February 25, 2025, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:01 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 S. Hillier

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Consent Item 2.2 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

2.2   Municipal Accommodation Tax - Amended By-law to Increase the Tax from 4% to 5%

2025-02-25 Staff Report - Municipal Accommodation Tax

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated February 25, 2025 as Appendix ‘A’ BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on March 4, 2025 to amend By-law 8290-227 a by-law to impose a Municipal Accommodation Tax to increase the Municipal Accommodation Tax from 4% to 5%.

Motion Passed

2.1   2025 Assessment Growth Funding Allocation

2025-02-25 Staff Report - 2025 Assessment Growth Funding Allocation

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Hillier

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the 2025 Assessment Growth Funding Allocation Report BE RECEIVED for information; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated February 20, 2025 from C. Butler with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

2.3   Eldon House Board of Directors – By-law Update

2025-02-25 Staff Report - Eldon House Board of Directors-By-law Update

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the following actions be taken with respect to Eldon House Corporation By-law Update:

a)    the proposed by-law appended as Appendix ‘B’ to the staff report dated February 25, 2025, being A by-law to amend By-law A.-6825-162, as amended, respecting the Eldon House operation and management BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on March 4, 2025, to update references to the board, section 3.1 Board Composition and section 4.2(12) committees of the board; and

b)    on the recommendation of the City Clerk, the report dated February 25, 2025 respect to the Eldon House Corporation By-law Update BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Consideration of Appointment to the Eldon House Board of Directors (Requires 1 Member)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Robert Fraser BE APPOINTED to the Eldon House Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Appointment to the Eldon House Board of Directors (Requires 1 Member)

Majority Winner: Robert Fraser

Appointment to the Eldon House Board of Directors (Requires 1 Member)

Majority Winner: Robert Fraser

4.2   London Public Library Board of Directors Vacancy

2025-02-25 Submission - London Public Library

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the vacant position declared by the London Public Library Board of Directors:

a)  the communication dated January 24, 2025 from B. Gibson, London Public Library Board Chair BE RECEIVED; and

b) Mayor J. Morgan BE APPOINTED to the London Public Library Board for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Appointment to the London Public Library Board of Directors (Requires 1 Member of Council)

Majority Winner: Josh Morgan

4.3   Consideration of Appointment to the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee (Requires up to 11 Members)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the consideration of Appointments to the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, Community Advisory Committee on Planning, Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee BE REFERRED to a future meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow for Civic Administration to provide for an electronic selection process.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recess at this time.

Motion Passed

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 2:14 PM and reconvenes at 2:29 PM.

4.4   Consideration of Appointment to the Community Advisory Committee on Planning (Requires up to 11 Members)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the consideration of Appointments to the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, Community Advisory Committee on Planning, Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee BE REFERRED to a future meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow for Civic Administration to provide for an electronic selection process.

Motion Passed

4.5   Consideration of Appointment to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (Requires up to 11 Members)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the consideration of Appointments to the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, Community Advisory Committee on Planning, Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee BE REFERRED to a future meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow for Civic Administration to provide for an electronic selection process.

Motion Passed

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) Appointment Request to the Community and Protective Services Committee - Councillor P. Cuddy

2025-02-25 Submission - CPSC-P. Cuddy

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Hillier

That Councillor P. Cuddy BE APPOINTED to the Community and Protective Services Committee for the term ending November 30, 2025; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated February 19, 2025 from Councillor P. Cuddy with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

6.   Confidential (Enclosed for Members only.)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Hillier

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

6.1 Security of Property / Education/Training Session 

A matter pertaining to the security of the property of the municipality or local board and education and training of Council Members by the Director, Emergency Management and Security Services.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session from 3:02 PM to 3:52 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 3:54 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 (2 hours, 15 minutes)

Good afternoon, colleagues. I am going to call the third meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order. We will begin by acknowledging that the city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeck, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwok, and Adawanderan peoples. And 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, and as representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work 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, I’m going to begin by looking for any disclosures of pecary interest on today’s agenda.

Seeing none, we will move along to the consent agenda. I have been asked by Councillor ramen to pull 2.3. That is with respect to the Elden House Board of Directors by-law update, and that is being pulled because there are two options available to us on that item. I’ve not been made aware of other items that colleagues wish to be pulled, although we can have debate and discussion on those.

Councillor Trussa, with your mic, please. I’d like to pull 2.1. So those items that have been pulled, we’ll go to the end of our agenda after our items for direction. And we will deal with our consent agenda now, which is only 2.2 municipal accommodation tax amended to by-law to increase the tax from 4% to 5% on the mat.

And looking to see if we’ve got a mover, Councillor Hillier and a seconder and Councillor Palosa, and we will now open the floor for any discussion. Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor Hopkins, Councillor van Mirbergen. I vote yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries, 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Bear with me for just one moment, please. Sorry, colleagues, I just wanted to confer with the clerk and make sure that by moving the Elden House by-law to the end of the agenda that we weren’t also going to have to move our consideration of appointment to the Elden House Board of Directors.

We do not, as it still requires one member, regardless of which direction we choose with the by-law. So with that, we have three names that have been submitted for consideration for this appointment. So we can either look for a mover for a particular candidate or we can move to a vote. I’m in committee’s hands, Councillor Palosa.

Thank you, perhaps just ‘cause there’s three, just move to a vote with all three candidates. And unless there’s any objection to that, that’s the process we’re gonna move to, that would be our default. So I see no one wishing to do anything different, so we’re going to move to a vote on these three candidates. And as you know, the clerk will tell you a vote and we will look for 50% plus one to select candidate.

Fosing the vote, the result is black shade, Gower, five votes, Madeline Hertz, two votes, Robert Frazier, seven votes. So we’ll be dropping the candidate with the least amount of votes and running another election. Thank you, Clerk. So we’ll give you a moment to load that vote and then we’ll open the vote on the second round.

Fosing the vote and Robert Frazier is the selected candidate. Thank you, colleagues. So I’m just going to look for a motion to approve Mr. Frazier, moved by Councillor Ferrer and seconded by Councillor Palosa.

