December 9, 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 it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   Micro-Modular Shelter Site Update

2025-12-09 Staff Report - Micro-Modular Shelter Site Update

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report on the Micro-Modular Shelter Site Update BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard delegations from C. Lazenby, Executive Director, Unity Project, G. Brumitt and R. Klemm with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the delegation requests from C. Lazenby, Executive Director, Unity Project, G. Brumitt and R. Klemm BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the motion be amended to include new parts that read as follows:

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with the London Transit Commission and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee regarding the improvement of transit options serving the MicroModular Shelter Site and associated costs, including the rerouting of service to include a stop in or in close proximity to the facility, to prioritize snow and ice clearing, and to ensure there is adequate lighting at the stop and along any access path;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with all service providers who will be providing services to the MicroModular Shelter Site (either on-site or off-site) regarding their roles, responsibilities and associated costs and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with first responders including Middlesex-London Paramedic Services, London Police Services and the London Fire Department regarding the provision of emergency services to the MicroModular Shelter Site and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Hillier

That part b) of the motion be approved:

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with the London Transit Commission and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee regarding the improvement of transit options serving the MicroModular Shelter Site and associated costs, including the rerouting of service to include a stop in or in close proximity to the facility, to prioritize snow and ice clearing, and to ensure there is adequate lighting at the stop and along any access path;

Motion Failed (5 to 9)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Hillier

That part c) of the motion be approved:

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with all service providers who will be providing services to the MicroModular Shelter Site (either on-site or off-site) regarding their roles, responsibilities and associated costs and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

Motion Failed (5 to 9)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Hillier

That part d) of the motion be approved:

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with first responders including Middlesex-London Paramedic Services, London Police Services and the London Fire Department regarding the provision of emergency services to the MicroModular Shelter Site and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

Motion Failed (5 to 9)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Delegation - Chief Thai Truong, Chief of Police

2025-12-09 Submission - Chief of Police Presentation-2

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Hillier

That it BE NOTED the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation and heard a verbal update from Chief T. Truong, Chief of Police with respect to Organizational Performance Metrics.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   London Hydro Affiliate

2025-12-09 Staff Report - London Hydro Affiliate

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Legal Services with the concurrence of the City Manager and the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the London Hydro Affiliate:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2025 as Appendix “A”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on December 16, 2025 to:

i)    AUTHORIZE the application to revive London Hydro Holdings Inc. with the Corporation of the City of London as the sole shareholder;

ii)    AUTHORIZE the incorporation of a new corporation under section 142 of the Electricity Act to be established as a numbered company, with a long-term name to be determined at a later point in time;

iii)    AUTHORIZE the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute all necessary documents in connection with the above;

b)    the Shareholder Declaration appended as Schedule “A” to the staff report titled “London Hydro Affiliate” and dated December 9, 2025, BE APPROVED; and

c)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from Y. Semsedini, CEO, London Hydro and received a communication from A. Palimaka, VP Legal, General Counsel, London Hydro with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.2   Request to Explore Opportunities for Committee of Adjustment Meetings - Councillor S. Franke

2025-12-09 Submission - CoA-S. Franke

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions be taken with respect to exploring opportunities for Committee of Adjustment meetings:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the feasibility of livestreaming the video recording Committee of Adjustment meetings and posting them publicly afterwards on YouTube to increase transparency and accessibility for the public;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee with options to ensure that the Committee of Adjustment agendas and packages are posted publicly in advance of meetings with all application details with the exclusion of personal information;

i)    explore, if submitted, Application Materials could be posted online on the City’s Planapps website (www.london.ca/planapps) as a way to inform residents of active applications;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee with options to ensure that the Committee of Adjustment decisions and minutes are posted publicly in a timely and accessible manner following meetings; and

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to ensure that information is easily accessible on the city’s website and in Committee of Adjustment documentation regarding the complaint mechanism for Committee of Adjustment matters (file an anonymous complaint through the city’s Integrity Commissioner);

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated November 12, 2025 from Councillor S. Franke, with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.3   3rd Report of the Governance Working Group

2025-12-09 Submission - GWG Report 3

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 3rd Report of the Governance Working Group from its meeting held on November 14, 2025:

a)    the following actions be taken with respect to the Code of Conduct for Members of Council and Local Boards:

i)    the Code of Conduct for Members of Council and Local Boards BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Governance Working Group after provincial legislation with respect to this matter has been passed; and,

ii)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to implement the use of the Formal Complaint Forms as appended to Schedule A of the staff report dated August 14, 2025 with respect to the Code of Conduct for Members of Council and Local Boards;

it being noted that communications from Councillor S. Stevenson, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, were received;

it being further noted that the Governance Working Group received a verbal delegation from J. Mascarin, Aird & Berlis, with respect to this matter;

b)    clauses 1.1, 2.1 and 4.1 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.4   Confirmation of Appointments to London Downtown Business Association (LDBA)

2025-12-09 Submission - LDBA Appointments

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London Downtown Business Association (LDBA):

a)  the resignations from K. Brett – ANN Dining, M. Vecchio – Farhi Holdings, M. Giroux – Fanshawe College, M. Hathaway – Stache Fabric & Notions and S. Pellarin – London Small Business Centre, from London Downtown Business Association BE ACCEPTED; and

b)  the following BE APPOINTED for the term ending November 15, 2026:

  • Natalie Boot – Renaissance Massage

  • Mario Circelli – London Music Hall of Fame

  • Brian Dempsey – Scotiabank

  • Greg Harris – CBRE

  • Andrew McClenaghan – London Bicycle Café;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated November 27, 2025 from V. Smith, Interim Executive Director, London Downtown Business Association with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) Request to Declare State of Emergency regarding the Community Safety and Humanitarian Crisis - Councillor C. Rahman

2025-12-09 Submission - Ontario Big City Mayor

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions BE ADOPTED with respect to the communication dated December 8, 2025, from Councillor C. Rahman regarding support for the Ontario’s Big City Mayors Update on their Solve the Crisis Campaign and Request that the Government of Ontario Declare a State of Emergency:

Whereas approximately one year ago, Ontario’s Big City Mayors unanimously endorsed the Solve the Crisis Campaign and its associated asks of the province to provide additional supports to address the growing impacts of homelessness, addictions and mental health crises and to support municipal interventions; and

Whereas the province has instituted various interventions, including the launch of 28 HART Hubs, increasing funding to the homelessness prevention program, and other investments in the mental health and addictions sector; and

Whereas these interventions are welcome, yet they remain insufficient to address this growing community safety and humanitarian crisis. Further interventions are needed.

Therefore it be resolved that Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM) urgently request the Government of Ontario to declare a state of emergency to address homelessness caused by addictions and mental health that has created a community safety and humanitarian crisis across the province.

And that the province provides municipalities at both levels with the necessary assistance and funds to address combined challenges of the ongoing addictions, mental health and homelessness crisis occurring across our province;

And that the province engages with OBCM and relative partners to fulfil the Solve The Crisis campaign action steps presented unanimously by the caucus in August 2024.

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

6.   Confidential 

None.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 4:45 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 (4 hours, 0 minutes)

on this one. The camera is going to focus automatically on you and I got the PowerPoint set up already over here. Only thing you’ve got to do is just click down when you have to move to the next slide. Yeah, right or down.

Yeah. Okay, you’re a good man. Let me know right behind you. Okay, colleagues, I’m going to ask you to take your seats.

We’re going to call the meeting to order. Okay, colleagues, it is 1 p.m. and I’m going to call the first meeting of the strategic priorities and policy committee to order. And we’ll begin by recognizing that the City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabic, the Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwock, and Adawanda in Peoples.

And we honor and respect the history languages and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. And as people, 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, I will begin by acknowledging Councillor Palosa is with us on Zoom. Councillor Hopkins is absent. And Councillor Trussau is in the building, so I assume he will be joining us shortly.

I will begin by looking for any disclosures of security interest. Seeing none, then we will move on to the consent agenda. There is only one item, 2.1, micromodular shelter site update. And we also have three requests for delegation status.

Before we deal with the request for delegation status, I will ask Mr. Dickens if they want to provide any quick overview. And then we will deal with the request for delegation status, if you wish to, of course. Thank you through you, Mr.

Chair. Just very briefly, we are pleased to be able to put this report in front of you. And I want to acknowledge the work that’s been done across the corporation to get this back in front of you. Lots of things have been happening.

I appreciate that this is an ever-evolving piece of work, but we are working to meet the timeline that was set under the Mayor’s direction. So happy to take any questions with respect to this report. Thank you. So we do have three delegation requests.

I’ll look for a mover and a seconder to receive the delegations moved by Councillor Cudi and seconded by Councillor McCallister. We’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Building the vote, motion carries 13 to 0. Thank you, colleagues.

So our first request for delegation status is Ms. Lazenby from the Unity Project. So I’ll invite you to come forward. I know you have been before us in the past.

As usual, you have five minutes when you’re ready to start. And I will give you a wave when you approach a vote 30 seconds to go. Great. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee today. Well, my remarks reflect concerns shared by some leaders within the homeless supporting agencies. They are certainly not representative of what I imagine is very broad and varied views within the sector and community as a whole. That said, I’ll begin by acknowledging what is genuinely welcome.

The commitment to open 60 new 24/7 spaces before your end offered real hope to a sector that is struggling under the weight of relentless need. We appreciate urgency demonstrated by Council and staff and the hard work undertaken to bring additional capacity online this winter. But that hope has been undermined first by the chosen location at the edge of the city beside the highway and now the decision to award the operating contract to a private security firm. We see no evidence that Xpera has experienced working within the homelessness sector.

