this study done, just so someone like me, when I hear DCs, it’s like I go through this filing system in my head exactly what is a DC and how important are DCs. As we undertake this study. So just expand that for me, please.

Well, we’ll start with Ms. Chair. And then, of course, if Mr. Mathers or Ms.

Barbone need to chime in, ‘cause I know that that impacts multiple areas, by all means, feel free to pass the microphone to one of your colleagues there. But we’ll start with you, Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And in fact, we probably have much more capable people to discuss this on our senior leadership team. But the development charges background studies inform our 2028 development charges by law, which is essentially how we plan to pay for the major capital assets associated with growth. This, the MMP, is the foundation for the transportation background study.

And it is going to define how we fund road expansions, transit expansions, additions to the active transportation network through the next DC by-law that needs to be prepared. And that deadline is, is 2028 sounds like a long ways away, but maybe Ms. Barbone can expand on the urgency to ensure that we are in a position to be ready for that at the end of the year. And Ms.

Barbone, I think the puck was passed up the ice to you, so we’ll go to you next. Yes, thank you through the chair. So working backwards, the January 1st, 2028 is when the next DC by-law needs to be put in place. There’s large public participation processes.

And once that background study is actually completed, which shows how the growth of our city is going to be funded. And those projects ultimately then get rolled into the development charge background study, which is where we collect through new development in the future, the charges that will ultimately go to fund that future infrastructure. So really at the beginning of 2027 is a really, really big year in terms of having all of that work completed because we have multiple public participation sessions and continuing with our DC external reference group. So there’s a good year of work once we have everything completed, that is where getting all of our stuff ready to go so that the costing and all of those things can be rolled together in 2026 is really, really critical.

So there is not a lot of time. It seems like it’s very close, but certainly there’s a lot to do in a very period of time. So all of the master plan studies get rolled into the work that we do for the costing through the development charges background studies. So this is a critical component in terms of setting the stage for then what goes forward to form the basis of our DC background study.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you for that explanation. And that is why this master mobility plan is important to move forward. Thank you.

Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. Just a question about the take no action portion of the motion that’s in front of us. My understanding is there’s a resignation in the package or in the committee report, if we take no action, does that mean that we don’t receive the resignation?

I will check with the clerk, but my interpretation is we are still receiving the resignation. There was direction in the report to halt public participation, provide some additional directions to staff that would not be provided, but let me just take a moment to confer with the clerk to make sure that receiving still receives the resignation. Yes, so in consultation with the clerk, we would still be receiving that resignation by receiving the report. The take no action would be applicable to the other directions that they wanted us to provide to staff, including stopping the public engagement component at this time.

Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that clarification. I understand that the members of the committee may be looking for different approaches in terms of the engagement and that they perhaps shared that through some hesitation and frustration that they’re experiencing, but I do think that the way forward is that we try to do as much engagement as possible as we move forward and look forward to continuing to engage with members of the committee. Thank you.

Councillor Trussell. Thank you very much. I agree with what’s been said about the need to continue moving forward. I’m not sure how much of a hurry we’re in, but I don’t think we have to necessarily resolve that.

I know that we have a number of us, I know that we still have a number of sessions, but still pending, and I think it’s important that we go through with those. There’s a session at North Grey tomorrow. There’s a session at Cherry Hill on Thursday, and I know some people are looking forward to coming to those, including myself at the Cherry Hill one. I’m grateful that Councillor Ramen and Lehman have set up another meeting in their ward.

I think that’s really important. So I reject the idea of putting a stop to this. However, I do think in light of the fact that the advisory committee as a whole has been abolished pending April, if I understand that correctly, and that this mobility master plan issue is still going to be on the table for some time after that. I think that the, and it’s on page 74 in the packet, that Council appoint the ITCAC recommends, that Council appoint the current remaining membership as a working group with the sole mandate to continue providing advice to Council and the MMP project team on transportation and mobility issues until such time as the MMP is approved in its entirety by Council.

And I think that’s a good idea. I think that it might be very useful to have at least that portion of the committee continue their mandate. So why would add that as an amendment? I think take no action.