And we’ll just ask the, give the clerk a moment to get that into you, scribe, and then we’ll open the vote. Fosing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues, moving on item 4.2 is the London Public Library Board of Directors Vacancy. We have submissions from Councillor Hopkins and Mayor Morgan indicating their willingness to stand for this position.

And I’m just going to look to both of them. If you can just give me a nod that you’re still wish to stand. Okay, so we have two candidates here. You both have an opportunity to speak to the reasons why you would like to fill this position.

So Councillor Hopkins, you made the regular agenda. I’m going to give you the opportunity to go first if you would like. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to speak to why I am applying to the London Library Board.

I was surprised that the Mayor put in a letter of interest as well, but I’m not surprised of the advocacy that the Mayor has done in the past supporting libraries. I definitely would encourage the Mayor to use these strong Mayor powers when it comes to supporting libraries as well, since I’ve got the floor. I just wanted to feel very strongly about that. I too believe my experience and perspective will make, it can help the board.

When I immigrated to Canada, I was a young teenager, and I got refuge in my library branch. It was a place where I belonged, I loved the books, and it was a place that I felt comfortable with. I’m a big supporter of lifelong learning. So, when I first hand how important libraries are to communities, I have three libraries in Ward 9.

And throughout my 10 years on council, I’ve heard loud and clear from London there is the importance of their branches. I rearrange my schedule to accommodate the board meetings, and I hope that you will see me and support me on the London Board. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins and Mayor Morgan.

If you’d like to speak to your interest in the position? Sure, first let me thank Councillor Hopkins for putting her name for it, and I will say my letter on the added agenda had nothing to do with Councillor Hopkins putting her name for it. I simply just didn’t make the regular agenda on time, and sometimes that happens. But I want to talk about why I put my name forward for this particular board.

First, there’s two candidates before council. I think both of us would be great. We’ll bring perspectives to the board, and I think no matter what happens with who is the representative, the work in partnership with the library board will continue as this council. As you know, in the budget process, it started the multi-year budget.

Our work with the library had some tension to it, and over the past year and into the second multi-year budget update, worked closely with the board and the chair to ensure that we were pulling in the same direction and on the same page and not creating a relationship that has animosity or challenge to it, but in collaboration towards our common goals. And I think as a board member, I think I can continue that effort. I also think with the adoption of the capital asset management plan that the library now has, the implementation and execution of that plan is really critical. As you know, we have a well-developed plan at the city.

It’s new for the library, and I think I have some expertise that can assist them in that implementation, and there are some ideas and initiatives that I’d like to bring to the board for consideration that are most suited given it involves property acquisition to be done in-camera as a board member, rather than outside of that process. And so to me, it opens up an additional avenue of advocacy that I’d like to pursue in the implementation of that plan. I also think that as a board member, I’d like to continue and renew the advocacy towards the province paying for increasing its share towards public library services. The province’s share of supporting public library services remains static for decades now.

The municipal share has increased, and there is an advocacy piece here that I think is important, that I certainly will be involved in either way, but I think carries some weight as a library board member, as well as the mayor of the city. I’d also finally say, I served for eight years on this board from 2006 to 2014, and I moved off of it to become a councilor. I’ve never served on it well-being and elected official, despite the fact that I chaired it for three years. It’s been some time since I’ve been back to that board.

I quite enjoyed my work there. My kids grew up doing babies for books and participating in library programming, and so it does have a special place in my heart, but my main reasons for running and putting my name forward, given all that I have on my plate as mayor, is I believe in dedicating some time and attention to this for the reasons that I outlined, but I certainly would say to colleagues, whoever you pick, you’ll be in good stead. I certainly think I can contribute for the reasons that I mentioned. Thank you, Mayor Morgan.

So unless we have any surprises from councillors who also want to put their name forward, and I’m seeing none, we will proceed to vote. And I will ask. Thanks. Is there any opportunity for a discussion or debate?

We can have some discussion, I suppose, if you want. I don’t see how that would be out of order, so please go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to say I’ll be supporting Councillor Hopkins, and I just wanted to apologize to Mayor.

I already promised her my support before. I saw the added agenda, so. I thank you both for putting your name forward though. Thank you.

Councillor Trussa. Yes, thank you. Through the chair, I want to take the opportunity to speak as the City Councilor who is still on the library board. This board is a lot of work.

I think there’s a misconception sometimes that it’s not comments have been made over the years. I think people that have served on the board appreciate the importance of the board. And I think that comes out when we look at the ratings that we get from resident. I didn’t know I was doing comedy.

I’m sorry, I think that comes out when we look at the ratings that the library gets from residents, which is consistently at the top. So for all of the challenges that the library is facing, I think we’re doing a good job. I think we could be doing a much better job if there were more resources for the library. And we could look at the municipal budget.

We could look at the province. We could look at a lot of different reasons why we are, we’re overworked. We’re overutilized and we’re under tasked. Now, I think both the Mayor and Councillor Hopkins will both do a fine job on the board.

I attended back in the day. The Mayor will remember through the chair that I was a frequent, frequent, frequent visitor at the library board back in those days. And I know firsthand that you have a very, the Mayor has a very good grounding in the library board. I wanna say this.

We are going to have to pay a lot of attention to details, many of which are going to be involving branches. And one of my goals at the end of my first term on the library board is going to be to try to involve Councillors, particularly ward Councillors who have branches in their area to maybe step up and do a little bit more advocacy for the branches in their area, if they’re so inclined. If they’re still inclined. And I think I pledged my support to Councillor Hopkins and I’m staying there.

I’m gonna be voting for Councillor Hopkins. I think she’s got some very important branches in her area. And I think that in particular, I am without going into a lot of detail. I do have concerns about Byron and Lambeth.

And I think having a ward Councillor there is gonna serve that community really well. So it’s all due respect to the Mayor. I am going to be supporting Councillor Hopkins. And by the way, the Mayor is always welcome, may not feel that way, but I wanna put this on the record.

The Mayor is always welcome to attend a library board meeting and talk to us about any matters of concern. And I’ll just leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Trussell.

Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair and through you. Through the three years that I spent on the library board, really, I thought I made a great contribution to the board. One of the best things that I think we did and that I pushed for was a new roof on B called library, which wasn’t an easy job to get done.

But well, I think both candidates would do an exceptional job. My vote will be for Mayor Morgan. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cuddy, looking for any others.

Seeing none, I will ask Councillor Romans to take the chair, put me on the speakers list, please. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. I’m gonna be brief here.

I appreciate Councillor Hopkins has three branches in her ward. But I also think that we moving forward cannot simply solve library issues by throwing more money at the problem. And I say that with all of our boards and commissions, quite honestly, you know, whether it’s upper Thames or the health unit or the library or other areas where we have provincial funding involved, the answer cannot always be increased municipal funding when the province is not matching their shares. And when I heard the Mayor talk about the capital asset management plan and some matters that need to be brought forward around that, that to me is really critical in this next phase because we have to find ways to do things differently.

It cannot just all be about increasing budgets. And so for that reason, I’m gonna be supporting the Mayor on this selection. Thank you, returning the chair to you with no one on the speakers list. And I see no one else.

I see no one online. So I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion closes with Councillor Hopkins with five votes and Mayor Morgan with nine votes. Thank you, colleagues.

So I will look for a mover and a seconder for the appointment of Mayor Morgan to the London Public Library Board, moved by Councillor Ferrera and seconded by Councillor Cuddy. Just give the (mumbles) to E scribe and then we will open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to one. Two colleagues moving on in our agenda.

Our next three items are all related to appointments to the community advisory committees. I wanna take a moment to preface the process before we begin our voting on this. We will go through each committee as listed on the agenda. Each committee requires up to 11 members.

One of those members shall be a youth. So in the first committee, we have the accessibility community advisory committee. We did not have a youth representative apply. So we will only be selecting 10 members for that advisory committee, six of whom shall be persons with a disability.

So there is a requirement there. And those individuals who have identified to us or also a parent with a child of a disability must have one position. Members or applicants have indicated to us if they meet those criteria. And so that is listed in your agenda to help with your selection process.

We will do runoff votes. So individuals in the first round who get zero will drop off and then we will proceed through until we have the necessary members. Councillors are encouraged to use all their votes, but they are not compelled to use all their votes. It does make the process run better when we use all of our votes.

However, it ultimately is your choice. I have had a couple of members expressed to me concern and question leading into the meeting, how they would deal with a situation where they may only want to support seven or eight candidates for a particular committee. And what do they do if all of those members either are selected or drop off? You cannot procedurally abstain from a vote among eligible candidates.

If you are unsatisfied with the selection pool, your alternative is to leave the meeting in return when that process is complete. You cannot abstain, but we cannot compulsory make you remain and cast votes for people that you don’t wish to appoint either. So also on each of these committees, there is a position for one youth representative. We had multiple youth representatives submit their names for the other two committees.

There is nothing that prohibits us from electing multiple youth representatives. So on the environmental stewardship committee, as an example, there were, I believe, three youth candidates. All three could win a spot, but at least one of those three must be selected to this committee. So I hope that that is helpful as we move through this process of our selection of these committee members.

And I will now look to see if there are any procedural questions for myself or the clerk. Councillor Palosa. Thank you. As you noted, we’re going to be something up to 11 members— or 10, because there’s no youth.

Is the procedure just to leave no youth vacancy or to repost, just looking through the clerks for the procedure if we’re going to seek to fill that youth position? Give me one second on that. OK, Councillor Palosa. I’m just going to ask you to reiterate your inquiry, so we make sure we have the correct answer for you.

Sounds really exciting. It was just if we don’t fill the youth position, is the intention that it goes back up for posting, and we’ll come back or we just leave it unfilled? Yes, and so our whole discussion over here was do we fill it with a person who is not a youth and maintain an odd number committee. However, looking at the council direction, it says up to 11, one of whom must be a youth.

So we would be actively recruiting through the city’s tools available to it to find a youth representative to fill that vacancy. And if a candidate comes forward, that would come back to a future SPPC. So for accessibility, we will be selecting up to 10, and there will be one vacancy left on the committee. Of those 10, you need six individuals who are persons with a disability, and you need one person who is a parent of a child with a disability.

And we won’t be filling the youth position today. I’ll go over this quickly again when we get to the other two committees, but I will look to see if there’s any discussion on appointments to the accessibility advisory committee before we open the voting. Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you.

And I’ll keep my comments a little bit more general to all of it, our advisory committee appointments today. First, I wanted to start and say I was really pleased to see the caliber of candidates that have put their name forward this round. What I saw was a really engaged community that is really interested in being involved and providing advice to us. And I was really thrilled to see that.

I know from my conversations with some of the advisory committee chairs previously, they’ve had issues with recruiting folks and getting people interested. So it was great to see, especially on the accessibility committee, so many new names that have been added. I just wanted to share a little bit about my process when I was looking through these names. One, I was looking to bring in some new voices that we haven’t heard from.

And so I was looking at terms served. And I know I’ll be looking at that as a main driver from the decisions I’m making today to look for new folks to take on these roles who may have not had the opportunity to or had not put their names forward in the past. I also wanted to say thank you to staff. I know there was a lot of intentionality going out to community groups and different avenues this year in order to get some new names put forward.

And I think that that shows in the list that’s here. We’ll go next to Mayor Morgan. Yeah, I want to just say through the chair, I really appreciate what Councillor Ramen just said. When we do committee appointments, it’s always a very difficult challenge because sometimes you have people who have served on these committees one term or two terms or multiple terms.

And it is difficult to make space for some new voices unless you don’t select some people who have been on before. And I think it’s really important for us to be clear that this is not necessarily a judgment on the quality of someone’s service or the job that they did on the committee, but it is difficult choices to try to balance committees and I like Councillor Ramen kind of look at this from a clean slate each and every time and say, “You’ll see from my selections today, “I’m going to pick some people who have some experience. “I’m going to pick some new people too. “That might rub some people who’ve been on the committees “the wrong way from time to time, “but I think for the quality of the committees, “I like the idea of balance as we just start to accumulate it.