Their strengths are logistics and security, not supportive housing, trauma informed practice, stabilization or community building. And this was something clearly understood despite awarding the contract to Xpera as shown by publicly stated expectations that agencies will fill in what the operator can’t provide. The lack of expertise and the reliance on resource strap charities to buffer a for profit company reflects real practical risks for the people who will live there and is deeply concerning individuals entering this program face complex often life threatening challenges requiring expertise including overdose response and identifying those at risk safety planning particularly in an isolated location along one of the busiest national corridors for trafficking exploitation cultural understanding and sensitivity to adequately and appropriately support our overrepresented indigenous population stabilization and genuine pathways to housing dignity inclusion and trust without which no intervention will succeed and these are not peripheral add-ons these are court of safety and well-being and they require trained experience trauma informed staff who understand the work is the expectation that established agencies will provide all of this and if so how do we do that given our already stretched capacities and if we do provide training support and advice will the operator be receptive and will we be held accountable for the areas acknowledged to be outside their expertise Xpera is fundamentally a risk mitigation and enforcement oriented firm combined with a site that isolates residents from the community there is understandable fear that we are drifting away from the values of dignity inclusion and compassion values that support people towards stability there’s also growing concern that this approach could lead to the forced displacement of people who are unhoused and unable to be accommodated in the existing sheltering system this would be absolutely unacceptable people have the right to decline a service that does not feel safe or appropriate from them and I hope that we can see those fears alleviated in upcoming consultations I am at this point very frustrated however reluctantly resigned to this solution for the time being as I don’t see another path to getting 60 more 27 spaces on board quickly and we are in a state of emergency and the stakes are extraordinarily high for those who don’t currently have access to indoor space but I’m asking that the 16 month contract period be used intentionally and not simply endured we need a plan to plan an off ramp from this approach and Xpera build capacity within the sector and realign with the recent report of the housing stability services procurement framework that aims to shift from large shelter environments towards smaller trauma-informed culturally responsive and individualized settings the wilt and growth site needs neither the scale nor location criteria that are essential to long-term success so I’m asking counsel and primarily those members of counselors who are not whose wards don’t exist in the core to work with staff now to identify appropriate indoor or outdoor locations in your areas to be considered for shelter space up to 35 people planning for what comes after the 16 month contract cannot wait and if the program needs to be extended we would have options for locations and a better plan would lead time to allow for a broader community engagement a clear commitment to doing this work would go a long way in giving purpose to our collaboration in the interim and in ensuring we do not repeat the the shortcomings of this decision the sector is expected to be stepping up because the stakes for human life seem to leave us no alternative but we cannot and should not be relied upon to compensate for structural decisions that place people at risk from the outset thank you for hearing me today and if it’s appropriate or the will of the committee I’m happy to answer any questions thank you miss lasamy and our next uh delegation is uh miss bromit thank you very much welcome and when you’re ready uh you’ve got five minutes and again I will give you a wave with about 30 seconds to go just as your time is approaching if you do you take your full time thanks so when you’re ready go ahead okay um first let me say that um I want to reiterate the presentation from unity project and certainly defer to their expertise um uh chair members of the committee and members of the public thank you for allowing me to speak today I have emailed city counselors and I will not repeat my concerns here regarding transportation for wilton grove residents it remains a very real concern I’m here as a senior property and facilities manager with extensive experience in health and safety security policing operational planning and budgets I’ve also taken the time to do research on comparable micro shelter and modular housing sites across Canada from Vancouver and Toronto to Edmonton Calgary Ottawa Durham and Peterborough to understand what works and what doesn’t I want to share insights on a few important factors that could impact wilton grove success so first stable staffing and stabilization from both my professional experience and the evidence I’ve reviewed the people on the ground make the difference sites that overstaffed during the first 16 to 90 days were consistently the most successful at building trust and preventing conflicts when staff are consistent trauma informed and fully supported residents feel safe neighbors feel reassured and operational problems are minimized from my perspective early investment strong staffing prevents costly issues later and keeps the community running smoothly community relations and transparency my research shows that neighborhood support is often the deciding factor in success cities like Vancouver Toronto and Hamilton had excellent results by providing regular public updates at least every two weeks to keep neighbors informed offering optional site tours so the community can see for themselves staffing access and supports firsthand and designating a community liaison to respond quickly to concerns these steps reduce misinformation ease anxiety and foster cooperation so resident engagement resident advisory committees give tenants a voice in rules and routines which reduces internal conflicts and builds accountability structured daily routines such as life skills workshops check-ins and housing navigation helps residents stabilize and move efficiently toward what everyone wants permanent housing evidence across Canada shows that empowered residents in these types of locations are safer healthier and more likely to succeed long-term now regarding the city’s plan to proceed with expira as its security contractor and potentially more public procurement data shows that roughly 45 to 50 of expiras publicly listed federal contracts include amendments that increase the contract value well beyond the original award for the one temporary housing type contract where both the original and final figures are fully published this being a Quebec region support services contract the cost increased from 12.6 million dollars to 22.4 million dollars which is a roughly 78 percent rise while this does not indicate wrongdoing it does show that housing-related contracts with expira can expand significantly once operations begin and any municipal agreement should therefore include strong scope controls regular reporting and budget safeguards to protect residents and taxpayers from scope creep also of importance expira was acquired by weather vein investments in may of this year public statements promise continuity but independent verification is limited primary risks of this include organizational changes under new ownership that could affect staffing and operations high staff turnover or inadequate training could impact safety and resident support unapproved expansion in duties hours or services could inflate costs and compromise quality my due diligence recommendations from the field of property facilities and operations management is to confirm the leadership and accountability for the site require staffing transparency and minimum qualifications in trauma-informed care de-escalation and supportive housing experience strictly define all duties and responsibilities require written pre-approval for any changes cap hours and resources to prevent scope scope creep enforce daily weekly and monthly reporting incident review protocols and the right to audit operations and finances ensure that liability insurance and resident safety procedures are clear particularly for off-site risks the bottom line scope control is key to preventing unexpected costs i want to be clear while i strongly support the city’s efforts to help people who are unhoused i also have concerns about protecting the city taxpayers and the residents for example if someone exits the well-and-growth site unsafely and is injured there are both human and financial consequences safe transit access and pedestrian routes which i’ve mentioned in my email to the city council must be prioritized alongside on-site supports this protects residents neighbors and the city alike finally stable multi-year operational funding is essential turnover among staff is the number one threat to stability when supports are consistent residents thrive operations run smoothly and taxpayer dollars are used effectively in summary i believe wilton grove can can succeed if we focus on strong staffing on-site supports structured case management integrated security proactive community engagement resident empowerment safe transit stable funding and managing potential scope creep thank you for your time and consideration thank you and we have mr clem uh is our final uh delegate to speak to us today welcome mr clem uh just as with the others as i’ve indicated you have five minutes and i will give you a wave uh with about 30 seconds left in your time so when you’re ready please go ahead through the chair i’d like to thank you members of council for allowing me the opportunity to speak i have concerns about the new shelter site that i that i bring as a person of lived experience i’d like to start with this discussion with information about myself that is relevant to my perspective and proves insight i was diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders my inability to navigate my my condition led me to becoming homeless and my homelessness and underlying mental health problems led led to drug addiction i spent almost ten years in and out of shelters treatment centers and housing programs like the trailers at the golf course 186 york street and i was also put up in hotels but mostly i was alone on the streets i’ve been free from addiction for two years now housed for over a year finance through employment i work one year at arc age street mission and currently working in another field while i’m in school i have one credit left to complete an addictions and concurrent disorders program and i just finished my first semester semester in social service work program at mohawk college while doing this i’ve earned approximately 20 other certifications that correspond to the field of work that i’m aspiring towards including a certification in program evaluation my lived experience now supported by my education has taught me the importance of the voice of lived experience the time i spent in the trailers at the golf course was horrible myself and other people that i knew that stayed there found it lonely isolating and made mental health problems worse just has me very concerned for the people that will access this new program we’re service users consulted how do we know that the programs and services are relevant and that people will access them there’s an expression not about us without us from my experience connection to community was the most important factor in transitioning out of homelessness and addiction moving people to a cornfield beside the 401 remove them from services and sends a clear message that you are not welcome in our community how will this be addressed with such limited transportation how is the design decided upon based on the plans it looks like a long walk to the bathrooms which will be difficult for anybody with mobility challenges people who live in homelessness have negative experience with security staff to begin with just seems to be setting the stage for a negative a very problematic power dynamic is the staff of this company equipped to provide appropriate care London has a strong network of not for profit agencies that already have positive relationships with the homeless community why are we not leveraging this i’ve seen reference to people being clustered according to their issues mental health addiction and so on if true this is a terrible idea in dealing dealing with temporary crisis related to fires and floods among people with good mental health is one thing poor mental health addiction and chronic homelessness is a completely other thing seven million dollars is a lot of money for a temporary solution to a problem that needs to be addressed with respect this project is currently planned for 18 months what is the plan to transition to transition people beyond that how will people be supported at the end of this program how will reporting happen how will success be measured what are the actual goals of this program what are EMS response times at this location if you look at the records for the number of calls to the Salvation Army the mission the ark and unity you can see that urgent medical situations are frequent even when people stabilize like i corona corona for example i’m concerned for service users and staff safety because of this when deaths happen who will be accountable the last question i asked with all sincerity my grandparents on my father’s side were products of concentration camps of the holocaust and my grandparents on my mother’s side were products of the residential schools in eastern canada so i know the way my word of my words when i stay with this plan we are isolating an undesirable group of people outside of the city disconnecting them from community in questionable conditions with no way to come and go as they please staff by a security company does anybody else not think this looks like the beginnings of a concentration camp or residential school thank you mr clamb that completes our delegations colleagues so we now have the staff report and i will look for the motion to receive that report and then counselor truss i was indicated he wants to move an amendment once the motion to receive is on the floor look for a motion to receive to start counselor cuddy and counselor mccallister thank you now i will go to counselor truss i thank you very much and through the chair um i’ve uh i’ve presented the emotion to the city clerk do you do you want it would you like it red or is it on the screen i can’t tell from here give us just one second and we’ll put it on the screen and then everybody can read it for themselves sorry mr chair uh the counselor would need to speak more into his mic to make sure people online and watch and can hear we’ll do thank you counselor palosa hey colleagues you will now be able to find that in e-scribe and it’s also on the screen so counselor truss i’m just going to ask everybody to take 15 seconds to read it and then i’ll ask you to speak to it counselor palosa is your remote it’s if you’re looking in e-scribe it’s vote number three counselor truss i’m just going to ask you to confirm that the clerk has the appropriate language in e-scribe yes that’s correct okay did you want to speak to your amendment now thank you very much uh through the chair in reading reading the staff report counselor truss i’m sorry i’m going to ask you to hold for just a moment the clerk reminded me we need to get a seconder first counselor hillier okay counselor truss i’ll go ahead in reading the staff report and in reading the many communications that my office has received in addition to listening to the anticipated delegations today it was my view that rather than just passively receive a staff report and be on with it that this council has an obligation to the community to the existing service providers and to all the staff who are going to be working on this to um to do a little bit more so i tried to consolidate a few of the major issues that kept keep coming up um in into this motion one deals with uh one deals with transit one deals with um emergency services and one deals with the other service providers i don’t think there’s anything in my motion that will disrupt or delay the implementation of this program um recall when this first came to us i was very skeptical unhappy with the location i raised a number of issues about wanting to see alternatives that was not provided um and i just i just put that aside because i felt so strongly that we need to go on with this with this program i just i just assumed that uh these details would be taken care of now that we’re in december i’m not satisfied that these details are being taken care of maybe they are maybe my motion is redundant maybe it’s not needed because all these things are being taken care of maybe i should address these issues directly with the service provider with the police and fire or with london transit but i thought it would be helpful to bring this to the council table to the sppc table to bring these together and i’m hoping i’m uh i want to thank counselor hillier for seconding my motion uh and i’m hoping that we can have a discussion about each one of these items i remain very concerned especially after hearing these delegations that we haven’t thought out all of these questions and it may well be that there are activities happening behind the scenes with expira and the others that that would satisfy my concerns but i need to hear them i just don’t think that this council should be relegated to being a passive recipient of a step report without without taking the responsibility to ask additional questions so i’m asking those additional questions today and i’d like to hear what others think and i’ll reserve the rest of my time if i have any left thank you thank you counselor and i’ll just let you know you’ve used 240 so you’ve got about 220 left if you want to come back for a second round looking for other speakers councilor mccallister thank you and through the chair i mean i’ll just ask the obvious question here in terms of b c and d as the council alluded to them uh can staff comment in terms of conversations that have you had to date in terms of what has been put forward in this amendment well why don’t i start with mr dickens or mrs ramaloo and certainly as you go if you want to pass it off to other colleagues please feel free to do that thank you through the chair yes we did have a conversation with ltc early on um as noted in the report they did note that any changes in the service provision would be um would have to be reviewed in time for september and any changes would be made in september um that said there is a stop about 180 media 180 meters from the entrance of the site so one clarification for people is the entrance to the site is not directly on wilton grove road it’s near the intersection of cheese factory road and max bros so a quieter street um for making your way to that bus stop we can add an additional stop closer to that entrance if need be the given the weather the timing uh the pace of construction and trying to manage the various contracts i am proposing that we leave that until the spring but it’s a manageable cost um and we could look at that in the spring um we are aware that yes this route only runs monday to friday but i will pass it off to mr dickens to discuss the um transportation options being provided by the service provider mr dickens go ahead thank you chair through you um the site operator has indicated a commitment to provide um dedicated transit service transportation service for individuals at the site um what we’re going to do is we’re going to make sure that that is a commitment that’s available on day one uh but to make it an assessment on what that will look like is really going to be dependent on what the individuals require uh we wouldn’t want to prescribe and say you must provide this at this pace on these days if that’s not the needs of the individuals perhaps focusing more transportation than that perhaps they require less but it’ll be on an individual basis expert is already committed to doing that they’ve submitted us uh plans and budgetary figures to reflect that as far as c goes through you chair uh on october 27th we held a community meeting at north london optimist community center uh which there’s about 32 different representatives in the room from different community organizations that provided direct feedback on the site plan design uh to which many alterations and changes were provided to mate uh there was also feedback on the type of uh services that would be required and the type of security measures that would be needed in terms of cameras lighting fencing uh and some control the entry and and guest management expectations that feedback from community partners has already been embedded uh into the project at this point and has been reflected in the site plan alterations and the service alterations furthermore uh on december 18th there will be a community partners meeting with expira in attendance meeting with all invited community agencies that provide this type of service or um relevant services in the homeless prevention uh system uh of which organizations in the site operator uh will meet will engage will gather more feedback more uh suggestions uh but also have those conversations about what are non-negotiable when it comes to supporting vulnerable populations um and also do some um demystifying in terms of what expira will won’t do and who and who they are not um that conversation on december 18th is expected to produce uh a better understanding of what additional services uh will be provided on site we know we’ve had some consultations and some outcomes from these community uh meetings where organizations have indicated that they will provide support to vulnerable people on this site i don’t believe that support to vulnerable people was contingent on a certain provider i believe that commitment to support vulnerable people remains in place today as it did when they offered it um so that should address uh item c and for d i’ll pass it over to mr uh latisser mr latisser go ahead thank you and through the chair uh as far as emergency services go i i can say that we’ve engaged with emergency services shortly after this project uh started um and continue to do so up until today um just as recent as yesterday we held a meeting with uh local the local business community uh with london police as well uh present for that meeting uh talking about everything from response uh to uh to management of the site um london fire department uh accompanied uh accompanied a company to us on a site tour as well of another facility uh and remains deeply engaged as well as ems and we continue to collaborate with all three emergency partners. Councillor mccallister uh thank you and i appreciate that i think that’s important to know those conversations as the as Councillor trusso indicated you know these things have happened um not addressing necessarily everything i would also say would be uh i think there’s two things kind of going on uh with what the Councillor’s asking um the the one that transit commission has been indicated that’s something that would need to be done in september uh and so i think the commission is probably better equipped in terms of trying to handle that um but i would say with the uh issue of the prioritizing of snow uh clearing um if staff could perhaps comment on that as you know obviously we’re in the midst of winter to ensure that you know it is a prioritized area um for the snow clearing.

i’m not do we have someone from road ops who can address that go ahead uh through the chair um kris green i’m the project lead for the micromoditor shelters um so for snow clearing in particular it’ll be a combination of using city plows who already do that area neighborhood as well as leveraging our city contract with 4m services who does many of our properties as well so they’ll be assisting with kind of inside the gates well the city plows will take care of the road outside the gates. Councillor mccallister thank you through the chair appreciate that uh and then i think also was already mentioned in terms of the transit um it was my understanding obviously that the transportation would be included as part of uh this plan so it’s good to know that that is already in the works um in terms of the emergency services thank you mr latisser i also assumed that you know those conversations have been had um i do think was see um the issue i have with that is i’m just curious with where we’re at obviously expira um you know their experience but i’m just wondering with the cost that we’ve already identified are we looking to subcontract services is expira confident that they can handle all these things or how is that going to work in terms of the services they are able to provide and then what they might go out to the community uh to supplement mr green thank you and through the chair uh expira is submitted a contract to uh primarily do all of the operating services including transportation uh including uh you know safety security of everything on the site um we will be assisting obviously with city services ontario works and homelessness employees will be visiting the site to meet with um their their case managers and caseworkers and then we will be looking to leverage any other services that the individuals need as mr dickens said we’ll need to see who the individuals selected on the site are before we uh mandate what is needed out there but uh we’re confident in the community that we can either assist in getting the individuals to their appointments in the city or having those services visit the site councilor thank you um and to add to that um as was indicated in some of the delegations sorry mr chair a point of personal privilege just uh can’t hear councilor mccallister very well or mr green when they’re they’re speaking beside their mics and not into them okay i will okay thank you councilor plosa uh when i i will just ask when i call when you call a point of personal privilege can you please wait till i go to you though before continuing yeah we we had a little bit of people talking over each other there so uh council mr green has indicated he will speak more into the mic as has councilor mccallister councilor mccallister go ahead yes and to you sorry i brought my mic closer hopefully that’s okay see if it sums up um i don’t lost my train of fun now uh no uh in terms of the um the scope creep um there was indicated i’m just wanting to ensure that with a contract um do we have provisions in there uh for the services are we looking to expand it i just want to make sure before we get too far along that the money we have identified is sufficient for what we’re trying to do and that we won’t end up in a situation that was indicated where these contracts could uh to balloon to larger sums mr green uh thank you and through the chair we are satisfied with the contract that expira has submitted it is within the budget it is very similar to the contracts we have with other shelter providers as well so we don’t anticipate scope creep but of course it’ll be something we keep a close eye on with regular reporting and our own visits to the site councilor mccallister anything further yes thank you and through the chair just one final question um with regards that i just do want to ensure that if it does go over the amount that we have allotted i want to ensure that that is something that would come back to council i don’t want to get into a situation where we would be approving um additional costs without any sort of oversight um i want to make sure that you know we have line of sight on this project and that council is informed regularly i will leave it there i’m curious to see what my colleagues have to say but i just want to finish with a comment for that staff answer that um i understand where the council are coming from i do think a lot of these conversations are happening i don’t necessarily think this needs to be uh an amendment um but i do in terms of the reporting structure want to see a lot of these items flagged for a future reporting thank you councilor mccallister i will just ask miss barbone or miss daters bear with respect to cost overruns with the report back to council before approvals would be from a financial perspective or if you want to hand that off to another member of the staff team thank you so chair so without uh specifically looking at amounts and how they fit in i mean certainly from the original resolution we have a source of financing we have specifics related to um what the contracts are and of course in line with our procurement policy so certainly if there are additional funds in accordance with our policy that requires us to come back to council we would and as we’ve noted we are committed to regular updates as well this is no different than another contract and and the provisions that we have for all construction contracts if there are overages and how those are handled in line with appropriate council policy we would take that back so it with in speaking in generalities um without seeing the exact amount of the contract and whether that is within our thresholds etc um in the area of transparency as we continue to report out we would advise if it wasn’t specifically required through the council um approved policies thank you miss barbell uh councilor plosa i have you next on the list and then councilor for error thank you mr chair a question for clarification through you either to the mover um just a noting that it says report back to a future meeting of sppc is the intention of verbal report back or a written one like a briefing note or like a full full report just i know that will affect when we get it and how much staff time it takes um i will go to councilor truss i ought to respond to that thank you for the question i prefer a written report over an oral report i’d also prefer a report very soon as opposed to very late and those may be in conflict with each other i would leave it to us staff to make that determination but um i don’t i think i do need some further information i originally wrote this motion to say please try to get this information to us by the council meeting um that that wasn’t possible in terms of uh the the motion but i think time is of the essence here so however this is done i would like these issues um dealt with very expeditiously and i do think that we need um fuller reports at the council table i hope that answers your question councilor plosa thank you uh in just making sure through to you my anticipation and preference also would be a written report uh that staff can i guess i was directed by council knowing that our wish is written um just a few comments you know i know we had already directed staff to engage with London Transit Commission and i appreciate that i appreciate our presenters the community emails we’re getting in regards to the concern about safety out in that area human trafficking also it’s the corridor this is the entrance of the city and many untoward things happening and just making sure these vulnerable individuals are protected is a lot most important uh to me i also um i appreciate the questions from mr. mccallister that we’ve of the intention is we are contracting one organization to do these jobs um if other service providers did not win the contracts um i would expect that if they were they were tagged for helping that they would also be financially compensated by the uh main main person as well um just three to staff is the experience able to do subcontracts for the work or is it solely to be delivered by them just wondering how that contract is uh created. Council blows i will go to staff uh i will also say you and i had an earlier uh in the day uh pre-meeting well not pre-meeting a meeting about something else i know you were having technical issues with it but if possible uh the clerk has asked if i could remind you to turn on your camera when you’re speaking and i will go to mr.