I think it’s fine in terms of stopping the process, but I would like to add that language, that Council appoint all the way down to entirety by Council. So Councilor, I just want to provide you the clerk has indicated that that in his opinion will be contrary and that you would have to defeat the take no action in order to proceed with that direction. Okay, in that case, I’ll just speak to the take no action. We’re very close, I think, to making the kinds of progress on this where we can see in the foreseeable future a final or near final report coming to City Council.

And I know that certain actions were taken by this, by this committee to deal with advisory committees, but I think it would be a really big mistake not to continue the work of the subcommittee. So in light of the clerk’s ruling then, I will ask that the take no action portion, be defeated at what point I would, at which point I will put back on the table a motion to appoint a working group for the pendency of this issue. So please vote no on that. And I’ll save my other comments till later.

Bear with me for just a moment, colleagues, ‘cause I’m just consulting with the clerk on that a little further. Sorry, I just want to be able to provide a little more clarity on that counselor with respect to the members. So first, taking no action on appointing the whole of the committee would not prohibit individual members of the committee from being considered for part of the implementation group further. So while it wouldn’t preclude any single individual from saying that they’re interested in serving on this further, but I also need to draw to colleagues’ attention that when the decision was made with respect to moving to an implementation working group that it is civic administration that constitutes the working group, it’s not appointments of council.

And so appointing this working group here would be contrary to that direction that was provided when the change was made to the advisory committees in December as well. So there would actually have to be a whole separate change in the terms of reference to the implementation working group in order to make the motion that you’re proposing you would bring forward if this was defeated. It would still be contrary to the terms of reference previously. So I would suggest that that would probably need to be brought forward at a future meeting ‘cause unless you have specific language around terms of reference changes today, not that it couldn’t be brought forward independently ‘cause it could, but I’m not sure that we would have the means to do that today.

Thank you, thank you for that. I don’t think we need, through the chair, I don’t think we need any changes to the terms of reference because we already have terms of reference, actually on the face of this packet that can be incorporated. I wanna make it clear though that the working group, whatever you wanna call it, under whose auspices it is, will deal with solely the master mobility plan, which I think does streamline the process a little bit. And without, if I understand the dissolution of the advisory committee, it’s not until April.

So between now and April, this subcommittee can continue working as the subcommittee that they are. And presumably based on what you and the clerk just advised us, we’d be able to come forward with some additional language, presumably to the Work Works Committee, or would that go to SPC? I don’t know, but we would have time between now and April to set that working group up. My goal here, my goal here, without getting involved in too many procedural hoops, is to make sure that we have continuity in the group of people who have been working on this.

And that group includes people with a lot of expertise. And I wanna make sure that we continue to have the benefit of that. In other words, I don’t want a gap. I don’t want a gap between when this advisory committee is abolished and when this working group or implementation group or whatever you wanna call it, gets started because we need that input.

But I do want to continue to ask counselors to vote down and take no further action because I think that is inimical to the other things I’m talking about. Does that make sense? It did to me. I would say that with respect to what committee that would land out, that would be a conversation to have with the clerk offline.

But yes, the current committee continues to exist until April of 2025. So that is correct. So there are a couple of months still before that dissolution takes place. And then there’s the constitution of the implementation working group.

I would have to check with staff on when that is scheduled to begin. But Ms. Sherry indicated you had some information to share with us, so I’ll go to you. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. I believe the direction to staff is that we would have that group constituted by Q3. Staff is confident we can do that towards early summers. So any gap would be extremely minimal.

I think that we’re in a position that could continue in the role it has well into April. And then we’d be in a position very shortly thereafter to start with the new implementation working group that will be constituted and reporting through staff. Thank you. So that hopefully addresses your concern about the gap there, counselor?

It does for now. And looking for further speakers. Sorry, I had counselor for error next, and then I’ll come to you, counselor for error. Thank you, Chair.

So yeah, to the amendment, listen carefully to the conversation here. And like I’ve heard from other counselors, I’m not really inclined to stop the process myself. I’d like to see that process continue going. But I do have some questions just with the report from the integrated transportation community, advisory committee.