“And I certainly want to write and front say, “because I know all members of council feel this, “there is an exceptionally high quality list of people here. “And just because you’re not selected, “does not mean that you haven’t done a good job in the past “or you aren’t a great candidate for this, “but we’ve got to make decisions based on the committees of a whole, “and those are difficult decisions to make. “So I appreciate Councillor Ramen kicking it off “with some context on it, because I think these are decisions “that when we make them, people can be upset, “people can be happy, but at the end of the day, “we’ve got a great pool to work from, “and it’ll be our collective decision-making “that decides who that group is. “So I hope no one takes offense to the process.

“It’s a difficult process to work through, “because you’re actually putting your check beside names “of some and not others, and just, yeah, “we’ll go through the process, “and it’ll be a good result, regardless of how it ends up. “And I have no one else on the speakers list, “so I’m going to ask the clerk to open the first round of voting, “community accessibility, sorry, “the accessibility community advisory committee. “Do you realize these are fairly extensive lists? “I need to check my own notes to see who my selections were, “so we’re not Russian colleagues.

“Make your selections as you’re ready to.” We’re just having a minor e-scribe glitch, so please stay tuned. Okay, we experienced some technical difficulties. We’re going to have to ask colleagues to submit their votes. Again, the clerk will reopen the system for us.

Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Van Merebergen. Do not adjust your horizontal, do not adjust your vertical, please stand by. Through the chair, my apologies, we’re going to have to create a new vote, so we’ll just need a few minutes to do that. Yeah, so just so colleagues know they’ve got to delete the entire list of candidates, re-enter them, create a new vote.

The glitch is hitting in there, Councillor Palosa. Sorry, thank you, it was just a question of, is it easier to allow them time to fix this behind the scenes, and maybe move back to consent, or if this is just short, and we try again, just throwing out there, don’t want to feel rushed to get it working again. Well, the challenge may be that we may not be able to use e-scribe for the consent votes as well, so bear with me for a minute, because figuring that out. So we can record hand votes on the other items from the consent agenda while we get the e-scribe glitch fixed.

So in the interest of time and efficiency for everyone, we are going to move beyond the items for direction, and we will move then to the deferred matters from earlier as well as the deferred matter item that was on the list. So we’re going to start with the item that was on the list, which is the added appointment request to community and protective services committee, Councillor Cuddy. So we did have a submission from Councillor Cuddy that he is interested in filling the vacancy on community and protective services, and bringing that committee back up to another level of an additional Councillor. Should the committee accept this appointment request, then the mayor would, through a strong mayor direction, reconstitute the full committee.

As colleagues remember, we reduced the number earlier when we didn’t have a full complement of Councillors. The mayor would adjust that through a direction before the next council meeting. We would ratify the appointment, and the strong mayor’s direction would take place for the next committee cycle. So that’s the way to move forward with this procedurally.

Councillor Cuddy, you did put your name forward, so I’m going to go to you to see if you’d like to offer any comments. Thank you, Chair and through you. I look forward to serving on community and protective services. I have a background with By-law of working with our chief of By-law enforcement, Mr.

Kertolik. Last year we worked together, and Chair, U.S. Deputy Mayor came through and seconded the motion, and we put forward the renovation motion, which became the renovation by-law. And so I feel quite comfortable moving into this position, and I look forward to working with my colleagues.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Trussa. First of all, I want to thank both Councillor Pribble and Councillor Cuddy for taking double duty, but I still remain concerned that this workload is not being evenly allocated to the different Councillors. We do have a Councillor who is not on one of the standing committees, and I don’t know what to do about that, other than just watch this go through, but I’m very uncomfortable about it.

And it’s not because of Councillor Pribble or Councillor Cuddy. It’s just the idea that we should have all of us being on a standing committee, and I’m just wondering if there’s any suggestions that anyone has towards getting us towards that goal? And I guess that’s all I have to say. Thank you, Councillor.

I’m gonna ask folks to pause for just a moment. Well, I’m just getting confirmation from the clerk, by the way, on our, ‘cause we did direct some policy changes, so we’re just checking to see what’s been confirmed so far, Councillor. But while we’re waiting for that, can I actually get a mover and a seconder for the appointment of Councillor Cuddy, so that we have a motion on the floor? Councillor McAllister and Councillor Hillyer, thank you very much.

While the clerks are checking on that for Councillor Trossow’s point, I’m gonna go on to other speakers, Councillor Ferrera. Chair, I just wanna say, the Chair of the Community Protective Service Committee, I appreciate another Councillor coming on board. We are still short one member, but I do appreciate that. Just procedurally and another voice on the table.

I’d like to see that. I would say to all Councillors, this is a very impactful committee. We deal with homelessness, we deal with housing, our GI housing, we deal with tenant protections, as was said, we deal with childcare, we deal with a whole slew of things that are very important and very strategic for the city. So I would just say to all of my council colleagues here, just keep that into your consideration, and hopefully we can see another member come on the board, ‘cause I would like to see full slate of members on the committee.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Trussau, sorry, I just wanna get back to the question that you raised, and just share that we did direct some changes to our council policies and procedures by-law. We’re gonna have to get back to you before council, just to advise you of what those updates were, which is between fixing E-Scribe and sorting through the various policies right now. If that’s sufficient, and I see you indicating that it is, I’ll follow up with you directly before council and get the clerk to provide that information to us.

Thank you, Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you, I wanna thank Councillor Trussau for his comments, and that’s actually probably the nicest thing you’ve said to me over the last three years, so thank you very much. But that notwithstanding, I have moved my schedule around to accommodate the standing committee. I look forward to it, and I look forward to working with all of my colleagues who we have a great working relationship, thank you.

Thank you, and Councillor McAllister. Thank you through the chair, and thank you to Councillor Cuddy for putting his name forward. I know it’s been tough, especially the last meeting, only having three, I do find with the standing committees, we’re trying to have at least a quarter representation of council, and I said this before, that if councillors want to come, if there’s an issue that matters to you, please come to the committee. I do think that’s an appropriate place to do it, because what I’ve found with having a reduced number on that committee, and I’ve heard this complaint before, but when committee work, it’s done at council, it’s very difficult when you have such a small representation of council at a committee.