green to start and uh and of course if that needs to go to other staff by all means folks can chime in thank you and through the chair if any additional contracting is required it would be done through the city and not through expira thank you. Councilor Palosa sorry just trying to get the video going um had some tech issues earlier um so that additional contracts if required is at an additional cost uh versus things being clawed back from expira thank you through the chair apologies through the chair at this time we don’t anticipate the need for more contracts but this project’s very young so as it evolves uh if that does come forward uh we would definitely bring that to council for consideration. Councilor Palosa thank you no i appreciate that and i also appreciate uh that we have the chase from one in police with us who might get some extra questions at some point as well thank you thank you councilor Palosa although i would not deem that as in order in our delegation to the one in police is that’s not why they’re here before us today um however i do have councilor freira next on the speaker’s list thank you chair through you uh councilor Palosa asked my first question but i’m going to expand on it just a little bit and that would be i guess with respect to other contracts or what other agencies we’re going to have uh potentially fill some gaps that have been highlighted here um like originally when you’re discussing this we were talking about pathways to housing and programming to make sure that this is just not a shelter and it’s also something that’s plugged into our system to uh get people off street level uh and into uh other types of housing um so i guess my question would be if we don’t have any uh funds that are going to be distributed to any uh partner agencies when we discuss when we have that consultation with the partner agencies what would be the outcome expected from those discussions are we looking for advice are we going to take that advice are we going to have uh the contractor experiment right now um provide those services from that advice i just wanted to get some clarification there so i’m going to go to mr dickens but just before i go to mr dickens to start on that one and just want to remind colleague staff have already indicated they have a meeting scheduled on december the 18th they cannot provide you answers on a meeting that hasn’t happened yet so they can provide some comment on what their expectations are but they are not necessarily going to be able to project out what the outcomes of that meeting are so i just want to caution folks to to stay within the realm of why we’re here today and i’m going to go to mr dickens to respond thank you chair and through you i’ll start this response and pass it over to mr cooper who is online uh joining us today um the chair is correct um it would be premature to dictate what services will be provided and how until individuals are present on site and their needs are identified uh that being said organizations in our community are part of a coordinated access working group through city staff in the coordinated access program and community organizations outreach workers and staff have been working together to compile a introductory list of potential participants at this site very cursory very uh potential at this point that indicates that people are already connected to the system they’re already in the system in some way shape or form perhaps connected to a housing finder a housing first worker connected to an organization that is already providing them supports in an encampment or somewhere else in the community it would stand to reason that if you’re connected to an organization that’s helping you find housing that staying at wilton grove would not terminate that help that it would allow that organization to continue to assist you in your housing journey albeit from a place where you have a roof over your head and three square meals a day um the meeting that we have discussed is happening next week helps to solidify where we need to lean into community expertise even further than we have already when it comes to mandatory training for expir when it comes to matching to the site when it comes to linking individuals that are already connected to services to those service providers as mr green indicated via dedicated transportation down to that organization or that organization coming on site we are moving at lightning speed here to make sure 60 people come inside this winter and next winter and we want to make sure that we are not taking a step back when it comes to their well-being so leaning on the community experts that are already supporting these folks will be essential to continue and i may have stolen all of his regards but i’ll pass it to mr cooper go ahead mr cooper thank you and enter you mr chair as typical mr dickens has stolen most of the thunder on that i just will reiterate um the work is just beginning and our teams are working quite closely with uh with community members as mr dickens is indicated um we’ll also be looking at uh any capacity in our existing programs to see where matches and appropriate matches can be made we’re individuals who may have a be identified to not have those kinds of supports would benefit from those supports i think there’s a very intended approach that it will evolve um as we look to operationalize the space thank you mr cooper go or you go return to counselor for era thank you chair i appreciate the answer i guess i understand that you can’t provide the outcomes that will come from the meeting because we haven’t had it yet um i guess just to refine the question from those outcomes whatever they may be how will we be incorporating that into our operational structure will we be having city staff there incorporating those will expira incorporate that like if if my main focus is on how do we ensure um i guess the expertise from from the agencies that are working in this field how do we ensure that we incorporate that if we are consulting with the agencies but it sounds like they’re not going to be part of the operation itself directly how do we take those outcomes from that meeting and place it into the operation mr dickens uh thank you chair through you it’s it’s all of the above this is london’s first micromodular shelter the site is the site the timelines are the timelines uh and the supports will be the best that we can possibly provide many members of city staff have visited other uh tiny homes micro shelter sites across us western Ontario some much better than others uh some very different than others a lot of key learnings about what works what doesn’t work around participant population around the level of service that’s needed we’re to be clear we’re not trying to replicate an emergency shelter that exists downtown we’re not trying to replicate a 24/7 hub or highly supportive housing we were trying to do what the direction was and that was to create a safe and supportive space as quickly as possible to bring uh 60 units on site for two winters and we will do that with the utmost care and respect for those that are there and those that are providing service um there is no um desire for this to fail on anyone’s part i think we heard that through the delegation as well that uh people are providing input on to see this succeed uh so we will uh ensure that whatever feedback we get is directly fed into the operations including any training that is required or the community feels as necessary uh we would be happy to oblige council for error thank you for that um okay i i guess i’ll move to another question um with the transportation um i just if i were a resident um at the micro shelter and i wanted to get a ride let’s say somewhere in the city how how are we for seeing that to be done am i requesting um experiment to give me the ride and they just provide the ride when the time comes up or do i have a limited number of rides a day um is there a time operating window that rides are available and they’re not mr green uh thank you and through the chair so expira will have a dedicated shuttle uh what type of vehicle that is where we are not sure at this time they also have a dedicated driver uh again once we have a better idea of the individuals living on our site uh in their needs and the appointments and meetings they need to go we’ll set up a policy and procedure on how they work with expira to schedule that whether it’s you know the day before or day of or the shuttle has designated stops those are all various models we have seen in our visits to other communities so we will work with both what uh other communities that provided us in their procedures and what will work best for our community council for error thank you for that uh another question i have would be ppe what type of ppe would expira personnel on site be wearing or be using okay counselor for error i think you’re really straying from the amendment and weighing into like micro operational details i will i feel these so i’m gonna i’m gonna caution we’re not here to get into every operational detail of a site that is not even up and running yet so i’m actually going to rule that out of order um we’re not here to direct something that’s not even running yet so i’m not going to ask mr green to start uh rhyming off every operational detail when clearly they’re not even open yet so to the amendment please okay um the comment was really uh or the question was on trust based on the trust factor because i do know that people in the community uh may not necessarily have the best experiences with security personnel so that’s why i asked the question but i’ll i can save that for another one um yes in that case i’ll just i’ll just say some final comments and then i’ll have some more on the main motion but i do believe that you know i had a conversation with counselor trussle before we had before this motion came on before this meeting started uh some of the uh items some of the questions that i have uh for this motion i i’ve been asking and i’ve heard some other colleagues ask that too but i do believe that some uh some areas in this motion are are basically going into areas that we importantly need to know there’s some good questions here so aside from what i told counselor trussle before the meeting i think i’m going to support this amendment as it is because um you know we are moving quite fast but when you we start moving this fast and i know there’s an urgent need to do this uh we may find ourselves missing some big stops so just to make sure that we have that reporting come back to council just so we’re fully informed i do see that this amendment is asking for that so i will be supporting this amendment as it is and i’ll save some i had some more comments for the main motion but i’ll wait mayor morgan uh thanks chair so i’ll make a couple of comments first um i’d like to counselor hatt counselor mccallister’s um questions because you basically got all the answers to the to the motion that was before us and so when i read the intention of the first part he’s right he’s just gonna help counselor close out here uh when i read the intention of the first part i want to get some information on transit both the information included in the report the engagement with london transit as well as the information about what the operator is going to provide which will be based on the customers there i think that’s pretty clear that the source of answer has been given uh the second one about consulting with um expertise on the micromodular site mr dickens answer very clearly about the robust consultations that happen in the site design the future meetings and the commitment to ongoing consultations with people who have expertise uh and the willingness from those to engage and continue to make uh the the site operate as best as possible we can on the third piece um i think mccallister answered that about the existing work that’s been done uh even the site visits and engagements with emergency services to ensure the provisions are there so when counselor troso first put this on the floor he said wanted to put this on the floor for discussion but maybe a lot of this is redundant so i actually feel that it is redundant i think our staff are doing excellent work in all of these spaces very legitimate for us to have this uh question and answer of our staff to get the information out on the floor and into the public realm but i’m not sure we need to come back with a series of reports that are going to be out of date by the time we get them when staff is actively working through all of these issues on an ongoing basis have you’ve heard from the answers to the questions so i think you can expect that our staff are going to be very transparent about giving us as much information as we possibly can on a site that we are very interested in the details on on an ongoing a regular basis that might even be faster than regular meetings of SPPC so if people want to support the motion that’s fine i’m not inclined to support it because i trust our staff to do all of this work to continue to answer the questions that we’ve asked i think they’ve answered pretty much all of these questions and i trust them to give us ongoing information like they have either through memos to counsel updates at other meetings being available through SPPC to answer questions and i appreciate and respect the desire of colleagues to have answers on these questions which members of the public have raised and i think you equally could have just instead of putting a motion on the floor asked all these questions and got all the answers before us so as for the amendment i’m satisfied with the answers at the moment i’m not inclined to support the amendment i don’t think that precludes colleagues from continuing to ask these questions and i think when i heard they’re already ahead of it on pretty much all of these things so i expect them to continue to be ahead of it on all of these things because there’s a lot of teams from across the city pulling together a lot of expertise to pull this off in a short period of time and they pretty much hit all the answers to these questions already from the floor today so i’m going to continue to have that expectation that they’ll be able to do that and they continue this work um appreciate that counselors want to put the motion on the floor i’m not sure it’s necessary i go back to the movers point about it it’s you know this might be redundant i i’m not sure it’s necessary so um fully respect that this is a debate we should have and did have on the floor though i mean for any other speakers counselor stevenson thank you i just had a couple of questions on page four it talks about the key performance indicators and i wondered if we knew what those were now or whether that could be included in one of the updates mr green thank you and through the chair the key performance indicators will be similar to what we provide other shelters as well we can definitely provide that in our next report back but those were clear in the call for application uh to the providers as well so they’re clear on what they will report on uh and how frequent and then of course we’ll bring that back to council as necessary counselor stevenson okay thank you uh i’ll look forward to seeing that in the update and the other question is regarding the shelter portion of their um checks what’s going to be happening with that mr cooper thank you and through you mr chair um we are working with our ncscss counterparts uh on ways for us to collect that uh that uh income uh and then obviously be reinvested back in the site as uh determined by uh council okay thank you very much i’m also going to ask that these be uh voted on separately okay uh we can do that um and i will just say uh i i did allow that one but again i think we’re straying away from the amendment so there is the main motion either once amended or if the amendments aren’t passed then as originally presented so there will be another opportunity to ask some more questions about those kind of things um but i did think it was relevant given other questions about what happens if budget questions and other service providers perhaps providing assistance so i i let that one go but i will caution colleagues as i ask if there’s any other speakers uh and counselor stevenson just for clarity do you want them all called separately or are there a cluster that you can um i was looking for b to be separate from cindy okay clerks actually pulled them all apart so we’ll just deal with each one on its own anyone object to that seeing no objections okay looking for any other speakers on the amendment before i call the question counselor trussow um my first question is to mr dickens why why is the meeting with the other service providers not happening until the 18th why was it not um already something that we could read about now or at least before the council meeting mr dickens thank you chair and thank you for the question um city staff move quickly to land a site operator um having these site operators selected uh and determining who that would be would dictate um some potential changes with the community meeting we also are working to uh ensure everyone’s availability and try to move as fast as we can so um this report coming before you today we’re meeting with the providers or the community organizations next week and bringing expira uh to meet with them we’re moving as fast as we can um i would challenge council to find a project that moves this fast and this deliberate uh anywhere else i guess my follow-up question through the chair is why was this meeting not something that happened before um expira sort of i don’t know if they’ve laid out everything they’re going to do but it’s been it’s been represented to me today that they will not be able to subcontract that they’re going to get the money that they’re going to get and anything that we need to do in addition is going to be an additional cost i would suggest that that was backwards and i’m just wondering why so councilor i’m going to stop you there you’re straying into procurement policy matters it’s been indicated as well that conversations have been had and we actually had other submissions on the procurement so i’m going to rule that entire line of questioning out of order we do not as a council play a role in evaluating the procurement process that is arms length from us to ensure fairness and accountability for taxpayers and to allow staff to negotiate uh with providers once the bid has been submitted to make sure that the best value is coming for the dollar that is actually not a position that we can insert ourselves into so i’m going to ask you to halt questions around procurement processes and focus on the amendment that’s before us well the amendment thank you very much for that and i would just say that the amendment that’s before you deals with trying to figure out what the roles and responsibilities are going to be of the different agencies and that’s still not clear to me and it’s something that troubles me very much because i’m personally familiar with the roles and responsibilities that these agencies have taken on and now i’m being told that there can’t be a subcontract so is it going to be the situation where if there’s a hall and we need to go to one of our partner usual partner agencies usual local partner agencies it’s going to be an additional cost to the city so i’m going to go to miss daters bear to respond to that however i’m also going to remind colleagues staff have already answered the question of we have to do the tenant selection and placement before finalizing the services that will be provided so miss daters bear i thank you through you to the members of committee i do want to be clear that we have worked this process as best as we can with every service area within the city that includes asking and anticipating all the questions including the ones that you’re asking us today we continue to work in that regard and i want to assure you we will continue to do that we are not coming here without all the information we’re trying to come with you to you with as much information as we have currently i want to share with you we’ve gone through procurement process that are are specific to the council approved procurement processes would prohibit us from having discussions with any provider regardless of who we chose but i do want to be assured that you to be assured that we are working through this process we are trying to meet the direction and the unanimous support we got from council to put this in place before january one thank you miss daters bear council truss out yes in which case that that wraps up my um that wraps up my questions for this portion i i would like to um ask my colleagues to vote for um the amendment or at least as many parts of the amendment that you feel comfortable um supporting and we’ll we’ll see what happens with this and i’ll have more comments when we get to the main motion thank you thank you councilor truss out i’ve no one else on the speakers list uh so i’m gonna ask council roman to just take the chair thank you i have the chair please go ahead yes thank you uh madam presiding officer i’m going to be really brief um i won’t be supporting these amendments i concur with the mayor that these questions have been answered i concur as well that staff have been providing us briefing notes along the way as we have hit key uh markers in this process and that this is moving faster than any other project that i have ever seen undertaken by this municipality or frankly by any other uh in the seven years that i have been in this building what i do not want and have zero interest in doing is spending staff time generating written reports to us at a time when we need them standing this site up and then course correcting as needed as we iron out the bugs because there will be bugs but that’s what they need to have their time for you to do uh so i won’t be supporting these amendments i’m actually think that part b um has already been answered fully by london transit and i would remind colleagues we have many discussions about transit services in this community and how there are under service neighborhoods everywhere so now we want to start putting transit resources here rather than other spots of the city um that’s not something that i’m interested in having a conversation with about and so i’m not going to support me but i’m not going to support cnd either i think the emergency services folks continue to be part of this discussion every day i know i’ve had conversations with fire and police myself uh and the same uh i met with uh miss moss who’s in the gallery today from london cares uh recently uh my door is always open for them as well but i do not need especially in advance of a meeting that hasn’t happened or a tenant selection process that’s already happened be directing staff to produce reports i need them to be out there helping get this work done and stood up so i want to just say thank you staff for what’s in here i won’t be supporting any other amendments and i know that there will already be a general report back on the situation as the site opens and then people start living there so that’s the report back i’m interested in not all of these different clauses right now thank you returning the chair to you’ve known on the speaker’s list okay this will be a last call and i’m going to see no one in the room or online ask the clerk to open the vote with clause b first counselor vote counselor close the votes yes closing the vote motion fails five to nine and we’ll now open the vote on clause c so close the votes yes closing the vote motion fails five to nine and opening the vote on clause d mr close the votes yes closing the vote motion fails five to nine thank you colleagues we’re back to the main motion as amended or as sorry main motion no amendments i’ll look for speakers thank you um i’m going to make a few comments first off i want to thank staff for the report um i think it’s easy with all to uh to let it slip by that an incredible amount of work has been done in an incredible short period of time from all different parts of the city to try to achieve something that i think a lot of times people have said in commentary it’s going to be very difficult to do and yet we continue to track towards success in meeting timelines getting providers securing sites addressing issues securing permissions from the province and other things so i want to say that i i very much appreciate very much appreciate the work of our staff and all the agencies who have supported giving guidance to our staff in pulling together what we’ve been able to pull together so far and and i know there’s a lot of work ahead but i just want i didn’t want us to lose sight of that so i wanted that to be my first comment i want to say to um to to the providers who are in the audience um i think you do incredible work in our city and your guidance and support is absolutely critical to us being successful here i recognize the concerns that um that you’ve raised uh about location operator other pieces of the project that you’d like to see come to fruition in different ways and i want you to know our staff and i greatly appreciate all of your guidance and your criticisms and your insights on this we recognize the work that you continue to do on our city and how difficult that is for you and your staff we recognize how stretched you are and how hard it is to work in an environment where um people are are suffering and and hurting on our streets so i wanted to say thank you to that i want to go back to the reason why i wrote the direction in the first place uh recognizing the council ultimately supported it we got a lot of people on our streets and they don’t have anywhere to go um look at when we opened the uh cold weather response this week we had 56 people show up 56 people didn’t have anywhere else to go but needed to come in from the the cold after after we surged every piece of possible space we could through the cold winter response plan we had to activate additional spaces and we needed 56 people to come indoors a micromodular site even if it is not ideal even if it isn’t a great location even if it doesn’t have all the pieces that you’d like to see is still absolutely critical to having additional spaces to bring people indoors full stop first point now what are we going to do when we get people indoors we’re going to try to make it as best as we possibly can right so and i want to make a few comments about the the things that i think are going to be ongoing concerns the location let’s just be frank with ourselves there aren’t a lot of locations in the city that we could get enough counselors to vote for to actually pull this together we had to find something that we could do somewhere with the direction to our staff to say this is somewhere that can be supported this is somewhere that we can make work this is somewhere that the public can support and that we can actually take the opportunity to bring an additional 60 spaces online in a very short period of time with the operator i’m not going to comment much on that we have a competitive bidding process our staff ran that we have an operator i think our staff have answered questions about that and i know that people are going to support the work of that operator as best they can to make this a great example and a great um a great location i think that’s our expectation um to and i want to say through you and i know mr last or commented on this to the industrial and business partners in the area um the conversations that they’re having with our staff are very positive and i want to say thank you to them initially resistant and concerned about this location are now talking about how they can support it and that’s really important um they recognize it’s coming to the area they recognize that they’re going to be people in need there and they’re actively having conversations with our staff about how they can support the individuals there to me that that’s pretty inspiring thing to happen in our city when we have a service coming to an area and those business partners are saying how can we actually help so this tells me one thing we’re all trying to rally together to make this the best we possibly can but again as i said before it’s not an ideal situation to have to create a micro modular site in in the first place on a very short time frame it’s not an ideal situation to have people outdoors it’s not an ideal situation to be in municipality without enough resources to actually supply services to all of its citizens who need it particularly those who are vulnerable and we’ll have a discussion about that later in the meeting but i just want to say um i have confidence in the work that our staff is doing i have confidence in the agency partners who will be critical but also supportive and who provide expert advice to that consumer thank you and i have a lot of confidence in um the people who are going to live there to have an opportunity to be indoors and to have the opportunity to um to be in a space that’s better than maybe out on the streets particularly in the winter and when you look at the forecast ahead there are more cold days coming this cannot come online fast enough so um i hope uh well you it’s an information report so i don’t need to hope you support it uh i look forward to continued updates thanks thank you other speakers answer trussow thank you very much i share the underlying goals to the chair of the mayor we need this we need to get it online as quickly as possible we need to be able to do this in a way that we can replicate again later we need to be building our local capacity we need to be relying on the people that we’ve been relying on all along and uh for this reason i’ve been raising very um critical yet still supportive still supportive i support this and i don’t want my comments taken in the wrong way i’m not trying to undermine this i’m not trying to undermine the staff but i do think that there are gaps in the information that this council has been provided and for that reason i won’t be supporting which should as i said in the past a very simple motion uh accepting a report receiving a report because for the very reasons that i set forth in my motion i don’t think this report is complete so i can’t in good conscience um accept it i could have uh simply said i’m not going to accept this report but um i thought i would go into i thought i would go into a little bit more detail and put forward a motion which really has brought forward i think uh a good discussion um in in closing this sort of reminds me of the old saying why pay for a cow when you’re already getting the milk thank you thank you councilor trussell councilor ramen i have you next thank you and through you and i’m trying to figure out what’s the milk and what’s the cow um so i i want to start by saying thank you to staff uh for the report um i understand the complexities to a very small degree of what you’re doing and i appreciate the ongoing dialogue and i’ve had a chance to discuss with staff um a lot of these parts of the report specifically the ltc uh components as well i will say that i do believe there is further conversation that should happen with ltc but i think that that’s conversation with the commission and i think that that can be initiated in different places and ways um i just wanted to ask some questions the first is around what kind of updates um we can expect going forward so i’m just wondering uh through you chair if that can be asked of staff mr ramaloo yes thank you through the chair we can certainly provide more updates as we go so in terms of procurements um yes these were these were up to date the the report was complete as the date of submission has been noted this project is moving incredibly quickly and thank you to everybody who is helping make that happen uh we will have continued procurements to report on as well as more information on the site provider but we will have also updates on the construction progress we did break ground this week they are they have moved a lot of earth already and are breaking into the intersection to do the services so we will have it reports on or a report going forward on all of those components answer thank you and do we anticipate those coming as briefing notes to council or will they be through sppc through you mr ramaloo thank you through the chair a briefing note to council note through council notifications would certainly be the most expeditious way to keep you updated because we can turn those around very quickly providing reports to sppc uh requires a longer lead time so as you see in this report for instance things are a little bit behind where they are today because of the the timelines for instance in the permitting it’s noted that they are on um you know no uh delay is expected well there’s definitely no delay because we received those both those permits within days of this being submitted so um those memos that are noted through council notifications would certainly be the quickest way for you to receive that information council roman thank you and from the perspective of public input frequently asked questions etc what do we see as our communication strategy to help address some of those questions concerns and many many comments that are coming in mr green thank you and through the chair we do have a get involved page that has been set up nearly since this project was announced by the mayor back in september it does have an fq page going up and we’ll continue to add to that as inquiries come in uh there’s an email address that’s monitored by myself as well as members of uh corporate communications uh and we triage that as necessary and again we’ll continue to add to the fq list uh as necessary councilor thank you um and just so that we can understand what will be the process if there are concerns or complaints with any of the providers uh thank you and through the chair uh there’ll be many opportunities uh for the residents as well as other providers to uh submit their comments and concerns again directly back to the project team uh to expire themselves or as the individuals have opportunity to meet with their caseworkers and case managers concerns can be brought forward and in addition the email address set up on get involved will be open to the residents uh to submit uh anonymous or uh as they choose directly to the project team as well if they so choose councilor thank you that’s very helpful and i appreciate that you’ve looked at this from different angles and and different ways of addressing some of those concerns um i think i would greatly appreciate hearing back after the meeting with uh local providers just to understand some maybe some of the questions maybe some of the concerns that were raised um perhaps some of the agreements i can understand maybe there’s some concerns around um what kind of rules and restrictions that uh experiment have and i’m wondering if those will be made public um any other way or will will they just be shared with council mr dickens thank you chair through you um we can’t presume that there’s going to be issues with rules or restrictions or guidelines as those will be co-designed with community partners in mind um this is not a security compound this is a community asset net new service but it is something that we want to remain as consistent as possible with community services already in place so we will be landing those various procedures and policies and guidelines as a collective group councilor thank you my final question is just to confirm a question that i’ve asked early on as well and that will be that council have the opportunity to go out and visit and uh take this in before it opens mr dickens uh thank you chair uh yes the uh city teams are currently working right now through um mr amaloo’s area on the construction side of the site uh and mr green’s uh role with the project lead to ensure that we can actually land a date that makes the most sense for council uh that was a council direction it’s a commitment we are um ready to fulfill uh we just want to land on a date where it’s not right next to christmas uh we understand people’s availability is going to be um pretty limited at that time we also don’t want to push it out any further because the longer we wait to tour uh council through is the longer we wait to start to place people uh that being said um we want to make sure we include all members of council we have commitments from pharaoh the uh constructor of the uh micro modular shelters that they will come on site whenever that tour happens uh to be available to you uh to get also give a tour of the units themselves and answer any technical questions you might have explain that process as well as expira will be available uh and on site as well so we’re looking to land those dates as soon as we can councilor ramen yes thank you i just wanted to say thank you for the answers appreciate the ongoing communication and look forward to more updates thank you councilor mccallister thank you and through the chair and i really do appreciate this conversation that we’ve had today um i know this is something a lot of community members have reached out um i want to you know again thank everyone in terms of the speed really appreciate all the hard work staff have put into this um even you know the mayor bringing this forward and i i think this dovetails well into what we’re going to be discussing later in the meeting and there have been lessons learned from other projects i’ve met with counselors from some of these municipalities that have had this experience it’s never perfect from you know day one you have to adjust you have to be nimble you have to adapt to the the situation on the ground um but i think at its core you know we’re doing the right thing we’re trying to address a serious problem which continuously is brought to our attention that there are serious capacity issues in dealing with homelessness not only in london but across the province and i don’t know what more we can do in terms of rating uh raising a red flag to the province that we need assistance with this our traditional system is at a breaking point municipalities are now having to resort to micro modular shelters tiny homes whatever you want to call it and that is a direct reflection of decisions that are being made at higher levels that we need assistance this is a cry for help that municipalities need more done we are doing our part we are trying to be innovative we are trying to come up with ideas to address this but this is not something that we are going to be able to solve on our own this is a two-year plan but it’s not something that we on a long-term basis should be sustaining and we absolutely need other players involved and higher levels of government have got a step forward to seriously address this thanks thank you councilor mccallister any other speakers councilor london thank you i just want to follow up uh in command staff for the um uh the sense of urgency that was shown and the um speed at which this was uh coming to uh fruition and a lot of concerns were raised here tonight uh you know i was glad that uh councilor trasso uh raised the questions in the amendment i didn’t support the amendment because i heard the answers uh in our discussion um you know whenever you try to do something that’s outside the norm uh there’s always concern of not getting everything right it’s reminded me of that saying um don’t let perfect be the enemy of good we will um learn as we go along and adjust as we go along um and i think the best way is that i will do is i look forward to visiting um this site when it’s up and running like i did with last time we tried something that was a little