There’s some, obviously there’s some areas that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with like the on-demand transit services. I would see kind of like an option like that would potentially disproportionately benefit lower ridership areas. And I’m just kind of worried on how that system would be looked at just cause my concerns with perceptions of favoritism when you have potential single riders in one vehicle on those low demand areas. Very briefly it was touched on in that part of the report.

But I do have questions with the evaluation criteria. And I just wanted to know like, I do want to see an evaluation criteria, a very comprehensive one. And I was just wanted to know if we were to take no action would that hinder our ability to expand on that evaluation criteria? Also, I do understand we’re midway through or we’re still through the process.

So that could still come a more comprehensive criteria for that. But I just wanted to know if we were to take no action would some of the recommendations, some that I might agree with, would we not be able to kind of implement those? So, Councilor, I want to be really clear about something and this is for all colleagues. We are taking, if passed, we are taking no action on the advisory committees, ask for directions to staff.

Nothing in taking no action on a community advisory committee report prohibits us from providing additional direction to staff on the MMP or provide staff from considering alternatives that may be in this report, but may be also raised by other stakeholders, by public input, by those things. This is simply, if you take no action on this, it is on the very specific directions ITAC is asking us to direct staff on. Not on this particular report has, it does not prohibit staff from bringing forward anything in the MMP that meets their criteria based on their evaluations, based on the public input, all of those things. So, I just want to be really clear that we’re on a community advisory committee report here, not on the MMP itself.

I am, however, going to go to Ms. Share and/or Mr. McCray, ‘cause I saw the two of you conferring there to see if you had additional feedback that you wanted to provide the Council on that. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And actually, I was going to raise the same point you have, that we would consider the take no action as related to the pause and the extension of this advisory committee. The content of the report will still be considered as we formulate our final recommendations to Council. We expect to be here in the spring with the recommendations on the map, and then in the summer with the comprehensive plan and totems.

So, it’s not as though the report that’s been provided to us cease to exist, it’s simply those two recommendations related to extending the term and two pausing the work. Councilor Ferrer. Thank you Chair, that answers my question directly. I appreciate that.

It was just, like I said, there’s some items in there that I did have interest, I just want to make sure that we don’t preclude those in the future. But, yeah, with the recommendations, I guess a take no action for the recommendations specifically I would be inclined to at the moment. Thank you, Councilor, we’ve got Councilor Pelosa, and then Councilor Pribble, and then I’ll come back to Councilor Trussow. Councilor Pelosa, you had your hand up online, so I’m going to go to you, and then we have Councilor Pribble.

Perfect, thank you, Mr. Chair. A question through you to staff, likely the clerk, realizing this attacks term ends March 31st, 2025, and we heard from Ms. Chair that the study won’t be done to the end of 2025, looking to see if procedurally it would be easier to extend that term of the working group versus striking a bird.

If it’s easier to extend the term of the advisory committee versus striking a completely new working group. So, Councilor Pelosa, striking a new working group has already been approved by Council. Okay, and that was the extension that Ms. Chair was talking about, okay, I’m good, thank you.

Councilor Pribble. Thank you, and as I regularly attend the IDCAC meeting, I’m just thanking Ms. Dubuco and all the other members because they certainly carry their input. It is very valuable.

Having said that, I do think that actually this proposal I came last year from two of our colleagues in terms of the working group, I really think that there is an opportunity to be more effective and efficient with the information and move us forward. And also this specifically states this representation from the residents, and I certainly hope that the current members of IDCAC will apply for those positions for the representations from the residents. I will not be supporting to receive but take no actions and for us to move forward with MMP planning as it is crucial for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Pribble. Councilor Trustau? Just very briefly, I do wanna disagree with Councilor through the Chair. I’d like to respectfully disagree with Councilor Ferrara and also Councilor Pribble in terms of the techno action.

I think it does send, if we include that language, techno action, technically maybe you’re right, but I think it sends the wrong signal to the community. And I wanna send the signal to the community that is very explicit that we have valued the work of this subcommittee and this advisory committee, notwithstanding the fact that we’ve abolished them as of April. And I just don’t think that the language take no further action has anything, and I think it does create a bit of ambiguity. So I would like people to vote that down.