So I appreciate Councillor Cuddy stepping forward. The more voices we can have around the horseshoe earlier, rather than later, it’s appreciated, and I’m sure all of us would appreciate that when it comes to council. So thank you again, and I look forward to you serving on the committee with us. Thank you, so having heard from all three current serving members that they’re happy to welcome Councillor Cuddy on board, I don’t have anyone else on the speaker’s list, so I’m gonna see if we can call the question with Councillor Ferrera and Councillor Hillier as the mover and seconder, and all those in favor.

Yes, closing the vote, motion carries 14-0. That dispenses with that item on the deferred matters list. Before we proceed to the other deferred matters, the clerks believe that we have East Cribe ready to go again, so we need to test that. We don’t wanna wait half an hour and then come back and find that it’s still not functional, so we’re gonna go back to item 4.2, the appointment of the accessibility, sorry, 4.3, the appointment of members to the accessibility community advisory committee.

So we will ask the clerk again to open the vote on that and keep our fingers crossed that East Cribe works. No majority vote was received. We’re dropping off those with zero votes and the lowest number of votes, Sophie Rowland, Robert Thorne, and Savinder Zing Doha. So all remaining names will stay on the ballot for the second round, and we will ask the clerk once it’s ready to open the vote on the second round.

Okay, the runoff vote is now open. Mr. Hopkins. Hey colleagues, I know I said I don’t wanna rush you, but the problem with East Cribe is it is timing out because we’re taking too long to get our votes in.

So if we can, we’re gonna have to reopen this vote. I’m gonna ask people to stay focused in, get your votes in as soon as you can so that East Cribe does not time out before the results all submitted. We are learning on the fly here folks. So although everybody got their votes in in time, this time when the vote times out, the vote actually has to be deleted and recreated, we can’t just reopen the previous vote.

So we’ve gotta do this one more time. Please give us just a moment for the clerk to get the names in. Okay colleagues, the vote is open. If you can please vote.

I love the enthusiasm of jumping to your keyboards. No majority was reached. So we’ll be deleting the person with the lowest votes, being Catherine Bandman. I’m going to reopen the vote for the runoff.

Councillor Van Merebergen, Councillor Ferrera, Councillor Hillier. Councillor Van Merebergen. Hey colleagues, we were too slow again. The magic number is 60 seconds once the vote opens.

So if we can please stay focused on the business of the meeting, we’re going to have the clerk recreate the vote, reopen the vote, and then we have to vote. So the clerk is gonna have to recreate this. Those who may wish to very quickly leave the room to visit the facilities or grab water or whatever, you probably have about three to five minutes. Councillor Frank.

Thank you. Could we have maybe a timer and then like at 50 seconds, you make a loud buzzing noise? I can ding a bell, Councillor ramen. Deputy Mayor Lewis, the Jeopardy final question song is exactly a minute.

Do you have a link to that on Spotify? I do have it on YouTube set to go. While this next round of voting is happening, I’m going to leave my microphone on so that Councillor Van Merebergen can hear the bell dinging on his end as well. But you will get the bell dinging with a 10 second notice before we’re closing the vote.

Okay, we are ready to open the vote. You will have 60 seconds. You will have a bell warning at 10 seconds to go. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote now.

I’m going to look for a motion for a 15 minute recess. The E-Scribe system has to be completely restarted. So moved by Councillor Hillyer and seconded by Councillor Hopkins. It is 2.14.

We will call this an all in favor and we’ll return it 2.30. All in favor? Motion carries. To you back at 2.30, everyone.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Butler. Did you want to submit a written submission that we can add to the council agenda? That would be an order if you’d like to do that.

Just want to give everybody a two minute warning. We will be resuming in two minutes. All right, colleagues, we’re going to call the meeting back to order. Appreciate everyone’s patience with this.

The reality is we have a longer list of candidates than E-Scribe is used to dealing with. We are having some very complicated technical issues with the system. So we are not going to be able to proceed with votes right now. I’m going to go to Mayor Morgan for a referral.

Yes, so I’m happy to refer this to a future meeting in SBPC. The reason why I’m saying future meeting is because optimistic that all fixed in March, but I don’t think any of us want to try that again and to ensure that it’s been fixed and ironed out. So I’m happy to move the referral. So that’s been moved.

Do we have a seconder? Seconded by Councillor Cuddy. And this we can, Councillor Trussa. I hope this will be in the nature of a friendly amendment, but can we extend the terms ending the appointment of the replacements if necessary?

So it’s one week. I think that we can, it would only be extending it one week if it goes beyond the March meeting. So I don’t think it’s necessary right now. I think if we get an update before the next SBPC, though the E-Scribe is still going to need work, we can consider it at that point, Councillor.

Can I make one more suggestion just as, maybe the first ballot could be prepared in writing and then the number of people will drop off of that first ballot and then we’ll be in a better position to use a sleeker ballot for E-Scribe. Well, we can consider having a paper ballot available as a backup for the next meeting, if necessary. I’ll confer with the clerk on the potential for that. Should we need it?

So on the referral, any other speakers? Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Seeing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Two colleagues, so that concludes our items for directions such as it is.

That brings us back to the items that were deferred from our consent agenda. So we have item 2.1, that is the 2025 Assessment Growth Funding Allocation. Looking for a mover and a seconder for the staff recommendation and then we can entertain debate discussion, Councillor Cudi, Councillor Hillier. Thank you.

So the staff report is on the floor. This is to be received. That also includes the receiving the communication for Mr. Butler on that matter, although he was not able to stay to participate.

And I’ll open the floor to speakers. So trust that. I should extend the same apology that I extended to Deputy Mayor. And that is, I pulled it because I wanted the delegation to be able to speak.