outside the box is when we had a shelter at fanshaw golf course at that time i heard very similar concerns uh about about that particular site in the operation as it was something that was a little different uh deputy mayor lewis and i went out and um we spent an afternoon not only touring the site but having fantastic conversations with with those that were sheltered there and i look forward to doing the same because i can tell you um despite what we all have thoughts on uh there is nothing like hearing it uh from those that are directly using those services so i look forward to uh to that time on uh with permission obviously uh because i respect the privacy of those that are there um but i look forward to to hopefully having that opportunity thank you counselor furra thank you chair um well i you know i appreciate the conversation that we’ve been having i appreciate the work that staff has done i know you’ve been working hard for um a really compressed and condensed time period to get this through um and i agree with a lot of the comments that i’ve heard here it’s particularly with the mayor’s comments like we are in a crisis here we’ve been in a crisis for a while i’m glad that we’re going to have that conversation later today um but there’s a need and i heard i heard uh from one of the delegates that we need to find locations that are not in the core space that is not in the core and this is exactly what this is we have obviously from our experiences found that it is contentious and we have a resistance by trying to open up space uh throughout the city and this location um is a location that was selected because of that because we were hoping that we needed to open up additional capacity um and get it through in a timely manner uh with as little opposition as we could have um and with as little barriers as possible so the extra 60 spaces is definitely needed it’s not in the core i think that’s a good a good move i said also at committee um the location is not ideal because it is quite far but i also said that i thought that we could make up for the unidealness of the location with the operation um and that’s why some of my questions are rooted into um because i have spoken to other operators and other municipalities and i have spoken with staff quite quite a bit and i’ve spoken with some of our agencies quite a bit as well and i do believe that that operation is really going to make the success story or not it’s going to be basically the marker if this is going to be replicable or if it’s not it’s going to basically decide whether we continue this and continue those spaces when the time comes up or it’s not and those are the those are the areas that i’m kind of focusing on i i liked what i heard um from the delegates frustrated but reluctantly resigned i think that’s probably exactly where what i feel i we need the space and this is a hard place and it’s obviously a compromise with council on how we’re going to move forward um it’s not necessarily what i had in mind when we started this um but i’m hoping that we i’m hoping that i get proven wrong on some of my my thoughts on some of my um issues that i have with with the operation i do hear that we are going to make adjustments as we see placement um adjustments for me mean more money it means more resources put in i any adjustment that we do especially if we’re going to be expanding capacity once we find out who’s going to be living at the micro shelter is going to cost us money so i would expect a report back coming to council with extra funds or how would those i guess extra capacities that we’re gonna that are going to come up from our conversations with agencies or as we learn as we go how do we implement those um so at this stage this is a receive of report i’m going to approve the receipt of the report um but i do have my concerns some of my questions weren’t answered here um so there are questions that still have not been answered and i would really like to follow up i guess i will offline with staff on some of those um but in the end you know the one thing that we really need to know is for the success of this operation we need to have trust that’s the main thing and how do we build that that needs to be a focus i’ll just be making that statement we need to be focusing on building the trust uh with the people that we’re servicing with the people who live around and work around the people we are servicing in the city um to make sure that we have an operation that is functional and is successful we need to have that to to show not only to continue that 60 bed capacity that we’re expanding here but also to see if it’s can be replicated in the future or extended um this this is going to be you know a big marker for us and i’m just hoping for the full success that we have here that’s that’s ultimately what i want to see i want to see success i wanted to see it run efficiently i want to see good stories come out of what the outcomes were of this initiative and i want to see you know anything we can to kind of reduce um the crises that we are currently experiencing 30 seconds counselor so i can i can end it there but that’s that would be my call thank you counselor frank thank you yes i had a bunch of questions but they’ve already been asked and answered so i’ll just make a couple comments um and in regards to some of my questions include what would the complaint mechanism be for um you know any participants or support providers who might have some issues moving forward what do the metrics look like and how often are we going to get reporting on that that’s been answered and also what will the programming look like and again it sounds like that that discussion will happen between service providers in the next couple weeks and we’ll learn more at that time so those are my three main concerns um and again it sounds like we’re still in process with that so i can appreciate not all the answers are available currently but look forward to hearing more i appreciate all the work that staff have done to move this along at lightning speed and as well all the comments and feedback from the the community and from the the guests in the gallery i take them to harden and again have been doing some work to discuss this with staff and colleagues to make sure that we have as good a project as we can given the time and the resources that we’ve allocated to it so again i share similar thoughts to council for error where um i look forward to seeing how this progresses and i’m hopeful so uh i’ll just leave it at that thank you councilor frank i’m no one else on the speaker’s councilor preble thank you and also i would like to thank the staff because the direction rate which we given you not long ago you really came up and you came up as a solution for us for future to address these concerns i’m not going to talk i i’ve already talked quite a few times about the location selection of the individuals being there and case management importance but what i want to talk about is uh december 18th i think that’s a key to the success decisions have been made we are moving forward in on december 18th expira local organization city shows up with open-minded no egos no special individual group interests in mind just the individuals who will be staying there and half a million of londoners i truly believe this will be a success it’s a lesson it’s a great experience for us ahead of us how can we come together all of us as an organization as a community december 18th is a key for me if it’s a success this project will be a success thank you all any other speakers seeing none i’m going to ask clerk to open the vote building the vote motion carries 11 to 1 noting councilor van mierbergen and councilor palosa as absent thank you colleagues moving on item three are scheduled items is our delegation pursuant to our council resolution of august of 2024 from chief traum welcome chief pursuant to our resolution of 2024 you have 10 minutes uh to provide us your annual updates i know mr goss is here on behalf of the police services board should colleagues have questions that are board related and i know you’ve got your deputy chiefs and uh the amazing miss santos with you as well to assist uh so should you need to call on any of those to join you at the podium at at some point please feel free to do so and when you’re ready uh we welcome your annual update thank you chair and through you i won’t need to introduce my team who you already graciously identified i’ll just acknowledge that i am joined with the chair ryan goss from the police service board and up in the gallery is member mike wallace from our police service board who is also here i’ll get right to it sir and i want to thank the committee for allowing me to provide some updates about our police service and the state of policing in the city compared to all of last year our uniformed presence in the community is up officers have already spent 23% more time in identified hotspot areas those are community based locations high harm areas and property crime hotspots than in all of 2024 we know that positive everyday interactions between police and community members are what build trusts especially with marginalized communities young people and newcomers our members have taken part in more than 250 community events reaching over 45 000 residents so far this year an increase of about 15% in events and 65% in residents reach compared to last year put simply people are seeing us more talking to us more and getting to know us outside of crisis situations as we continue our organizational transformation service complaints are coming down before this current budget was approved we recorded 65 service complaints in 2023 then 37 in 2024 and nine so far in 2025 with the inspectorate of policing overseeing all public complaints that’s the trajectory we want to see fewer complaints and higher confidence on our professionalism and accountability for the second year in a row london’s crime severity index has dropped in 2023 csi fell by 14% last year it dropped a further 6.9% to 65.89 and we remain below the national average for a second consecutive year that has never happened before for london overall response times continue to improve particularly for emergency calls at the 98th percentile priority run response is now nine minutes and one second improved from nine minutes and 36 seconds in 2024 priority three calls have improved dramatically from roughly 82 hours to 42 hours we did see modest increase in priority two response times about three percent it’s largely due to increased volume and complexity and because we are prioritizing the highest risk calls but compared to pre budget years we are still significantly better positioned we are trending again toward fewer deaths on our roads as of october 31st we have recorded 10 fatal collisions down from 12 last year and 22 the year before a two-year downward trend that reflects increased traffic enforcement visibility in high collision areas working with community including our city partners and focused education campaigns our goal of course remains zero deaths on our roads we did have a concerning recent weekend where six shootings occurred between rival street gangs bringing the year to date total to 28 this is higher than last year and we are not minimizing that the majority are targeted incidents between gang members but the public impact and fear are real and we are listening we are working closely with regional and provincial partners on targeted enforcement intelligence sharing and preventative strategies open air substance use strategy is underway in a sense been April of this year it’s designed to address open drug use and related disorder while connecting people to services to date officers are seizing drugs about nine times a day and almost every seizure involves fentanyl members are responding to about 21 calls a day related to trespassing and drug related disorder officers have encountered 825 different individuals since the strategy began on average officers interact with six different people a day and over 54 of those individuals have had more than one contact with police five individuals alone accounted for an average of 34 interactions each which shows how concentrated some of these challenges are referral rates to services remain low roughly between nine and 26 depending on the partner we’re actively working with health and social service agencies to understand barriers to accepting help and to improve those connections so this doesn’t stay strictly an enforcement driven response our nurse police response team launched in july is still very new but promising the majority of calls so far have involved providing medical care directly in the community reducing the need for police only responses and unnecessary emergency room visits our crisis called diversion initiative is being formally evaluated by the University of Ottawa early results showed that about 60 percent of mental health related calls handled by the crisis called diversion initiative required no police dispatch at all those calls are resolved by clinicians over the phone or through health pathways diverting them from the police system we are progressing with the body war and camera rollout which will support transparency strength and evidence in court and provide clearer records over interactions with the public for both community members and our officers we’re in the process of procuring and implementing biometric screening in ourselves the goal is early identification of medical distress or risk factors to improve safety for people in custody and reduced preventable in south medical emergencies i made it in time sir you made it well ahead of time sir that’s a remarkable improvement in your delivery service time so we do appreciate that and we will now look to colleagues for questions and comments and i think if council roman will take the chair i’ll start off with two questions for you okay thank you i have a mic for now thank you i have the mic the chair go ahead thank you madam presiding officer so i just have two questions in particular to pass along through you to the chief the obviously the gun issue is a concern to everyone and continues to be and i know it’s not just in our city it is happening in communities across the province i know the ontario chiefs association of the chiefs of police have been very vocal about this about the need for bail reform matters federally i’m wondering if you can share with us how many of the gun-related incidents we’ve had in london this year what percentage involve individuals who are already out on bail facing other charges with respect to to weapons crimes thank you i’ll go to the chief you chair and through you what i can tell you with violent crimes especially involving firearms whether it’s a shooting a home invasion a carjacking the majority of individuals who are who have elevated to that level of violence are on some form some form of judicial intern release what that means is they’re either on bail they’re on release facing charges awaiting trial they could be on a probation order they could be on parole the majority the we know that individuals who have escalated to using firearms the majority are on some form of judicial intern release to be marvellous uh thank you madam presiding officer i appreciate that i think that’s important for us to hear as as we continue to advocate with the federal government along with the association of chiefs of police and and the police associations for meaningful reform to our judicial system and and bail considerations in particular but not exclusively bail considerations the other question i had was with respect to the fatal vehicle collisions obviously any time we see those numbers staying low and trending in a positive in a in a lower direction i don’t want to say positive direction because no accident is a positive situation but in a lower number that’s great but i do wonder if a better metric for us to hear might be and i don’t know if you have this but i’m hoping you can indicate to us what we are seeing in terms of interventions with traffic enforcement unit in terms of number of warnings and infractions fines demerit points etc being issued in a calendar year however you might classify those i know some of my residents might think the reason that there’s fewer collisions is because we have so many roads under construction they can’t move anywhere rather than police presence and so i’m just wondering if you can share with us uh what we’ve seen in terms of number of tickets and warnings being issued thank you ago chief chong thank you and through madam presiding officer uh that’s a great question i will share with you that year to date we have a total of over fourteen thousand seven hundred and six traffic tickets issued included within that number are also warnings so for us we’re looking at correcting the behavior whether that behavior involves a traffic stop with a provincial offenses act ticket or a warning that is a corrected behavior for our officers that we feel is very important year to date we have already surpassed all of last year where all of last year involved 14,620 tickets and warns and if i go back to 2023 that total number was 9,546 so we see enforcement there is a correlation in the safety on our roads we know that with enforcement it corrects behavior that we are we are very concerned of and that caused harm to the community we also know that enforcement is not the only the only reason it involves partnerships it involves education involves working with city and city engineers you know what we’re going to do from now i want to pass the chairs i’m going to mute other people after i pass it so that you automatically have the mic um so thank you uh through you madam presiding officer to the chief for those answers i hope maybe uh just my personal comment moving forward if we can have those infraction numbers in future annual updates i think that that’s helpful for the public to see as well and i agree that warnings can be just as valid as as a ticket itself um it’s the correction of the behavior that matters um because we we want to see that behavior uh not just encouraged uh through enforcement but also encouraged through hey you know he he got one strike on this one um let’s not let’s not see you again um i will just say i know a number of us have had an opportunity to do ride-alongs with your officers uh through the course of this calendar year myself included um i’ve seen that sort of traffic interaction as well and i think it’s it’s very very valuable um i so i’m just going to say thank you in particular to the traffic enforcement team um not that we don’t appreciate the work of everybody else but i know i’ve had very positive feedback from the residents in particular around prince charles and seen by a school uh where you’ve had a deployment active at the start of the school year as well as uh some deployments around lord nelson school while there’s been a construction zone there the feedback from the parents has been very positive and so i just wanted to share that with you that the presence of your officers out there especially at the beginning and the end of the school day um well it’s not perhaps as effective as automated speed enforcement um is nonetheless very helpful and appreciated so i just wanted to to highlight that as a positive and i’ll just finish by saying really appreciate the work that everybody has been doing throughout the year i know it’s not an easy job uh i know that your officers go out and put their lives on the line every day uh that their families worry about whether or not they’re going to come home safely at at the end of the day uh and that is appreciated um and so too is the community engagement uh because that does matter i know there’s been a couple of instances where uh you or a member of your team have been out in ward two uh been available for my residents to talk to you and that has been very well received uh and that is a breath of fresh air in comparison to the closed off sort of experience that they’ve had with one employee service in prior years and so uh that continued investment in the community connection i think is very valuable so i just wanted to lead off by sharing those thoughts with you asking those couple of questions uh and i’ll add my comments there thank you i’m returning the chair to you with counselor for rare and counselor mckallister on the list okay well let’s go to counselor for rarer first thank you chair uh welcome chief trom and mr goss chair of the board and your deputy chief’s in the back i appreciate you coming to council it’s chambers and uh speaking us today um i was looking at the report i do see that there’s some good positive trends i know the deputy mayor has asked about uh the shootings but i do want to just kind of follow up on that question um because you know i do see a good positive trend going down but i do see that blip in 2025 so i guess my question would be is that like a new trend or is that just the blip in a positive decline on the use of of weapons chief tromk thank you and chair through you uh excellent question sir that involves what we see is targeted enforcement so i can tell you and i can tell this committee that back in 2024 when we were looking at intelligence in this city we saw potential increases in street gang growth and um back in 24 our strategic response from an investigative side was to look at strengthening our capacity to tackle the potential for increased and i would say stronger street grant street gang presence in in this city there’s two two impacts when we’re looking at protecting the city from street gangs we look at internally the street gangs and the threats that are potentially growing in the city and sometimes street gangs grow within communities when there’s a lack of enforcement or if there’s a lack of police resources to address those street gangs before they they grow you also look at the external factors and the threats to any community there’s always external street gangs and organized crime groups that come into communities and if you are not very strong and deliberate with enforcement that is when you see uh continued concern in in the city i can tell you the increase that we’ve seen over the weekend is uh involves uh street gangs home grown street gangs they’re not street gangs from outside of the city and when we look at how the street gangs started growing it didn’t grow really two years ago although they started getting strong two years ago the growth happened multiple years prior where that was that has been um that has been a concern so for us i think we’re trending in the right direction we’re dealing with the increase and the prevalence of street gangs and what we’ve seen this weekend is a is an example of if communities and um organizations do not work together including with the police you always want to tackle and you want to stop violence from occurring especially in with young people in the growth and the prevalence of young people involved in violent activity today we’re seeing across Canada that young people more and more are growing into and being involved in serious serious violent crime what’s happening in the city quite frankly is a result of years of um i would say our people are doing some incredible work we have great officers and units targeting organized crime but still we have we’ve been under resources under resourced for a very long time that we haven’t been able to fully tackle every single threat and issue in this city our officers are doing the best that they can that is why you see arrests made uh yesterday and and even before that because all of our resources were put on what was happening in in the city and and uh it is no secret for us you had you’re having two rival gangs um respond and react with violence so this is something that this city has not seen but doesn’t mean that it has not been growing and brewing within the city uh counselor for i’m going to come back to you however in my uh urgency to ask that my two questions of the chief i actually forgot to move the motion to receive the presentation will you be willing to move that and counselor hillier will second it thank you we’ll get the clerk to add your two names to the mover and seconder and counselor for our go ahead with your questions and comments thank you chair always happy to help appreciate the answer um i i do follow i guess the homegrown street gang component with younger individuals uh as closely as i can from what i see in the news and i do have concern there um if you would be able to anything that you’d be able to share anyways of why this is occurring what what are the factors that kind of lead to obviously different multiple gangs that you’re speaking to so different independent home grown street level gangs that have grown in the city in the last couple years um so obviously there’s some factors i would assume that are contributing to that i was wondering if you could speak to that or give any information that you’re you’re able to share anyways on what would be the source of that chief traum thank you for the question and chair through you what we’re seeing here is no different than many communities and municipalities we have to invest in young people we have to invest from our side of the house for community part of our strategy is community engagement i’ve mentioned and i’ve showed the numbers there that is part of the strategy for us if you are going to stop and prevent gun violence and young people from getting involved with crime and violence and street gangs you have to have community connection so for our purpose for the police we do everything we can to engage with young people particularly at-risk kids but police cannot do it alone this is why we need community together that’s why we need families to get on board education is important this is one of the areas where you want to tackle the root causes of crime and a lot of the times when you see young people or youths get involved with street gang activity there’s factors that are um that we all know socio-economic status is one of those factors connection to community but also the lack of connection to strong familial and healthy relationships at home so until we fully as a community tackle all those issues and you add in you know particularly other issues of homelessness and mental health and substance use disorder and all of that we know that young people are um attracted and pulled into street gangs from a sense of belonging so that’s one thing that we’re very mindful of that’s why you see our organization with an incredibly strong shift to community engagement and not just attending events but our officers are attending and connecting and making inroads with young people and that is something that you have to invest in and that you don’t see immediately results but if you are strong as a police service and investing in youth and being present available and doing these interactions to build trust and connection with young people that’s one way that our service can do our part to prevent and guide young people away from crime and and gangs in the future you don’t see those returns until five or ten years later but that is something that is very important that you have to do as a police service and we can’t do it without community we can’t do without the organizations working with us that’s why we’re very we work very closely with with the city and we work closely with with many organizations but our part specifically when you’re dealing with street gangs and you’re dealing with violence enforcement is a must enforcement must be swift because we know the individuals responsible for the most harm in the violence in the city whether they’re adults or youths there’s a small number that are responsible for the most harm and if you do not act swiftly and as quickly as you can with enforcement you’re leaving the threat out there in the community so thank you chair appreciate that answer um i like i i definitely have to make comments on the communication the communication has increased significantly since i guess you have been manning the controls especially with kind of responses or feedback i get from the general community at large even my own general experience if an incident happens one of your officers is calling me giving me a briefing or a rundown or a debrief i guess so i do appreciate that so i do see that the communication is a big aspect here especially the soft type of policing the preventative type of policing that is is the intent so i would assume i guess your community policing unit like the core unit is has been expanded um and things like that i guess uh and i’m i guess i i appreciate you referring to that as project wrangler i think it was that you’re speaking to that i saw and there’s a whole bunch of different um police departments all working together in coordination and i know there’s a big aspect to that um so i guess my i got a couple questions but i just want to ask this one um when it comes to i guess the prohibited or legal firearms that are coming in i’m assuming that’s obviously not coming from within the country um i was just wondering the the method on how to restrict that coming in because i would assume and this is assumption you can correct me i guess in your answer but um i guess a lot of the shootings that we have just been speaking about are being used with illegal or prohibited firearms so i wonder if i could get anything that you can share on that on um how how will uh what would the source is being of where that’s coming in and what type of counter measures are we taking to reduce that and combat that chief traum pick you chair and through you another great question we know that the majority of firearms that are used in to commit crime we would call them crime guns the majority of them are typically from the united states they’re smuggled into canada across our borders and then then into communities we’re trending right now with our handguns almost 80% of all firearms this year have been traced back to the united states the historical data for our service is between 80 and 90% and those numbers are aligned with the national numbers of crime guns in canada the the response to what is happening is stronger border controls on our side of the house we know that there are so so many firearms and contraband going into coming into canada from the united states there needs to be full on resources and and investment at the border to stop the illegal flow of firearms this is not new this has been widely advocated by the Canadian Association of chiefs of police also advocated amongst the Ontario Association of chiefs of police there’s been lots of lobbying and requests for stronger sentences no stronger legislation to ensure that resources are at our borders we know that we have to work with our federal partners in the RCMP CBSA and as well as although we’re london we have to invest in joint force operations and make sure that we are able to support those projects to stop the firearms coming into canada councilor furra Thank you I appreciate that answer I’ll leave my questions for there I just want to make some final comments I appreciate the work that you guys are doing that the whole police services that are doing I should say I really appreciate the communication I’ve definitely noticed an uptick on that communication I really appreciate how reachable you are especially your chair of the board every time I call you your you answer so I appreciate that a lot and I guess I’ll close off my comments with I still want that ride along so if we can set that up please take me along and I’ll I’ll yield it back to you thank you Jim thank you council furra and I see deputy chief gilford noting furiously back there that you’re looking for a ride along spot so uh councilor mccallister you’re next thank you through the chair uh yeah just echo the thanks uh appreciate coming today providing all this information is very valuable I’m sure the public appreciate it as well um I’ll kind of shift my line of questioning because I think a lot of the questions especially on the gun violence kind of where you can ask but just to add to what council furra said even as we’re speaking I mean I got a call about one of the shoot I guess one of mine was one of the six shootings from the other day but yeah keeping us in the loop very appreciative of that um and it’s great just to be on our understand when we have those community conversation what’s going on because I do think that that actually alleviates some of the fears we hear from the community I wanted to shift some of my questions more to the traffic side um I mean to date obviously we’ve had the automated traffic enforcement um I know councilor uh deputy mayor lewis kind of alluded to the school zones and I’m just wondering in terms of um you know the police have kind of benefited from having those automated cameras I know is that discussion was having happening provincially obviously uh you know police chiefs were behind having that automation and I’m just wondering moving forward to uh you know ensure compliance and not having those automated features um are you gonna have to kind of shift your focus are you gonna invest in automated um you know speed cameras are you gonna have more traffic officers how are you gonna kind of reallocate resources to keep those numbers where you want to see them chief chon uh thank you chair and through you so road safety is one of our top priorities we’ve heard from the community it’s a community concern one of the major performance metrics for us and the indicators and what determined if we’re on the right track is the fatal motor vehicle collisions and the reduction uh that we are aiming for we’re aiming for zero deaths on our roads in our community um many people will say that that’s impossible to achieve I actually believe that we will be able to get there and I think we need to strive to get there the way to get there for us is to continue to work with the city look at engineering looking at looking at design looking at data to drive how we deploy and for us as an organization and and I’ll share with this um committee you may or may not know next year we will be in a good place to reorganize uh reorg and do a proper reorg and uh for the organization to look at how we can address all the priorities in the city and the reorg will involve direct and deliberate action for enforcement and continued enforcement where we’re actually we will that is one of our goals to increase enforcement efforts so the statistics and the traffic stops and the and the and the tickets that we’ve reported in the performance metrics report really should increase significantly so uh with that reorg involves a reorg or revamp on our strategic plan for road safety and that all comes into place there so there’s a lot of things that are happening next year the organization’s been going through some incredible rapid change I can say that we’re we’re moving very quickly our members are working very hard and diligently we do our best to address the needs of the community more importantly to keep the community safe communicate to the community better communicate within but sometimes we get it wrong and uh we know that when we get it wrong on certain things we have to learn from it and pivot and see how we can do better uh having said that in a roundabout way to your to your question enforcement remains a priority for us you will still see prior uh enforcement in school zones but more importantly from an overview perspective on how we deploy we look at the data and we look at the top 20 intersections in the city and that drives our decision-making process on how we deploy when we deploy and what that looks like so and we’re very responsive as well uh into understanding the community concerns so next year we should be in a better position to obtain information from the counselors here about respective areas of concern in your in your awards as well as reducing the barriers for the community to report to us and making it easier for them to report road safety concerns to us and if they are able to report that to us and where we have a more systematic way of polluting that data we’ll be able to address those concerns better counselor mccallister thank you through the chair appreciate that answer yeah i think my concern was just as the you know provincial policy shifts and numerum there might have to be some resource allocation but um you know recognize in the strain that might put you under and maybe conversations can be had with the province so you know you’re not disadvantaged and having to reallocate your resources uh in a way which you know might take away from one area to have to redeploy for traffic um another area i want to discuss and i appreciate um in terms of the the community um involvement i see the officers at a lot of different events i know that’s appreciated um different community organizations i’ve mentioned that um but one area where i i still hear frequently that um just speaking from my area specifically that i still see some room for growth especially from businesses i think businesses still struggle in terms of um you know maybe the response time could be a bit better but also um we’re still investing in in private security which is not an ideal situation and i do think that there are some hot spots areas outside of what we traditionally consider the core which still could have more police presence um i mean they’ll keep asking me that’s something i was asked um my my my BIA members to again bring up is uh foot patrols are always asked for you know it might not be best use of some of your resources but there are some areas where visibility is key and we are still having to devote private resources to that which is not ideal so um just food for thought for you know future planning there’s still some areas where i think they could really benefit from an increased police presence which would really help uh in terms of the we’re having to invest in uh i did also just want to say um as a comment and i’m just curious your thoughts um you know police involvement with CIR um how you’ve seen that work to date and if you see any room for improvement moving forward um to ensure that we’re um dealing with encampments appropriately when police are required uh that they’re available and that there can be a good coordination with that team. Steve Tran thank you and share through you well let me say uh the people and the members responsible for CIR are doing difficult and challenging work and we do everything we can to support them i i commend the city staff who are formed the CIR team and and supervise those individuals it is a tough job out there a lot of the work that and a lot of the calls and responses that we have traditionally received as a police service really is not a police response or requires a police response but somebody needs to respond so CIR is doing that heavy lift and they’re doing very important work where it becomes challenging for members and i certainly don’t want to speak for the members but from what i see is that sometimes situations are um not comfortable they’re not comfortable and sometimes they’re not safe and and particularly if CIR members are responding to incidents where safety is a concern and they’re not equipped trained and comfortable then they should call us and i know that they do call us when appropriate and we do our best to make sure that we support the members of city staff but i would encourage and i would support additional training for the officers or the CIR team ensuring that they’re resource properly and ensure that they’re supported to continue to do the difficult work that is on the street sir mccallister thank you no i appreciate