I don’t think it really, in the end, changes the what we’re anticipating here in terms of an implementation group. But it really is, I think we have to be very careful about the signal that we’re sending to the community about our value of citizen volunteers on our committees. ‘Cause I don’t, in all due respect, and I’m gonna say this, I don’t think it’s been good. And I think that a number of people are upset about it.

Councillor, you’re at your time. I’m done. Councillor Hopkins, you’ve only used 48 seconds, so you’ve got lots of time, go ahead. Yay, thank you, Mr.

Chair. Just following up on the take no action, I just wanna make sure I understand that relates only to the items here on the report. And I do agree with Councillor Tresault, the importance of the community trusting us for that engagement. So I wanna make sure there is nothing.

If you support take no action, there is nothing stopping us. These members from the advisory group, or even ourselves of going forward onto the implementation working group. I just wanna understand that process going forward. I really do think it’s important that we do allow the public if they’re interested, and in particular members from this advisory group to participate in the implementation working group.

So if they can have a better understanding on the process going forward, if we take no action. I think Ms. Chair has answered that once already, but I’ll go back to Ms. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So staff have been directed to create and constitute an implementation working group reporting to staff prior to, by Q3. We are in the process of defining what that may look like.

We’ll be working with clerks and with our colleagues in the city solicitor’s office to define the best way to do. So at this point, I don’t have the details as to how we would pick representation for that working group, noting that it is strictly focused on implementation and it is a resource to staff. Councillor Hopkins. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Preble. I understand that take no action. It might not seem the nicest in terms of the potential what Councillor Joseph said, respecting the group, but I see a different way in terms of number one thing is for us, the request from ITCAC to put things on hold.

We are not in a position with all our initiatives to put this on hold. We need to move forward and we need to find the ways how this group and other residents will be involved, which we are doing. And I think we are on the right track and we need to keep moving forward. So again, in Mr.

Beuchel and ITCAC, please don’t take it in this respect way, no action, but we need to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Preble. Just gonna ask Councillors not to engage and cross debate when a Councillor is on the mic, please.

Any other speakers before we call the vote? Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor, it’s receive and take no action. It’s not separable.

If this is defeated, then we would still receive. Posing the vote, motion carries 11 to three. Colleagues, moving on in our items for direction. Our next item is 4.2, Covent Garden Market, board member resignation.

You have the submission from the Covent Garden Market board, with respect to the resignation of Ziva Ashimi. There’s a need to fill that. This is a request to have the clerks undertake the necessary steps to bring forward names for our consideration to fill that vacancy. I’m gonna look to see if there’s a mover and a seconder for that and I see Councillor Hill here and Councillor Ferrera looking for any discussion.

Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Posing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Colleagues, moving on. Item 4.3 is the Elden House board of directors, change of governance structure request.

Again, you have the submission from Elden House in your package. I’m looking to see if we have a motion that someone would like to bring forward. Councillor Hopkins, supportive of bringing forward the motion as requested. Do we have a seconder for that and Councillor Layman?

So we’ll look for any discussion. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I just wanna make a comment. I’m pleased that Elden House was able to review the numbers of members on their board.

And I think they have been trying to find a way to make it work and really pleased that they found a way. So happy to move the motion. Seeing no other speakers, just gonna double check with the motion that we have here. So the motion is that civic administration will bring forward a new by-law for our approval that will accomplish what’s in the submission from the Elden House.

So with no other speakers, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Posing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. And moving on, our next item for direction 4.4, confirmation of the appointment to the Hamilton Road BIA. Again, you have the correspondence from the Hamilton Road BIA in your package.

We’ll look to see, I’ll look to the word Councillor to see if there’s a mover for that. We’ll fight Councillor McAllister. Is there a seconder in Councillor Cudi? And we’ll look for any discussion on this.

Councillor McAllister. Thank you through the chair. I just wanna pass along my thanks to past, present and future board members for their service and working towards improving this area of the city. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other speakers? So the confirmation of the board of directors has been moved and seconded. And we will pass the clerk to open the vote.