And I feel if I didn’t pull it, the item would have gone away. So that was that. So nothing else. Other speakers, Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. I just want to make some kind of broader comments about the assessment growth funding allocation and the business cases that are in front of us today. First, I appreciate all the work and the thought that went into what’s prepared for us for consideration. My concern is, I would say a general concern that I’ve heard quite a bit in the last few months, but definitely over the course of my term so far as a Councillor in a very fast-growing and new area, newer development area.

And that is that a lot of folks feel like they aren’t getting their value proposition for being new homeowners in new areas of the city. And I’m speaking more for those that are assumed already, those areas that are assumed already, sorry. What I hear is that from the perspective of municipal services, they do not feel like that they are getting the same as perhaps older residents. And I’m sharing that because this is the conversation, I think, around how we make some of our decisions around allocating resources related to assessment growth.

Particularly this winter with our snow removal efforts and particularly from newer streets in the ward where folks complained to me about the fact that they were now newly assumed and didn’t feel like they were getting the same service. And having those ongoing discussions almost daily with residents, lots of pictures being shared about with their particular street and what they expected that level of service to be. So one of the questions that came up quite often was, “Are we going to be getting any new pieces of equipment to help with snow removal in those areas?” Lots of people sending around videos of windrow service, windrow clearing that’s being done in other jurisdictions and whether or not that could be considered in London, et cetera. And I know there are costs to all of those things.

And so my hope was that we would have been able to have some of those conversations before this assessment growth report was in front of us but I do think there’s still going to be opportunities for us to have those conversations through infrastructure and corporate services. When it comes to parks, in my ward, we just received an enhancement to a district park, Foxfield district park with funding and support from the previous word counselor and mayor. Now in this assessment growth report, we have what will be the allocation for the ongoing maintenance, operation of the lights and all the amenities that will go in that park. However, that park is quite a bit of distance away from other newer communities in that area.

And those communities are only seeing a $5,000 pathway upgrade. So for them, that value proposition doesn’t feel the same because the funding went to a district park that’s quite a bit of ways from them. Their closest district park would actually be plain tree park. And in that area where there are a lot of children, where there are, I know ‘cause I see the amount of buses that go in and out of that neighborhood for schools, where we have a lot of stacked townhouses, there is no new park and only a $5,000 path improvement.

So I just wanted to share those concerns because this is where it’s I think timely to do so as it’s mentioned in the report and see if there are opportunities for us to continue to take a look at them. And I know staff are aware of these issues. I’ve shared them previously, but wanted to perhaps see if staff want to comment on that in terms of the assessment growth report. Thank you, Councilor.

And I will go to Ms. Barbone or Mr. Murray, if either one of you want to offer any comment on that. I think I’m gonna use this opportunity as the chair to dovetail in.

Our delegation request did leave, but did indicate that he would like to know when the policies would be coming back to infrastructure and corporate services for review. So in responding to Councilor ramen’s point, particularly around opportunities for discussion, if you have, and I know that you may not, but if you have an approximate timeline as to when that might happen as well, if you could share that with us, but we’ll go back to Councilor ramen’s main point. Hope I didn’t confuse that further. Thank you, through you, Mr.

Chair. So the assessment growth policy has a number of criteria that are laid out in the policy that outline those costs, which are eligible to be pursued through assessment growth funding. Ultimately, it is to support the cost of growth, operating costs associated with growth, or one-time capital costs associated with growth that are not otherwise funded through development charges. So there certainly are the opportunities where there are new growth amenities or infrastructure put in place to pursue those costs associated with those through the assessment growth process.

That’s annual, that relies on service areas and agencies, boards, and commissions from across the corporation to submit those requests on an annual basis. So there is that opportunity. I will note, however, that the policy itself is more backwards-looking in the sense of, it deals with assets that have been constructed or infrastructure that has been put in place to then secure the costs associated with that infrastructure going forward. So it’s not as forward-looking, perhaps, as it is backwards-looking in nature.

In terms of the policy review, it will, this will be our biannual policy review year. So we do not have, at this point, any plans to report back separately on the assessment growth policy itself, but the assessment growth policy will be part of that biannual policy review that I believe is intended to come forward in approximately May, I believe, is the time at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Murray, Councillor Robin. Thank you, I appreciate that. I wanna say I was pleased to see the business cases from police. I was really hoping that we would have seen more on transit through this process.

That was my hope as I have many new subdivisions that are really eager to get some form of transit into the neighborhoods in those areas. So I’m not sure if staff can comment on that any further. Mr. Murray, thank you, and through you, Mr.

Chair. We do continue to have ongoing conversations with the Law and the Transit Commission about their intention and plans with respect to pursuing assessment growth funding, LTC, as you will note in this report, did not elect to submit an assessment growth case this year. However, they have indicated that they will continue to assess opportunities in future years to submit requests where they have the appropriate justification for doing so. There have been challenges in the past with tying some of the LTC requests specifically to growth, but where there are opportunities, for example, where a new route is being added to a new subdivision, perhaps, that has been recently constructed.

That would be an obvious linkage for LTC to pursue assessment growth funding for those costs. So we will continue to engage on an annual basis with LTC and where there are opportunities. Certainly encourage them to submit requests where they can align with the policy. Councillor, you’re good.

Councillor Stevenson, I have you next. Thank you, I had a couple of questions. I didn’t change the order to follow up on Councillor Robbins, but when it comes to, I, too, was hoping to see more transit service, a business case here to expand service hours. And I do know that we have the rapid transit in here.

I also know it was planned that way, but I’m wondering if that can help explain how we’re tying rapid transit into growth and we seem to have trouble on the service hours, because just to help us explain to the public how this is getting in and we’re having trouble getting expanded service hours through. Mr. Murray. Thank you, through you, Mr.

Chair. So the rapid transit business case clearly falls into the second category of eligibility for the assessment growth policy. So that specific criteria deals with operating costs associated with new development charges, funded growth capital assets constructed by the city. So as a DC funded growth capital asset, rapid transit certainly fits in that category of the assessment growth policy.