that and i you know i’ve had many conversations with our CIR team i think where i just see some like and some work for improvement is as we’ve seen with you know some of the other teams like with the coast program when you are able to partner with you know different agencies whether that’s health care or the outreach teams i think that there is room to have coordinated teams having a police presence i think one of the things i often hear is a lot of our team we don’t have enforcement powers and sometimes there are criminal elements as well that need to be dealt with and you know again city staff are not necessarily qualified or capable of doing those things and i think having perhaps a dedicated person who could coordinate would make that maybe a bit smoother but yeah again i just wanted to provide some feedback on that again appreciate the presentation and all the information you’ve provided today i think it’s very useful and i always look forward to to hearing how things are going so thank you thank you counselor trussow and just so everyone’s aware these speakers list is growing we have counselor trussow counselor cuddy and counselor frank counselor trussow thank you very much through the chair thank you for your report and i i do i i do want to acknowledge that i’m getting positive feedback from many of my ward residents in terms of the improved communications that they that they’re noticing both in terms of traffic but also but also generally i won’t go into detail about that but it is it is noted and appreciated it’s not in your report but i do have to raise an issue that’s bothering me a little bit and that is my sense is it’s not a good use of your staff’s time to be taking noise complaints and that and that this is a burden on your on your on your on your intake system and i don’t expect a response or a resolution today but i do do want to put this on your radar that i feel as if um if there are known dangerous properties um i think code enforcement could could could be more proactive in terms of figuring out what they what they are but to to have every single noise complaint including a loud stereo i have to go through um the police line just to me seems to be not a good use of your resources and i would like to see that um addressed at some point um it’s not it’s not in your report i mean looking at some of the things that you’re doing just reinforces my feeling about this and i don’t know if if if you were mr may there’s have any comments but i just wanted to put that out there east Toronto thank you chair and through you uh that’s great comments or i’ll say with our service as we continue to modernize the organization what we’ve done with noise complaints is if they are noise complaints they go to the city and and bylaw staff respond to those complaints so we don’t actually respond to noise complaints when we do respond to noise complaints is when those come in and the addresses or the individuals involved in the noise complaints if there is a concern of any of any relevance uh for to us or for city staff we will engage with bylaw and we will we will respond either together or will be a police response now where the difficulty comes in it it is a long standing um address where it is uh continued noise complaints that drives services that that drives resource allocations to that area where it it is uh challenging for us and i think what you you’re highlighting counselor is uh for us to continue those communications with our people and look at problem solving in community based policing responses on how we essentially identified those specific addresses or individuals and how to deal with that and to use resources more efficiently and appropriately if the response is simply city or bylaw i’m a very big supporter of if we want our people to do their job safely and appropriately and a good job they need to be resource properly they need to have the right training they need to be there needs to be investment in their training equipment and in making sure that they’re safe to do their job thank you thank you thank you counselor trust all i’m just gonna ask you to hold for a moment i just want to see if mr mathers wanted to add anything from the bylaw perspective and i’m seeing him shaky his head no so we’ll go back to you counselor trust that uh that’s all i have thank you counselor cutty i have you next thank you chairman through you and i don’t have a question just have a comment to the chief and in chief in your presentation you mentioned the uh the nurse reaction team which uh i had an opportunity with you this summer when we were on our annual bike ride to see firsthand and many of my colleagues probably don’t know about it so if you wanted to talk to to them about that you could but i just wanted to to mention that during my during our bike ride and i think they’d only been in place for a few months at that stage but i actually had an opportunity to see it firsthand with you how quickly and effectively they reacted in conjunction with your team very very impressive more so i’m on the uh LMHU board and i really didn’t have a clue as to what they were at the time because we hadn’t been informed but i i did tell dr severs afterwards how effective and impressed i was by how they reacted with your team and how quickly they reacted to to the to the condition of the situation so uh thank you thank you for all the work you do thank you for coordinating with with all of our citizens and thank you for cooperating with our other departments and other boards to uh you know to bring health and safety and and security to to everybody so and uh i look forward to our bike ride next year again too by the way so thank you counselor cuddy and counselor frank i have you next thank you and through the chair i appreciate you coming again to speak with us uh i had a couple questions so i’m wondering how many new officers are we getting a year now and how many do we get in 2023 2024 and this year chief trawl thank you chair and through you um counselor i’ll i’ll say that we have we have um incredible support from the solicitor general we have incredible support from the interior police college where we saw seats previously you know share with you in 2020 we received eight seats at the interior police college as you know policing is a required function in society um a lot of police services are having difficulty with recruiting and hiring and retaining much difficult to be a police officer today than it was 20 years ago lots of challenges in policing has become very complex in 2021 we had 30 seats at the interior police college for the entire year in 2022 we had 42 seats and um usually when you get seats at the interior police college you are really begging and pleading for seats because every police service is vying for those seats and a lot of the times when you see under resource police services especially in the GTA Toronto appeal where you see commitment from their city and their police board with 300 officers etc it has impact for all of the other police services i’m happy to share that uh last year or this year alone we had um 72 new officers so far now 67 of them were offered seats at the interior police college that includes the curtain officers that are down there now receiving the training with that there’s five experienced officers that we hired this year if you look at last year we had 62 seats their unprecedented seat allocations for us from the support quite frankly from the province and the support from our police service board and then we had eight experienced officers last year in addition to the um new officers that were sent to the interior police college and in 2023 we had 40 new officers 40 seats and four experienced officers sir frank thank you um great so it sounds like there’s a big hiring push there as we know that was the intention so it’s good to hear um i also know so the crime severity uh graph that was shown it was starting to trend downwards in 2022 and 2023 so i’m just wondering if um LPS is attributing that to their work or now moving 2024 forward if that’s now going to be um something that LPS will be attributing to the work that they’re doing in the community chief chong thank you chair and through you that’s a great question counselor is it possible to get that graph back on the screen if i can draw your attention your specific question counselor is that um looking at 2022 we saw a decrease in crime severity index your your question is respect to the drop in 2022 and then 23 and 24 we’ve seen two consecutive years that i had spoke of so the reason why i highlight 2023 and 24 although 2022 we saw a decrease is that if you look at the trend line you’ll see increases and decreases amongst the crime severity index for london but what you’ve never ever seen is that our crime severity index has ever dropped below the national average and that’s the that’s the measure that we’re we’re utilizing services will go up and down but you have to measure the average across national and provincial averages so we’ve never experienced we’ve never dropped this low and quite frankly this is the lowest crime severity index marker for london since that statistics canada introduced crime severity reporting so those are significant amongst uh 2022 now i would say that it’s not one thing that we are doing uh that contributes to that but i would say it’s the fact of everything that we are doing as an organization and transforming as an organization not only internally but externally with the community and what we’re doing with community and for community and that is why you see such drastic drastic improvements in crime severity index i do expect to be seeing decreases as well although it is very optimistic you will you will note that the increase in shootings this year will not help the crime severity index having said that i’m very optimistic that we continue to do what we had said that we were going to do and we’ll continue to um drive the crime severity index down thank you counselor frank thank you yes i think we’re all hoping it continues in this trajectory um and also the other side that showed the call times you don’t need to show it but i just want to say kudos to seeing those come down as well i know that that was one of the big indicators that we are working towards so appreciate the work that yourself and your team have done um and i’m wondering you highlighted a bunch of non-officer based interventions in your presentation so the mental health call responders that are at the 9-1-1 dispatch special constables the nurse team and i’m wondering um moving forward well the the um i don’t use i don’t know if it’s inappropriate but the cop to pop ratio i know sometimes you guys use it i i don’t know use police officer population ratio well that still be one of the um kind of indicators for uh like a healthy police service given that you’re using all these other interventions crime severity is going down call times are going down um is that still one of the the um the ratio numbers that you guys are still hoping to achieve keep trom thank you chair and through you another great question from one of my favorite counselors um yeah we have to use that now and i’ll and i’ll tell you why we have to use that as not this sole indicator but it has to be considered because the city is continues to grow our community continues to grow at such a rapid rapid pace if we are not aware that we have to grow as a police service to service the community and the greater community that we have we’re going to be in dire um dire spots in in the future and um you know as i already alluded about the shootings that happened um over the weekend those shootings are a result of lack of police resources over the last decade or so and you see from our organization all the investments and all the work that our people are doing in the last couple years you’ve seen seizures uh historic amounts of seizures of fentanyl and firearms that we are getting in this city we’re taking off the streets and really preventing harm and and deaths in this community but because we’re focusing on organized crime the greater um sophisticated organized crime networks in our organization in our city we haven’t been able to focus and put rough resources because we simply don’t have the resources to put at the street level threats that we’re seeing that quite frankly exploded this weekend so um it comes to resources and the cop-to-pop ratio is actually very important to us it’s not the only measure counselor but it is something where you you see policing is very complex for us to investigate a theft today is probably five or six times longer than it was 20 years ago with the amount of evidence that we have to gather and the digital evidence that we have to gather and their disclosure obligations and the disclosure protocols that were governed under the Jordan timelines from the uh Supreme Court um there’s a lot of work that goes into it and if we are not mindful that we have to continue to invest in and resource our organization properly we’re going to be in a bad spot for this community thank you counselor frank thank you appreciate the um fulsome answers you’re providing uh i’m wondering additionally i know that in previous delegations you had committed to doing a chief’s community advisory council and quarterly public crime reports and i’m just wondering when we can be expecting both those things chief traum thank you chair and through you you don’t forget anything hey counselor well um so i’m happy to report that i had shared to our police service board the plans for uh community advisory council uh that we’re forming we’re hoping to uh to get it going early next year as well as a chief’s um youth community advisory council to really uh help inform us as a police service on how we can do better and understand the needs of the community both from the youth and the uh community that we serve but also for us to use these councils um to help us when we’re looking at driving change and we want to voice and direct access to myself or the deputy chiefs so that is coming and we’re well underway you will see very shortly uh calls for applications and the ability for the community as well as youth to make application online through our website they’ll be messaging uh by by way of social media that will come out on all platforms and we’re hoping to get that going within the first quarter of next year um and i’ll also update you counselor that um we had hoped to have a new website and public facing website with dashboards to show um prime and real-time um accessibility for the community unfortunately we’re gonna have to wait till next year for that there’s a number of reasons why there is a delay there’s a procurement uh issue for us when we’re looking at online reporting one of the things we’re trying to do better is ensure that the community has access and they can report whether it’s crime complaints concerns to us uh much more easy we’ve heard this from the community and the online platform is one way uh to address that and um through procurement we’re we’re in the the mix of getting that off the ground early next year and because we have procured that platform we’re in we’re still in the mix of um addressing and modernizing our website so we’re trying to make sure that they integrate with respect to the dashboards about crime and the accessibility it all falls into the same and um and our priority this year was onboarding with the provincial bail dashboard for firearms offenders or individuals that were in community on firearms related offenses so um that was our priority and that’s some of the reasons why things have been slowed down but um in january by mid-January end of january we will be fully um on board for our provincial dashboard that will allow our officers to deal with what you have just experienced over the weekend of uh gun crime and uh street gangs in a much more efficient way health sir frank thank you appreciate that and i never forget a good idea so uh if you bring good ideas here we’ll we’ll remember them um the only last question i had before a couple comments was just in regards to i know that there’s been some discussion about improving hate crime reporting and making it more easy and i’m just wondering if that is part of the same reporting mechanism that you’re talking about if we’ll see that in the next year tief traum thank you chair and through you yes absolutely counselor that is what um um effectively the entire community has asked for um and mechanism to report hate crimes better and not only just hate crimes but a mechanism to report concerns to us we know hate crimes is an underreported crime and an underreported situation that impacts not only individuals but greater communities and our community alike so um the ability for for the community to report online and the access that they will be able to whether whether it be on their phones or on computer that is um well underway and that we’re hoping to have that in the first quarter of next year counselor frank thank you that exhaust all my questions you’ve survived and i just wanted to say thank you i um i have heard many positive responses from my residents in regards to the work at LPS has been doing in the community and in particular in regards to trying to address some hate crimes that are happening across the city but also again in my area uh and appreciate the work that um your team was able to do in response to some of the issues happening on the worthy bridge so just wanted to say thank you and um appreciate the work that you’re doing and your entire team is doing thank you counselor frank i’ve known also on the speaker’s list oh counselor privilege thank you and uh chief i have a couple of questions for you in regards to what you addressed previously and one of them was for example the alternate response for mental health calls and mental health workers and experts embedding them into the 9-1-1 dispatch and was wondering if there is any progress or what’s the update on that part and also you mentioned l_s_ l_h_c_c_m_h_a_c_m_h_n_ op-k_s_ changing adjustings and introducing alternate models so if you could please update us on those two things chief traum thank you chair and through you yes uh great uh great question counselor so we have uh we’re well underway for the crisis call diversion initiative that we’ve taken on it really started this year where we have crisis workers and uh mental health professionals embedded in our communication center so what happens is when calls come in that do not require a police response and involves mental health mental health supports and assistance um our call takers and our dispatchers look at that call if it meets the criteria where requires a police response such as there’s a crime occurring or somebody’s safety is in jeopardy that will not be diverted to the crisis call um experts in incidences where people and individuals call for assistance oftentimes people are in crisis if it doesn’t meet public safety issues and if there’s an opportunity to ensure that caller has access to a professional that call will then be diverted to our crisis call diversion uh experts and they will deal with that caller over the phone oftentimes they provide resources they listen they provide assistance um and they deal with that from a mental health perspective versus dispatching a police car there so that’s well underway that has been we’ve been piloting that since January this is um being looked at and studied that uh by the University of Ottawa so Ottawa is looking at collecting the data and the statistics working with CMHA and working with us and we’re hoping to see a a one-year report to look at how effective it is what we need to pivot on how we can make sure um that it is uh effective efficient and really the efficacy of it so preliminary information on what we have is that the calls that are are diverted to the crisis call diversion experts 60 percent of those calls are serviced right then and there by mental health professionals the flip side is about 40 percent of those calls that have been diverted still required a police response so um those numbers are pretty promising for us but we’re still awaiting a full uh review and um external um lens on that with respect to our partnerships with lhsc that is uh you were called last year when i came before this committee i had talked about the intention to um introduce the nurse police response teams although nothing was concrete i had um thanked uh David Muschay from lhsc about for his commitment uh to get this off the ground and he and i can’t thank him and his team enough for supporting us and working with our executive and our senior leadership team to get this off the ground and this is where you see is part of the presentation that i had shared now we have um a few months ago was when it first came in in july uh counselor cuddy uh this is what you spoke about sir uh where you have the nurses teamed on foot with our officers and primarily what all the majority of the work that they have been doing is providing primary medical care right in the community and it’s been very successful so far they’re treating individuals uh in our community they’re bringing health care right into the community because as you know the situation that we have in our city with um the unhoused mental health and and when you look at um substance use disorder there’s a lot of individuals that should be going and uh to get medical care and and they’re not so this effectively has is having a decrease um on and pressure on our emergency room departments as well as um reducing calls for service from not only the police but for the city in and of itself where we want to go right now is we want to make sure that we keep this initiative although it’s very soon it’s only a couple months and we’re still looking at the data and the efficacy of it and how we can do better but preliminary it’s a very promising initiative and partnership with lhse we still have lhse at the home with us supporting um our efforts with coast but where we want to go and where we really want to look at is potentially having a partnership with the ability to have a medical professional or a nurse embedded right into our cells in our detention unit that will complement our biometric sensors that we’re well underway of procuring to make sure that individuals in our custody are protected and um that and that they’re safe our officers are not medical professionals they’re police officers we need some professionals to support us especially with the community that we’re serving here in london answer purple thank you for the announcement glad to hear those positive results the other mentioned topic you mentioned was um violence against women and girls and that there will be certain increased initiatives can please comment on that keep strong thank you chair and through you so we know domestic violence and intimate partner violence is not only uh an issue here in the city it’s a it’s a real live issued including femicide across Canada and internationally here in london on average we receive 19 calls per day with respect to intimate partner violence 19 of those calls every single day is what our officers respond to now within those 19 calls every day roughly on average you’re averaging between five and six arrests for each call so each call we we have 19 calls per day our officers arresting individuals between five and six times now if you do the math that equates to well over five thousand calls a year for intimate partner violence alone if i’m doing my math correctly it’s around seven thousand calls with respect to intimate partner violence or domestic violence then if you look at the percent of times that we make arrests which is you know in your 20-20 percent or so you’re looking at 80 percent of the calls where there’s no police follow up so one of the initiatives that we are trying to embark on is we know what to do when we attend a call where there’s a criminal offense that has occurred we know what to do we make those arrests and it’s very difficult for the survivor and the victims to go through the court process and that’s where we rely upon victim services and our members attached to victim services and community groups that are working in violence against women every need but one needs to come together in those circumstances but traditionally what is happening is if there’s no arrests for us we walk away we offer victim services and supports and typically that family that wife that mom that lady does not accept the refer does not accept the referral or support so one of the initiatives that we’re looking at is how do we better serve those individuals and families that would otherwise have no contact with us again unless the second or third or six or seven time result results in victimization so we’re we have put together some proposals to the provincial government looking for looking to support some real different initiatives for us and I should be hearing very soon sir on how the support may or may not come from the provincial government but we have a plan to integrate many great organizations out there that are in community doing this type of work so that when we respond and there’s no arrests made or no police intervention that we’re not just turning our backs and letting those families in those victims potential victims strive or thrive on their own so with this initiative and this plan in place now it’s working with our community and community partners and responding and providing and sharing information because the sharing of information from legislation has always been a barrier but we’re trying to put a new initiative in place that although there is no arrests our officers walk away with making sure we communicate very clearly and share all the information that we need so that the community groups can go in and really try to provide support but we know the referral rates are always a challenge but this is a new initiative that we’re very excited about we’re just looking for some support from the provincial government to to resource this initiative it’s brand new it has not been done here in this city or organization we’re very excited about it the other thing that we’re doing to address gender-based violence and intimate partner violence and femicide is that you will recall we’re continuing on this path with making sure that our officers are cross-trained we did not have 24-hour response prior to this multi-year budget this multi-year budget is supporting the training of new officers and dedicated 24-hour response to gender-based violence and domestic violence calls prior to the the budget we had a domestic violence unit what we’re going to be doing with the domestic violence unit is staffing that unit to make sure that they investigate high risk domestic violence cases and within with the multi-year budget with their service delivery change in the next two years we’ll have 24-hour coverage and officers that will continue to increase their capacity to investigate crimes against women thank you Councillor Pribble thank you for another positive update last week when our standing committee we had a proposal or our actual assigned agreement mou between police and city of London regarding one voice and my question to you is how are we maximizing opportunities between LPS and our emergency services sorry emergency management and security services how are we maximizing our opportunities throughout not just kind of a once ad hoc throughout the years throughout uh what are the what are the initiatives we take on to maximize the opportunities chief tron thank you chair and through you i’ll say that i know city staff is incredibly busy um there’s a lot going on in the city lots of changes lots of work that they’re doing each and every day it’s no different than my staff and my team everyone is doing a lot of work because everybody is busy with change because everybody is busy reactive because in our or in our world of policing a lot of what we do is reacting the challenge is to be proactive and that is difficult to do easy to say how do we maximize and work better together involves really our senior leadership connecting making the time to connect with city staff in emergency management and trying to carve out time to look at efficiencies and do things better for the next five ten years as as you stated i think i can speak for ourselves especially for us for the last two years we have been undergoing so much change and reaction with trying to really transform the organization that we haven’t been able to fully carve out that time and i think for us it’s a matter of both sides sitting down and making sure that we look at really strategically planning and i think that we can do we can certainly do that better but i will say that our relationship with city staff especially paul out of store in our in our deputy chiefs we have a very very good relationship with city staff where we’re trying to both work and accomplish the same goals thank you thank you i’m glad that the cooperation is good and you work closely i do hope that we’ll get both your staff and our staff will get into the mode that we can get more and more proactive and potentially maximize even more our opportunities i have lost comment thank you very much to you and your team i have numerous examples when it comes to crime enforcement speed safety both in my work and downtown i truly believe we are on the right path yes we still have a long way to go but really both from the residents and myself the feedback is positive let’s stay on this path and let’s let’s hope we get to do less reactive more proactive and your success is making it the director reflects into a better city for all of us and i want to thank you for that and to your entire team thank you council provol i have councilor plows the next and then councilor stevenson thank you mr chair uh comment through you uh the chief uh thank you for being here glad that uh council had done the motion that you can come annually now and talk to us so procedurally we’ve done that so really appreciate this annual update there’s the new initiative of officers in the east and to be able to hop on and off uh let in transit commission buses looking to see if you could provide any feedback with that new operation how it’s going how public perception’s been chief trump thank you chair and through you uh great uh great question councilor i will say anecdotally that there’s incredible feedback there’s a strong support for our officers to be on the buses and um and in those areas particularly there hasn’t been to my knowledge any major issues or concerns uh the bus drivers i can tell you um from myself being on there they’re very appreciative and they encourage us to be uh on the buses now when our officers are on the buses they’re not on the street so we try to balance uh balance those resources and try to make sure that our officers are on the buses uh when appropriate and um what i’ve seen more and more so is that the bus drivers traveling along the routes are seeing our officers on the street they’re making eye contact they’re they’re waving and um uh it gives them the ability to stop the bus should there be any concerns so uh i have not uh received any um data um or um evidence to support uh how it’s going but uh for the most part uh very positive answer plosa thank you um through you as it was a new initiative uh between the two joint organizations do you anticipate that there will be an update between the two organizations that council could be made privy to of how it went or as it continues chief chon thank you chair and through you yeah that can absolutely be uh be done for sure councilor plosa thank you just wanted to highlight i know that uh this council made a large investment of uh resident uh property tax money into the london police hearing from residents that they really do see a difference that response times have reduced that they’re seeing officers proactively in the neighborhood having had three kids um two out of high school one currently in high school it’s been the first time that my son ever come home and said there was an officer on our bus at the beginning of school year um which was a positive experience they gave out slash he keep on to the kids but a great experience to break down some barriers and to change that perception that officers are there to actually assist uh proactively so thank you for that um want to thank you for your officers who come out to the ward meetings having discussions about youth gang activity and what the community response can be um both from a city side and resident side of creating that sense of community and belonging there’s lots of work to be done and happy that we’re doing partnerships on this thank you thank you councilor plosa councilor stevenson thank you and thank you to you and uh everyone at london police service for all that you do um as you know there’s a few neighborhoods in our city that uh you know are dealing with frequent break-ins uh frequent drug use witnessing prostitution things like that i’m looking forward to sharing with them the new online reporting that is coming that’s going to make that easier but i hear from residents that they’re not reporting whether it’s frustration with the process frustration with how often they would have to do it or you know they they consider it small in the scheme of the shootings that we’ve been dealing with they’re not going to be filing with their insurance because it’s so repetitive and so sometimes too they think they’re doing the police a favor by just not burdening them with the things that they’re dealing with in their neighborhood unless it’s really extreme so i just wondered if you had anything to say to those residents chief trom thank you chair and through you great uh great question and comment counselor um let me first say this um while i’m here because i’m here once a year this council supported the budget and our police service board supported the budget and ultimately you’re supporting public safety and i i want to thank city council and the mayor for supporting our budget i have to take us back to why we asked for a budget and support because for well over 10 years our police service has been under resourced and understaffed incredibly to the point where i’ll remind city council that in 2023 we were the most understaffed police service in the province with respect to municipalities greater than a hundred thousand only in behind Ottawa police so by the end of this four-year multi-year budget we still will be below the national and provincial average for cop-to-pop ratio why i say that is because of all the great things and the positive direction we’re moving in all the great results that the community is seeing we have a long way to go one of the biggest fixes that we’re trying to change and that we’ve been changing is the new service delivery model that’s not one thing it’s everything we do as an organization and by the end of this year this will be two years in to a four-year plan we’re halfway there i’m very proud of all the work of our members everybody on the front line both sworn and civilian police professionals but there’s a lot more we need to go we’re going to continue to stay the course we’re going to continue to push we’re going to continue to address and fix all these challenges that’s the commitment that my deputy chiefs and myself give to you from a leadership perspective your residents are and the concerns raised are similar to many in the community in what this revolves around again it’s quite frankly we’re trying to fix being under resourced and understaffed and we’re trying to turn around an entire service from changing the service delivery model it still will take us to the end of the four-year plan to get on good solid footing although we see great results now imagine what we’re going to see after the four years so i would encourage your residents and your constituents counselor to continue to report to us don’t not report we need you to report we’re going to make sure that it’s going to be easier and accessible with the online platform with our new website that’s going to be integrated with that and then so that when they report and as we adjust and change our service delivery model we’ll be responsive and we’ll be able to respond to even those menial calls including the serious ones so i would encourage them to continue to support or to continue to report and we’re going to continue to try and make sure that we are very aware and attentive of the concerns but for all the counselors here if there’s any constituents and issues that are occurring in your respective wards that are at priority and end of a major concern we welcome the communication we welcome the connection with us so that we can uh solve and address those issues thank you counselor Stevenson that’s good thank you okay i have no one else on the speakers list counselor van mierbergen thank you chair and thank you excuse me thank you chief for what you’re doing every day and for being here today and giving us this update i think most of us can agree that the average londoner comes up against barbaric anti-social behavior on the roads when they’re driving and i have to say it’s become palpable that the police service is actually out there i think from the first time in a few years that i’ve seen cars pulled over with an officer um writing a ticket we’re starting to see actual proactive policing on the road system um would you agree with that and can we look forward to an ever increasing level of traffic enforcement as we go forward well counselor i’m not going to ask the chief to agree or disagree with your viewpoint i’m not going to ask him to wait into political positions but i will ask him if he wants to comment on uh where traffic enforcement is going thank you chair and through you uh that’s a great uh it’s a great question counselor i’ll tell you where we’re going in terms of vision wise so you will recall before city councils supported our four-year plan the call queue for our officers was anywhere between two and three hundred calls in the queue it’s not a secret or officers would come to work and they would be going call to call to call and the norm of calls waiting to be serviced were always roughly in the two hundreds or even the high 100 calls for the last little while we’ve been able to bring down the call queue where we’re seeing instead of 200 calls we’re seeing it less than 50 or 60 calls waiting to be serviced now the vision is to get the call queue non-existent basically when our officers come into work if there’s a manageable amount of calls waiting which is normal for most police services to have 10 or 20 calls waiting the officers would respond to those calls clear out those calls and the rest of their time would be left waiting for emergency and priority calls so that they are able to get to our citizens quickly as possible the rest of the time when there’s no call queue the expectation is for officers to be proactive in the community have the ability to stop their car and go on foot not just in the downtown midtown or oldies village but do foot patrols right across the city and have them and encourage them to do that and connect with our community we know that connection with community is incredibly important and it’s a deterrent with crime when they’re seen all over the city if our officers are able to be proactive they’re able to do things such as street enforcement road enforcement road safety blitzes ride checks stop signs enforcement speed enforcement that is the vision that’s where we’re we’re headed counselor we’re going to get there you will see officers more proactive and continued proactive on our roads visibly conducting enforcement.