Posing the vote, that motion carries 14 to zero. Okay, colleagues, moving on. We have from our deferred matters 2.2 from the consent agenda earlier, the London Transit Commission review and recommended approach. Councillor Trussau, you did ask for this to be pulled and dealt with separately.

So I will vote to you for any questions, comments, any direction you wanna provide. Yes, thank you very much. And through you, the chair, I just wanted to pull this because I think this is an important milestone in this council’s relationship with LTC. And I thought it should just be pulled out just for a few comments, even though I don’t have any reason to want to vote against this.

I do have a few questions though, and that is the scope of the review. I think that this report covers the real high level ticket items in terms of operations. The question I do have is to what extent would this review also cover what I will call ancillary operations, which would include things like ad revenue and situations where the commission is not making decisions itself, but it’s delegating to different commercial entities, things like taking an ad. My understanding is that there are currently three different companies who deal with different parts of the ad policy.

And I’m wondering, number one, if that could be two questions about that. Number one, could that be streamlined? Do we really need separate entities dealing with the outside of the bus, the inside of the bus, and the outside stations, or could that be done more expeditiously by one group? And I don’t have the answer to that.

I just want to make sure that when we look at this entire package that that’s considered. Now, the next one’s a little bit more difficult. I will come back to you, Councilor, I promise, but perhaps if we can go to staff first, and the Councilor was specific to the advertising work that’s being done, but I think all colleagues are aware that the shelters are sort of, there’s a third-party provision of shelters, there’s a third-party provision of paratransit service. So I wonder if staff could provide us some comment on how much of the audit will cover third-party resourcing at London Transit.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So there are four components to the work, a scope of worth gets currently being proposed. Three of them are, I would term technical reviews, technical audits, and they’re related to places where there’s a primary interface between the operations of the city of London and the operations of LTC.

So rapid transit, management of route planning, route discontinuation and route change, and fares and subsidies, because we’ve got an active role as the city with our LTC partners there. The governance review is focused on the relationship between LTC and the city of London proper, how it gets established strategies, direction, accountability, responsibilities. It does not delve into any of the operational considerations of the LTC proper. So if there was a desire for them to audit the process by which they accept advertising or their revenue streams, I think that we would not be in a good position to do that work as the city of London.

It would need to be something that should be done by the Transit Commission as part of its own internal improvement processes. Councillor Truss, the chair of the entire purpose of this exercise is to think about improving the process. And what I’ve done here, I think, is I’ve identified for you and for other Councillors what I think is a whole in how the LTC operates. I do not expect every single ad contract to come to the table of the commission or to come to the table of city council.

That would not be feasible. However, the LTC, whether it’s done by LTC or carried through council, will have, does have, will continue to have ad policies. And I think making sure that those ad policies are carried out in a diligent way is something that should be a concern. So I don’t have an issue with the ad policy.

My question is, do these individual private entities have the capacity to look at the ad policy, look at every ad coming in and say, you know, this one might be a problem and we need to flag this and it needs to go up to somebody else for review. And I’m not purporting to answer that question right now. I’m gonna save that for the LTC meeting coming up. But I do think that no matter how good and robust the ad policy is, which I think it is ‘cause it does talk about balancing.

There needs to be some internal mechanism, some procedure, whether it’s being done by city council or by the transit commission to have these ads come in and be flagged. And obviously I am concerned about the recent controversy over the anti-trans ads. I think it would have been much better if there would have been an internal process for that to be flagged and not just accepted by the LTC. And again, I’m not gonna go into the details of that.

I’m gonna save that for the LTC. But if we’re gonna be doing this governance review, this is the kind of issue that members of the public are concerned about. And I just like to see, I just wanna make sure that it will not be considered out of scope if this comes up when we talk about how will a post LTC getting into council governance world look like with respect to these very important revenue generating functions that the bus system would have. So I don’t know if I need a motion to add to the report.

I don’t think I do. I just wanna make sure that it won’t be rolled out. Thank you. Well, I saw Ms.