With respect to LTC, that could fall into either one of a couple categories, perhaps. So category one of eligibility speaks to operating or one-time capital costs directly linked to the extension of existing services to new development. So that was going back to the example I just provided in response to the question from Councillor ramen, was if there was a, for example, a new subdivision that had been recently constructed in a new route being added to service that new development, that would be in our view a nice fit with category one of the eligibility criteria. There’s also category five of the assessment growth policy and specifically those costs that are eligible, category five speaks to operating or one-time capital costs related to a pressures of a growing city supported, of course, by appropriate metrics.

So that is perhaps a little bit more of a general opportunity for LTC to perhaps pursue assessment growth funding in the future that could speak to pressures associated, perhaps with infill or intensification. Again, assuming they could be supported by appropriate metrics. I think that’s been somewhat the challenge for LTCs to be able to identify those metrics that support that growth, but in the future, if they can do so, that would be perhaps an opportunity as well for them to slot in as part of eligibility criteria number five as well. So to sum up basically different eligibility parameters within the policy that fits with both RT as well as perhaps LTC requests going forward.

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, that’s helpful. It is, there are a lot of pressures on our transit system and I think everybody’s hoping to see, especially with all the infill coming downtown that there’ll be some relief there. Also, when we look at the rapid transit costs, it shows up as close to $63,000 per kilometer for maintenance of the rapid transit corridor and almost $50,000 per platform maintenance for rapid transit.

So the costs, when the public’s looking at them, it’s a bit concerning. I also hear that the rapid transit was development charges funded and knowing how costly that program is. I don’t know what percentage of the funding needs to be DC for it to qualify under that, but the other thing is, what was mentioned was snow clearing and also representing an area that has very old areas of the city, the snow clearing massive concerns, daily calls, multiple calls, people who have accessibility concerns on the sidewalks. And I know our teams have been dealing with crazy levels of snow and cold, but we’ve got people who rely on transit and who use wheelchairs and have accessibility issues and we’ve got sidewalks in front of elementary schools that have not been acceptable as far as residents are concerned.

And sometimes I’m talking five, six days after a snowstorm. And especially when we’ve got increasing property tax rates that people find unacceptable, to not have the basic levels of service in terms of snow clearing and garbage. We’ve reduced their garbage, they feel a lack of service in terms of the snow clearing. I’m hoping really- Councilor, sorry, I’m gonna stop you right there ‘cause I wanna give you a chance to correct that.

We’ve changed their garbage schedule, but we’ve actually increased the number of pickups, not decreased over the course of the calendar year. So I think we have to be careful about saying we’ve decreased their garbage, we’ve changed the type of collections they get, but we’ve actually increased their service there. Okay, I appreciate it. And there’s perception as well.

The perception is that it’s less frequent. My point being when it comes to budget talks, I’m hoping we have an opportunity then to ensure that people are getting what they want for the property taxes that they’re paying. The other part that I wanted to talk about here was it’s mentioned in the financial impact on page nine. It says as part of the 2024-2027 multi-year budget and associated tenure capital plan, approximately 500 million of additional debt financing is required, of which approximately 338.4 million is property tax supported debt.

It also says that these policies where 50% goes to debt and infrastructure are vital to help reduce debt, which in turn reduce future property tax rate increases for debt servicing costs. And I brought this up when we were talking about budget deliberations. There was a chart included in that where it showed very large increases in debt servicing that really were passing off to the next term of council. I was just wondering, are we gonna be getting a staff report that will have the graphs and the narrative around this debt servicing?

Or is that something that we need a motion for? Mr. Murray. Thank you, through you.

So we had no intentions at this point to report back when they stand alone, report on debt or debt servicing. However, we do have our year-end monitoring reports coming up in April. I think that might be an opportune time for us to include a section perhaps to address what the council is requesting. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. So trust how I do have you on the speakers list. Okay, I just have one quick question to you. I noticed too that the rate was the lowest it’s been since 2016 and we, so I just wondered, are we expecting a very large number next year given that we’re building all these houses and yet our number is the lowest that it’s been in such a long time?

Mr. Murray. Thank you, through you, Mr. Chair.

Unfortunately, I wish I had a crystal ball. I do not, but I think what we typically know with assessment growth is that it reacts with a bit of a lag. So typically an 18 to 24 month lag is what we would typically see. So I think what you’re seeing here and reflected in the number for this year is a function of the economic conditions from probably a couple of years ago.

And of course, the economic conditions at that time were such that interest rates had increased substantially, that slowed down development at that time substantially. And that is in all likelihood, contributing to what we’re seeing this year with a lower than average assessment growth figure of 1.2% just to kind of give you a sense of kind of what we’ve seen the past few years. It’s been about 1.4. It’s averaged about 1.4.

So it is a little bit below average. We are certainly hoping that that picks up in the coming years and with the development activity we’re seeing, we’re hopeful that that is the case. However, time will tell whether we see another year of lower assessment growth or whether we get the rebound for 2026. Councillor Stevenson, you’re good.

Councillor Truss, I have you next. Thank you, and through the chair, I’m gonna strictly limit my comments, which could go on about the budget for quite a while, to what’s on the table today, and that’s the assessment growth portion of it. I think having a flexible assessment growth framework is important, and I think staff has pointed out some of the other elements of the assessment growth framework that other boards and commissions and departments could be looking at. I’d like to see that expanded.

However, I do have to make a comment about specifically the transit, because I think when a new residential development goes in, it’s understood that this is under assessment growth. I think we need to be more explicit, especially in some of the outlying areas, that when a new industrial plant or other type of job opportunity comes in, we have to find some way of giving LTC room there. And I think that there were a couple of situations that they could have done that for, that they missed. And I’m just wondering, is there something that we could do?

And I mean this kindly. Is there something that we could do to assist boards and commissions with sort of a toolkit to really take advantage of all of the parts of the assessment growth policy, even those that might not be obvious? ‘Cause I was surprised that there wasn’t more here too. And I do mean that this is by way of positive criticism, but like for example, some of the new plants that are going in.

I mean, you need service, you need service to those. Anyway, Mr. Murray. Thank you, through you.