Sir Van Mirberg it’s great thank you thank you for that. Looking for other speakers seeing none then I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Sir Plows the votes yes closing the vote motion carries 14 to 0. Thank you colleagues and thank you chief and deputy chiefs for your time today uh and to miss Santos for crawling them all and making them sure they all got here um much appreciated uh and mr.

Goss for your time although I understand you won’t be going anywhere because we will be moving on to items for direction colleagues and our next item for direction 4.1 is the London hydro affiliate item uh and we do have a delegation request from mr. Semcedini from London hydro uh we also have the uh VP legal London hydro uh submission uh that was added to your agenda uh that I trust everybody has had an opportunity to review as well so we’ll look for a uh actually one moment we don’t need a motion for the delegation because this was this delegation is in response to a direct previous direction from council uh so mr. Semcedini if you want to come to the uh podium um and want to give us an opportunity to or provide us with a quick overview uh you are welcome to start when you’re ready thank you for having me today first I just like to start off with some thank you’s uh thank you the city manager deputy city manager of legal services and also the deputy city manager of financial supports uh there’s a lot of work put in by this team to try to turn this report around the report that you have in front of you is a shareholder declaration that declaration is based on the approved shareholder declaration for London hydro that was approved by this council about a month ago um going through that process and some of the discussions I had I know there was a question about the five million dollar spending limit so I thought I would address that in my comments uh that spending limit is the same limit that exists for London hydro today so we simply kept that spending limit across both organizations as a way to keep consistency uh the other thing around that spending limited as well as we’ve sort of verified that spending limit uh with other utilities of like size and it’s actually probably on the lower side uh what you know when utility we talked to was about five million dollars another one we talked to was about fifty million dollars and another one had a limit much higher than that before they needed to go to council for approval so just looking at the uh presentation that was provided there and it just gives you a sense that we did our due diligence to get a sense of the the sizing and took a conservative view and what we brought here to council today uh the other comments I would make about uh what we presented here today is we’ve still kept that concept of no air uh both organizations report directly to the city council there’s a board of directors there but there is not uh you’re not losing sort of the oversight between yourselves or London hydro or yourself and the uh services company as presented so I just wanted to uh say those things thank you for your consideration in this topic and I’m happy to take any questions on what was provided thank you mr. Simcedini uh so I’m going to look to see if there’s a mover council ramen and a seconder and council cutty uh for the recommendation that’s before us on the agenda and now I will look to start a speaker’s list seeing none then I’m going to ask the clerk to answer for era thank you chair I think we’re all thinking the same thing let’s get some people to speak but I’ll start it off um so I appreciate the report in principle we approved this I guess a couple months ago or a month ago um it’s a simple shareholder declaration uh you answered actually my question already about the five million dollar spending limit and how that goes so I’m in full support I got no questions thank you to mr.