Chair indicate that she can provide some additional comments. So we’ll go back to her on that. Oh, okay, we’ll go to Ms. Stater’s bear though.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And three of the members of committee. The governance review is specific to the governance relationship between the city of London and LTC.

As it relates to LTC’s practices, that is not in scope. So I’m gonna be clear about that. Thank you. Councilor Trussoff.

So if I understand that any concerns I have about this at this time should be taken up directly with LTC. Is that what I’m understanding? I’m getting, yes. Okay, I will do that.

Councilor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you. I just wanna thank staff for the report and really pleased that as we go forward with the scope of the work that the LTC will be part of that steering committee. So glad to see that they’re gonna be an important part of that.

I do have a quick question through you, Mr. Chair. Just as it relates to the cost of the work that’s to be done, wanna make sure that we, the city are paying for that and that there is funding available to take care of the 300,000 costs approximately. Really pleased that we’ve got the staff there to do it, but just wanna make sure we’ve got a place to get the money from.

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, the $300,000 in fees is associated with the efficiency effectiveness and economy reserve and Ms. Barbara advises that there is no concerns with funding it from that reserve. The schedules may be a little longer than Council might have originally preferred, but that is because we have made the decision to manage it with existing staff resources without spending additional funding on new resources as well. Councilor Hoppe, you’re good, okay.

Councilor Raman, can I ask you to take the chair? I’ve got myself on the list next. Yes, thank you, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer.

So two questions for our staff through you on this report. The first, and I’m gonna pick up on what Ms. Chair just said with respect to timing, we do have to go out to an RFP, obviously for the consultant piece, the direction to get this work started happened a while back. And so while the overall timeline might take a little longer than I’d like, my bigger concern is when are we getting started with this?

And I’m wondering if staff can indicate where we are in terms of getting an RFP out so that we can bring in the consultant service. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Oh, sorry, thank you, Madam Chair.

So I can advise there actually is a steering committee meeting with all of the project leads next week. They have been identified within our organization and have been working on an outline of the scopes for those RFP. Once that coordination work is completed, I would imagine over the next couple of weeks, we’ll get out to market as soon as we can, where it’s required for us to go to market. One of the evaluations we’re having as a steering committee next week is, are some of these things that could be handled through other existing commissions or through sole source.

But given the complexity, we suspect most of them will end up going out for a competitive process. So hopefully we should be out towards the end of February. It usually takes about that much time to get an RFP out. And we are ambitiously hoping to get these done within the year of award.

Go ahead, Council. Thank you. And just one other question for me with respect to this. And particularly for me, this speaks to more of the operational auditing that we’re doing around, like routing and things like that.

The report refers to making sure that the consultant is engaging with LTC management. But for me, I wanna know that they’re also gonna be engaging with the frontline LTC staff. And I don’t wanna prescribe what that looks like. I mean, whether it’s through ATU, whether it’s a random sampling, whatever that is.

But I wanna make sure that what staff are taking away. And I don’t know if this needs clarification or if this is just how you would interpret it, that the engagement with LTC staff would in fact include operators, mechanics, the folks who are making sure when we’re talking about the efficiencies of routing and things like that are included in the conversation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is a, sorry, Madam Chair. I’m not doing very well with this today. So certainly that is something we could accommodate within the existing scope of work. We have to work with our colleagues at LTC to ensure it’s done an appropriate way with respect to their union practices and those sorts of things.

But I’m sure we can sit down with Ms. Plutche and her team and find a way to ensure that we’re hearing voices from the organization on some of those matters where people close to the work would have valuable insight. Thank you, go ahead, Deputy Mayor. Yes, thank you.

I just, you know, I hear periodically myself from drivers. I hear from mechanics. I think that they have some valuable insights to contribute to how the organization is running and particularly in terms of how, you know, these are the folks who are out on the street operating on the buses, providing the service to our residents and in terms of their own input on how routes are reviewed and that kind of thing, I think is really important because they’re the ones who see it with their own eyes every day out on the streets. They’re not just looking at, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but they’re not just looking at Google Maps from behind a desk.