So what I can share, Councillor, is that I personally do meet with many agencies, boards and commissions and civic service areas, for that matter, in any given year, to kind of talk about and discuss what they’re contemplating, as it relates to requests that they’re considering, whether that be budget requests through the budget process, or assessment growth requests through this process. So as part of those conversations, we do have those discussions about what the appropriate means is to secure the resources that they’re looking for, as well as how they might look at the policy parameters that currently exist in the assessment growth policy, and where they might be able to slot in. So we do have those conversations, and I’m very happy every year to engage with agencies, boards and commissions, or civic service areas, to have those conversations. Thank you, Councillor.

Good, okay, I’m looking for other speakers. Seeing none, I ask Councillor Roman to take the chair, please. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer.

So I’m gonna just take a moment to offer a couple comments. First of all, I appreciate all the work that staff does in putting this together and bringing it forward for us. I appreciate the highlighting of some of the categories under which agencies, boards and commissions, as well as our own internal service areas, can make a case for assessment growth. I think that some of that is discussion that we need to have with our internal divisions and with our ABCs as Councillors, in terms of areas where we feel that some advocacy needs to happen around particular issues.

You know, I too have seen the windrow plowing videos from Toronto, but I’m also mindful of the fact that it was a $16 million business budget case in Toronto to keep that service going. Because when we do that, it takes longer the equipment. And that’s without the capital costs, that was just the operating cost. And I know Toronto is obviously a bit larger in scale than London, but Toronto doesn’t even do that in every neighbourhood, it’s only select neighbourhoods.

So, you know, those kind of discussions, I think, have to start with our different deputy city managers and department heads before we think about them as assessment growth cases. However, I feel the frustration around snow clearing as well. More so on the sidewalks, I would say, than the roads and around school zones. But again, I’m mindful of the fact that assessment growth is focused on new services and extension of services to new areas and not enhancements of existing services.

Where my disappointment is, and this is not on staff, my disappointment is that there’s no assessment growth case from the LTC and that they didn’t even submit. This was an agency. If they’re unable to submit, then I don’t understand why we would share disappointment if they are not able to meet the criteria that we’ve set forth. We’d have to change our criteria for them to be able to submit.

So I guess I’m doing a point of order based on sharing a displeasure at ABC who’s unable to meet a policy that we’ve set forward because they don’t meet the criteria. So I hear your point of order and I think the counselor or deputy mayor could rephrase. So they’ll give them the opportunity to do so. Well, I think Madam Presiding Officer, we actually heard from Mr.

Murray that under category five, they could apply through infill pressures that they’re unable to somehow provide the metrics though. And that’s where my disappointment is coming from, is that we haven’t moved forward. Deputy Mayor, sorry. Let’s just keep it in no cross debate.

Let’s just keep it to your comments, go ahead. My point here being is that they heard in the budget debate for two years in a row that we were encouraging them to submit for assessment growth. And there was no participation in terms of a submission this year. So I’m expressing that clearly because we see other boards and commissions.

We see other internal service departments who are doing their best to be flexible and to recognize the budget pressures. And when we hear, and I know Councillor Ramen, you’re particularly impacted by a lack of transit service to new areas, I know that Councillor Hillier has some issues in his ward as well, which are new areas. And yet we have no submission for expansion of services to those areas. So that’s where my disappointment comes from.

And I want to be very clear about that. So I think when we see land ambulance lease, those services are recognizing that some of their increase is from expanded geographic area coverage. They have to be able to provide service to new subdivisions. That applies to all of our boards and commissions.

And so for me, I think we’ve got a fairly flexible policy. We heard Mr. Murray talk about some of the areas in which agencies could qualify. And so for all of us who sit on boards, agencies, commissions, I think it’s incumbent upon us as Councillors as well, to go back and do the advocacy with our boards to make sure that there is appropriate work being done for them to make submissions.

Because, and this is not just for London Transit, this is for areas across the city. As we grow, those extensions of services will apply to a whole number of different departments, service areas, and ABCs. And we cannot look just to the base property tax rate to fill those needs. We have to be looking at ways to utilize the assessment growth that we have, so that we are continuing to follow a principal of growth, pays for growth as much as possible.

Thank you, returning the Chair to you have known on the speakers list. Okay, looking for other speakers. Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Using the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Okay, colleagues, moving on item 2.3 from our consent agenda was deferred. That is our Elden House Board of Directors by-law update. Councillor ramen, I’ll go to you for this one. Thank you, I’ve worked with the clerk on some additional language, so I’m just wondering if that might be able to be put up.

So that is in e-scribe as vote number two. Councillor ramen, did you wanna speak to it? I can read it out and then you can have your time to speak to it. Thank you, I don’t really need to comment on it, but I can’t see it, so thank you.

Okay, and we have a seconder in Mayor Morgan. Any discussion or debate on this one? Can it be read out? Certainly, so it’s in e-scribe.

The following actions be taken with respect to the Elden House Corporation by-law update. A, the proposed by-law appended as appendix B to the staff report dated February 25th, 2025. Being a by-law to amend by-law A6825-162 as amended, respecting the Elden House operation and management be introduced at municipal council meeting to be held on March 4th, 2025 to update references to the board, section 3.1, board composition, and section 4.2, bracket 12, committees of the board. And then part B is on the recommendation of the city clerk.

The report dated February 25th, 2025 with respect to the Elden House Corporation by-law update be received. And so it’s specifically directing appendix B updates. Looking for any speakers, seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Opposing the vote, motion carries 13 to one.

A few colleagues, that brings us to the end of our deferred matters, that leaves only the confidential matter, it’s security of property training and education session, a matter pertaining to the security of the property of the municipality or local board and education and training of council members by the director, emergency management and security services, looking for a motion to move in cameras by Councillor ramen and Councillor Hillyer, and we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Opposing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you colleagues, so we will just take a moment to clear the room of the public, the media and— Recording stopped. Okay colleagues, we are back in public session, our streams are back up, chambers is back open in public, I will look to Vice Chair Ramen to report out.

Thank you and pleased to report that progress was made on the matters of which we win camera. And with that colleagues, we are at the end of our agenda, so I will look for a mover and a seconder for adjournment, Councillor Stevenson and Ferreira, and by hand, all those in favor. Motion carries. Thank you everyone.