goss as well for communicating everything to us um so uh you’re going to see my support on this and I’m look forward to when we actually prop up uh this affiliate uh institution or affiliate uh company okay thanks thank you colleagues uh I’m going to take just a moment as a chair uh and please counselor for I don’t take this as me picking on you in particular um but if we’re in agreement with something we don’t need to have a speaker’s list I will point out that we have now been here for three hours and seven minutes to deal with two items on the agenda so perhaps um rather than taking 15 of us saying we agree um we can express that support with our votes counselor privilege to be quick through the chair reviving you so we are going with both options with uh new sorry this revive it might be more complicated more length there uh what’s the advantage then potentially going with revive and not just going with straight with new and negative potential potential it was close in 2000 early 2000s any potential liabilities thank you mr. semcedini yeah so you have a senior report that we’re looking for an option to revive an already existing uh organization one that already existed here in the city of london the reason we’re doing that is at the time so early 2000 when that corporation uh was initially incorporated uh the section 142 allowed for a holding company structure within that uh since that time that sort of provision has been removed so 142 companies are allowed to be created but those companies are used for things like retailing energy generation distribution transmission specifically uh but not called out around having holding assets so it just provides a bit of this gray area and sometimes you know the lawyers think that there are ways to be able to deal with that but in our view the simplest way to deal with that is actually revive an organization that had that ability to do it in the first place so that’s why we’re recommending the revival path of course it does put some of the timeline out of our hands in terms of what it means for the province and and uh private members bill to be able to revive that having said that those are done commonly every year now there are revivals every year of of corporations that exist so we believe that there is a path forward in that way. Councilor Pribble thank you for that i’ll make a comment i don’t want to start a new conversation with this but in terms of the 5 million and the other two you mentioned are actually quite higher and uh it’s in front of us and i hope i will certainly support it if you move on but on the other hand the other way around is the 5 million enough or are we really maximizing our potential future opportunities but as i said i just want to make this as a comment because i would like us to go into the vote thank you okay any other speakers i don’t want to dissuade you from questions and comments but we don’t need to speak to just say thank you we’re going to support it that’s that was my point. Councilor ramen thank you and through you and not to say thank you and i support it only um but i do want to just uh close out our discussion a little just uh saying thank you for the collaboration that happened to bring this forward if you’ll recall this discussion has been before multiple councils over many many years and having the opportunity to look at this option with a different lens with a different perspective on how we can do this for the the in the best interest of the city in the best interest of london hydro um it’s actually a very exciting opportunity for us and it means that we will be able to do things that we have not been able to do previously which allows us to think a lot bigger dream a lot larger and innovate in ways that we never would have imagined so thank you to everyone for their work and again sorry for the extra comment of support uh well as our representative on the board i think there’s a little we way there for you counselor so but we do appreciate that and tell and we have mayor morgan next yes i i want to um not echo what others have said because that would be um redundant but i want to add that uh further to what council ramen said it’s an important for us to actually move forward with uh being innovative um we have clear signs from the antero government that they’re going to transform the way that the energy sector is structured in the province and you’re either going to be along for the ride or you’re going to be ahead of that and so one of the ways that we can be ahead of that is providing uh flexibility to our hydro utilities to innovate and be in spaces that can drive other revenues and other opportunities for the citizens of london and the region and so i think that this is not just an important opportunity but a necessary step in the evolution of the energy industry in our region and make no mistake in the future those regions that have adequate supply to power innovation water are the ones that are going to thrive in the way that the new economy is going you know ai is going to be powered by those who can actually provide the um necessary requirements of it um the future energy industry is going to be structured around those who can provide adequate and uh sufficient energy and also innovate in spaces where they can spin off create new companies take risks provide new opportunities so this is absolutely necessary for us to continue to be a leader this is absolutely necessary for us if you believe in us continuing to have access and ownership over an important public utility uh because things are changing and we want to be ahead of it so i think this is uh this is a critical decision for us.