They’re actually out there behind the wheel of a vehicle. They see what they’re dealing with, and I think it’s really important that they have an opportunity to provide us through this audit process, their thoughts and perceptions of how things could be better. Whatever the governance model looks like moving forward, how we can do a better job of delivering transit in our city. And so what I’m hearing is you don’t need direction on that, that it can just be considered as part of the scope that’s already before you.

So very happy to hear about that. And as I said, I don’t want to be overly prescriptive about how our governance is asking you to do this. Operations is you figuring out how to do it and go doing it. So I’ll leave that in your hands to go and do.

And I know that you’ll certainly be respectful of the ATU process as well and making sure that the union is part of that discussion as well. So thank you for that. That’s all my questions. Obviously I’d like to be talking about the results of our audit, but I understand these things take time.

So I’m just glad that we can get this RFP out in probably late February and have a report back sometime early in Q1 of 2026 on this. So thank you. Thank you, returning the chair to you with Councilor Pribble on the list. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I’ll just pull up my speaker’s list and Councilor Pribble, if you’d like to go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair, to the staff. I have two questions.

The first one is, into the scope of the work, it says the interview will be done as the council member and selected city and LTC staff. Did we consider also the other members of the commission? Or if there’s a reason, if we don’t not have a reason not to include them, can we include them? Thank you, Ms.

Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies if that was unclear.

The intent is we were scoping this with our team. Is that any member of council or the LTC commission members who wishes to participate in the governance and the interviews, we would provide that opportunity. Councilor, perfect, thank you. And the second one is, which was actually answered, but portion of it, that the first meeting will be taking place next week.

And that meeting next week will it be or also already including the general manager of LTC? Ms. Chair. Mr.

Chair, this is an internal meeting with the City of London Project Leeds next week. I have had a meeting with Ms. Pelletchney in the fall of last year to talk sort of general approach. And I will set something up with her immediately after that so that we can integrate the needs from her team.

Obviously, there’s a massive amount of information and data and participation we will need from our colleagues at LTC. And I probably should have advanced that just before the holidays as well. Councilor? Thank you very much.

No more questions. Thank you. Councilor Ferrara. Thank you, Chair.

I didn’t have any questions. I just had some comments, but following up of Councillor and Commissioner Pribble’s questions, I got one follow up from that. And if commissioners at the LTC are wishing to be interviewed or consulted with the consultant, how do we make that point in contact? Will the consultant be reaching out to the LTC and commissioners, or should we have them reach out to you?

Just clarification on that. Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. We will be sending an invitation to all members of the LTC Commission in order to invite them to arrange a time to meet with the consultant. Councilor Ferrara. Thank you, thank you.

Okay, so just general comments like no questions, except for that one. But I’ve been a Londoner all my life and I’ve had stints outside of the city and I’ve ridden public transit outside the city, but I’ve mainly had most of my public transit experience ridership anyways within the city. So for the most part, my knowledge is within the operation of London and the governance and the operational side just being as a commissioner, sitting at the board, my knowledge is really constricted there. So I do see with the consultant report, I do like to see and I’d like to, I like the thought of having, you know, an extra level of expertise kind of looking in and seeing, you know, really how the commission is running, how the transit commission is running and really kind of looking at the effectiveness and the efficiency and really the good overall ridership.

As far as I can see, right, you know, things look good, but I’m not an expert in the field. So with this report and just kind of looking into a consult to look into this, I do look forward to seeing that extra information just so we can make sure that we bring the level of service to the max potential that it can be. And for all we know it could be at that level. But frankly, because my knowledge and information is really kind of only focused on London’s system, I’m not sure.

So, you know, the $300,000 portion is another conversation. But at this time, you know, I will be supporting this and I look forward to engaging with the consultant when we find them. And I’m looking forward to, you know, just bringing the best level of service that the city can possibly bring to Londoners and our riders. So I’ll leave my comments there for now.

Thank you, Councilor Ferra. I have Councilor Layman next. Councilor Layman, just before I go to you, with thanks to the clerk for reminding me, I’m clearly having a bit of a new year’s slippage. We don’t actually have a motion on the floor.

So can we, and the staff recommendation is to receive. So can we get a mover and a seconder? Councilor Layman, you’re happy to do that. And Councilor Ferra would second.

So we’ve moved and seconded the receipt of the report. Councilor Layman, go ahead. Thank you. You know, it’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years ago when PUC was similarly reviewed and significant changes were made.

I’m just wondering, will staff in this process, working group, be looking at, I know it was 30 years ago, 1994, will they be looking at, you know, the experiences that we went through as a city and governance as far as, you know, were expectations met in cost savings or service deliveries, did it fulfill expectations of making it easier to govern, et cetera, et cetera? Or is that too far in the past to be of any significance through your chair? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Councilor, for the question. I don’t know that there’ll be a lot of lessons learned from the PUC dissolution. And in fact, the PUC was fully dissolved in 2018 when Mr. Mathers and I brought that motion forward as we’d retained one single asset and two people who are actually employees of the PUC.

But we will be looking at governance models from comparable municipalities across Canada, particularly sort of middle to larger single tier where it tends to be either some sort of function of the municipality proper or it is under a model similar to ours. If anything comes up from our past experiences, certainly we’re open to that experience informing the work, but I don’t know that there’s a lot of remaining information that would be easily available or necessarily relevant in our current legislative and municipal context. Councilor Layman. Okay, thank you.

Part of my comments here is this is not, we’ve done this before and we should always be reviewing how we’re delivering services to our taxpayers. So I’m fully supportive of this review. Times change, needs change, and I wanna be able to deliver transit in the most efficient manner that delivers exceptional service to Londoners. So thank you.

That exhausts my speaker’s list. So if there are, oh, Councilor Frank. Thank you. A couple of questions through the chair to staff.

So in reviewing some of the comments and the scoping, I noticed the RFP includes the scope as to looking at alternate service delivery models. And I’m just wondering, in looking at the alternatives, are they gonna be looking at the pros and cons of both? For example, I am a little bit worried about bringing in house and any potential increase for hyper politicization of service route selection. So I’m just wondering, well, in that report, we get both pros and cons of bringing it in house.

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, any evaluations of changes to the governance model as it currently stands or recommendations or broader change would need to be evaluated for both the benefits and disbenefits of that work? Councilor. Thank you. And just one additional follow up as well.

So based on my understanding is the city of London gives some of the lowest municipal subsidy to the transit commission compared to our peers. And I’m just wondering in this process, is that kind of information going to be provided? ‘Cause I do think a lot of the issues that I hear and the challenges that I see are in regards to not receiving enough funding to operate to the expectation level that this council has. So will those efficiency measures be looked at as well?

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you for the question. This is not a review of the funding adequacy of the LTC. The governance review is largely focused on the relationship between the city of London and the LTC in terms of achieving council’s transit goals as established in our strat plan and in multi-year budget. To go into a level of operational funding efficiencies or funding appropriateness, I think it would be something best done as the LTC’s managing its budgets.

Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes, I appreciate that. I think, I guess one of the things I do struggle with this item is that I do think some of the issues that people talk about around the horseshoe are related to funding. And I think somehow it’s getting extrapolated into some other areas.

And I do think the fact that we’re not really looking at that and we’re not going to be discussing that in this process is a flaw. But nonetheless, I am interested to get some of the results from various aspects of these audits. So thank you. And that exhausts my speaker’s list, seeing no one else, I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. That concludes our public agenda. We have one item of in-camera.

So I will need a motion to go in-camera for personnel matters identifiable individual as the reason for going in-camera, moved by Councillor Cuddy, and seconded by Councillor Van Merebergen. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

We will move into closed session. We will return to adjourn. All right, colleagues, we’re going to call the meeting back to order in public session. And I will call on Vice Chair Raman to report out on our in-camera session.

Thank you, and through you, I’m happy to report out that we made progress on the items of which we went in-camera. Thank you. And with that, I will look for a motion to adjourn, moved by Councillor Frank, seconded by Councillor Cuddy. And we can do that by hand, all those in favor.

Motion carries. Have a good evening.