Councillor Lehman uh thank you thank you mr. sumpcedini for being here today as i look at london becoming um a larger regional hub uh terms of economic and transportation uh health care government etc um how does this proposed corporate restructure fall into your vision of london hydro becoming part of that kind of regional player mr. sumpcedini uh you know i i think working together is always important so as utilities uh we’ve seen around the province as they work together they work together in their affiliates as well so they look for opportunities that help their regions help drive those uh elements that their cities are looking for if that’s in housing if it’s economic development uh what are those things that can really drive prosperity to their region and doing it within partnerships so i think this continues in that mindset uh to move forward to move forward together not only with our city but with other utilities that are located near us and provide the best service for our neighboring communities. Councillor Lehman thank you um are there examples of other utilities doing similar similar things i mean this is a little bit outside the norm uh as was mentioned before there’s been before before council in other uh formats um i’m more inclined to support this though with the direction that that you’re going um but given that it is outside the norm i just want to know about other uh other utilities i have gone down this uh mr.

sumpcedini uh in our initial research i think we found that there was only one utility over 15 000 customers that didn’t have an affiliate or a holding company structure so so london was a bit the outlier uh as we looked at that uh the one company over 15 000 was just announced that it was purchased by earthcorp uh so that company won’t be there anymore and and london hydro will be sort of the anomaly in that side so there there’s a long history of companies that are involved in this if we look at our neighboring utilities uh earthcorp and ingersoll has has affiliates uh festival hydro and strafford has affiliates uh integrity and chatham kent has affiliates s six power lines uh has affiliates so there there’s you know blue water power and sarnia has affiliates there it really is the norm and and these utilities look for ways to work together again to strengthen both the utility business but also the the regions in which they operate one final question chair uh through you um in the dividend in the dividend policy in the proposed shareholder declaration or in the shareholder declaration we have now the dividend dividend policy acknowledges that dividends will be delayed in the earlier years in order to build capital we get currently get about five and a half million a year uh from london hydro is that the dividend that is referring to or is it dividends from the new home code that is uh referenced mr samsadini yeah thank you for that question so so the dividends from london hydro will be untouched the 5.5 million that the city has been receiving is sort of the plan in our future years uh until we go into uh cost-service application um and and readjust our rates at that time but uh 5.5 is is what is budgeted and planned and the shareholder declaration and what you’re talking to is talking specifically about the new company and what we’re trying to do is we will look for opportunities to be able to debt finance those opportunities so that’s why dividend isn’t possible because that is being sort of debt financed as opposed to uh a capital intake either from the city or or london hydro to to look at those opportunities counselor thank you to other speakers seeing none then i’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote saying the vote motion carries 12 to 0 noting counselor truss out and counselor pelosa as absent absent thank you everyone thank you mr samsadini for your time thank you mr goss for your extra time uh moving on colleagues item 4.2 is request to explore opportunities for committee of adjustment meetings this is a communication from counselor frank counselor frank thank you yes and i’d like to move the motion that’s loaded in e-scrap and see if i have a seconder is there a seconder for counselor frank’s motion counselor mccallister has seconded counselor frank do you want to speak to it now yes i’d be delighted to um so i’m bringing forward this uh essentially as a report back from staff in respect to a couple items in regards to the community of adjustment meetings i have had some residents reach out with some complaints and so i thought uh one of the ways that we could best address some of the um some of the happenings of the committee of adjustment is just to be able to uh view those uh and have increased transparency and accessibility for the public afterwards as well i’ve had some complaints in regards to trying to access materials in advance and after meetings for residents and for applicants because um the committee of adjustment process differs significantly from all of our other committee experiences and so again items b and um see are in regards to trying to create um packages online that people can review in advance as well as the minutes and decisions being posted publicly in a accessible manner and then the final one just letting people know because i know that there’s some confusion over um who was responsible for adjudicating complaints they are administered through the integrity commissioner so this is just to provide an extra level of transparency for the public to be able to gain this kind of information and uh happy to explain any other rationale but hoping just to provide this additional information to the public thank you counselor frank any other speakers seeing none then i lost counselor stevenson well i guess my just question through you to staff i guess is there any concerns with what’s presented here well uh let me ask think the clerks in terms of street of posting video or mr mathers mr mathers uh through the chair so um all of the activities related to the committee of adjustment are performed by the planning development area so we’d be happy to to where we’d absolutely work very closely with clerks and um providing some recommendations and thoughts for council but uh we’re happy to be able to provide these things we don’t have any significant concerns with any of the items that are that are selected and happy to be able to bring a report back counselor stevenson seeing no other speakers i will ask clerk to open the vote closing the vote motion carries 12 to 0 thank you colleagues moving on we have the third report of the governance working group uh this is uh for receipt uh of their report so let’s see if there’s a mover and a seconder for that moved by counselor hillier and seconded by counselor cutty looking for any discussion counselor stevenson and then counselor ramen i have so much i can say about this report and i won’t counselor ramen okay thank you um i just want through you i just wanted to confirm that uh the language in here um now adds that the direction that we had spoken of in gwg to implement the use of that formal complaints form um as appended to schedule a so that is now cleaned up and going to be included in the processes we move forward as outlined in the motion just mentioned ready let’s clear on that thank you any other speakers seeing none then i want to clerk to open the vote closing the vote motion carries 12 to 0 hey moving on item 4.4 is confirmation of appointments to the london downtown business association you have the ldba uh submission for the resignations and the recommendations for appointments of five new members of that board looking to see if there’s a mover and a seconder for that moved by counselor hillier and seconded by counselor for era floors open for any discussion looking for any speakers seeing none i’m going to ask clerk to open the vote closing the vote motion carries 12 to 0 moving on item 5 deferred matters additional business there is one item of additional business submitted by counselor ramen counselor ramen i will go to you to introduce this thank you and through you so this is just um an opportunity for us to have a discussion uh here at committee with respect to um the communication with the ontario big city mayors the update that they provided where they uh provided the request that the government of ontario declare a state of emergency so i wanted to put that on the floor for our discussion today and uh looking for a seconder that’s been moved do we have a seconder counselor mccallister okay so that’s moved and seconded on the floor and i’ll look for a speaker’s list counselor ramen thank you and through you so i just wanted to take a moment to uh i guess start this discussion um as i brought the communication but i thought it was really important that we have a local discussion uh about this direction um and it’s something that we’ve been talking about i think uh in different ways uh over the last few years and uh as you know with our recent action on the micro modular site i think uh this is even more uh is even more needed at this point um so this is support for the direction that the the ontario big city mayors took at their recent meeting and i want to thank mayor morgan who i understand seconded that motion um and really wanted to have a chance to have that discussion here and uh here from mayor morgan on that as well elter frank thank you and i tried to confirm this is a stay of emergency for ontario not for lending because i know that we didn’t do that two years ago okay great thanks elter mccallister thank you and uh through you um i spoke to this earlier so i won’t take up too much time with it i appreciate you know this being brought forward um i think we’ve said this many times over it’s starting to feel a little bit like groundhog day uh when dealing with the province i do appreciate obviously with the heart hubs but again i feel like the expediency and urgency is still missing from the provincial response um i don’t know what more cities in this province can do to again raise this concern which every opportunity we get we are raising with the province um i just feel like there’s a lot of frustration we just had a provincial election um during the course of that i raised this with every voter i could in terms of this is something that my ward brings up constantly this is what i hear from my constituents uh and so to our provincial representatives um we are literally screaming at this point that something more needs to be done uh there are health care issues at play here that we bring up constantly that are not our responsibility that need to be funded adequately uh and so to the province please take this seriously we are in the state of emergency this is a crisis and it’s getting worse as we have seen uh 25 percent uh provincial increase 19 percent in london uh you look at the large cities in this province and what they’re facing this is not something that cities on their own uh are equipped to deal with and we will not make real progress on this unless the province comes to the table it is a willing partner and we have a coordinated strategy not only between the city the province and the federal government because if we all work together i do think that we can see real progress but the way we are currently operating is each level of government is doing its own thing and it’s not actually making us move forward um homelessness is an issue that we hear about constantly i applaud you know everything that’s done locally you know cities to have the agencies we are doing our part and we need the province to come to the table with those additional resources in the areas of responsibility that are theirs so i appreciate this and i think every chance we get we reiterated um but more needs to be done thanks counselor for error thank you chair i appreciate uh this motion um i i’m obviously going to support it but i do wonder what is the outcome that we’re going to see from the province on this like we have stated emergencies before like the climate emergency and other emergencies and i haven’t seen too much uptake of that um so i’m just concerned on what the province’s response would be if there is any but then again that doesn’t change the fact that we are in an emergency right now so so you will see me uh supporting supporting this um and you know like yeah i i i i guess you know i i’m asking the question again like what what changes would we see like for us if we are gonna really endorse this then that does change our position that we were discussing a few years ago on whether we have an emergency or not so i’m taking this as an endorsement that we are declaring an emergency ourselves counselor for error respectfully i am going to say that comment is out of order and you need to withdraw it because we are not discussing declaring a state of municipal emergency and that is actually really not only off of what this motion is about but is actually not a good position to be in legally to be saying you are taking this as declaring a municipal emergency so i’m going to ask you to please retract that comment fair enough i can retract it i do see a provincial one does capture our area um but i do hope that so i guess some of our um initiatives that touch onto this space um we would act in a way or or support or vote in a way that does reduce or mitigate the emergency that is occurring provincially um so i’m going to support this but i wonder what outcomes we’ll see from it so i think this is a good way to go um i have been saying for a while that things definitely need to be focused on when it comes to this space um but if this is for the province declare a provincial emergency then let’s see what comes out of it thank you counselor um may you will indulge i’m just going to offer a couple comments from the chair and then i’ll go onto me or morgan uh because i don’t need to get into a lot of debate on this i’m going to say i’m going to support it because it is a call from a united call not one office from individual cities a united call from obcm for some provincial action which is very different than local declarations you know in a very meaningful way different um so i i’m going to be supportive of this i would not be supporting something that was only focused local this needs a united effort i also want to say that you know there have been some positive things that the province has done with us and particularly um in the the housing file and minister flax office with respect to helping housing starts and those sorts of things but counselor mccallister i agree with what you talked about when you talked about health care and and if we’re believing that housing and homelessness response is part of health care um despite the heart hubs which are welcome but i i think we’ve been missing um well the ministry of municipal affairs and housing has been extremely helpful i think that the ministry of health and the ministry of community and social services has not been uh and i say this to our opposition members as well we don’t need a whole new crown corporations with all the bureaucracies that come with it we need some just some small meaningful steps forward in my opinion things like doubling shelter allowance for odsp and ow would make a big difference in helping people stay housed that doesn’t require a completely new crown corporation keep working with us the way the minister flak has been working with us on housing but also we need those mental health and addiction recovery beds in the health care system and that is clearly something that needs to be addressed through the ministry of health and long-term care so that’s why i support the obcm call for a provincial action on this file and that’s the comments that i wanted to share although to mayor morgan next um thanks i’ll make a couple comments first i want to clarify and i appreciate that um you did as well chair that there is a very large difference between a local state of emergency and asking for the province to declare a state of emergency first off we’re single to your municipality uh declaring a state of emergency here gives us no additional resources from the province that’s been made very clear that that’s not how it works and as a single to your municipality we have a lot of tools at our disposal you have seen lower tier municipalities like berry for example declare a local state of emergency and the main advantages that got of that was leveraging with the county of simco which is responsible for homeless services to push some resources into that community um but that is still all municipal resources shifting around um so let me go to the the resolution before us i want to emphasize a couple of things first um the Ontario big city mayor’s group is a group of the 29 largest municipalities and the composition of that group is quite diverse we have people who have served as provincial leaders of three different parties who serve as mayors in our group and everyone was unanimous in this approach the resolution too includes uh continued support for the solve the crisis campaign which i would say is a campaign that is supported beyond the big city mayors it’s also supported by the uh mayors and regional chairs of Ontario the western warden’s caucus and the eastern’s warden caucus which represents some of the smaller municipalities in the province the other thing too is is that we recognize the significant investments that the province has made you know this is not a call to uh shame the province anyway or or uh line a massive amount of criticism the province has made a significant investments they’ve invested over half a billion dollars in the hard hub system they’ve dramatically increased the money within the hpp program across the province as well the challenge we have is that despite those investments as well as the additional investments municipalities have made there are still more people falling into homeless uh than we are pulling out so people are being pulled out people are being housed um but there is an imbalance here uh which is holding us back the other piece of the um resolution and i actually i want to mention minister flack because these are local representative he has been exceptionally helpful on the advocacy front on things like the hard hubs and hpp funding increases and remains committed to engaging with us about additional resources that municipalities may need or additional tools they may need at the provincial level however um what we recognize as mayors is that this needs to be elevated to the top of the provincial agenda and it needs to be a province wide strategy that we can pull towards and get behind as a group um these things will not be solved in anyone municipality on its own we can innovate we can make a difference we can buck a national and provincial trend but we’re not going to solve the crisis without being part of a coordinated province wide result as well at provincial state of emergency allows the province to get the attention of Ottawa and support from the federal government within the province for uh the the particular impact that uh homelessness mental health and addiction is having within the province of Ontario there are also asks associated with this within the solve the crisis campaign that is beyond just supports like heart hubs and hpp we also support uh the increased provision of treatment and recovery options within the province of Ontario funded by the province of Ontario commitment the premier has been clear that he is behind and those things need to continue to grow in time because a multifaceted approach is the only way they’re going to move this forward so we recognize that municipalities are stretched to the limits on the amount of dollars they can deploy we recognize that the province has made significant investments but we also recognize that it is not enough yet to turn the tide on where homelessness is going in the direction that we’re headed in housing is part of the solution homelessness funding is part of solution providing supportive housing mental health and addiction supports they’re all part of the solution but a multi ministry coordinated effective response as a deputy mayor mentioned multiple ministries would be involved in crafting response can be pulled together under a declaration of a state of emergency as well as other resources and other pieces and so this is the unanimous direction of the Ontario big city mayors um but I wanted to be clear about what it means and what it doesn’t mean um just so that colleagues have that before them and I appreciate council ramen wanting to bring this forward for a council related discussion I think it’s important for all of us to have the ability to to share our thoughts on this but I’ll continue to represent us at the Ontario big city mayors table as best I can uh in alignment with the other things that we’re doing as a municipality and in a spirit of trying to craft unanimous and widely accepted positions at OBCM this is an organization that does not take positions where it’s a simple majority vote we don’t we don’t carve out positions then we carve out and we support positions that are widely supported by the caucus if not unanimous um it’s not a majority decision-making model so this is something that was unanimously supported and I appreciate that council counselors would like to vote in support of it as well thank you mayor morgan Councillor Stevenson well I might be the only one voting against this today but I I disagree with this um you know if we want to work with the provinces of partner and get funding from them I don’t see that this is the way to do it and we talk about a coordinated response but the province last April said that they were not going to continue with the harm reduction expanded safer supply route that they were moving in the Alberta model of the recovery oriented system of care and london hasn’t made that switch so we are operating under a model that the premier has spoken vehemently against so we’re asking them for money but we haven’t taken their advice we haven’t followed their direction and you know the we received a 63 percent increase in hpp funding in the spring of 2023 guaranteed every year so it was an extra eight and a half million dollars that we received for this crisis six eight months after we had a hunger strike on the front lawn a city hall and within eight months of that we allocated five million of that to base shelter contract increases so even though there was you know this cry for help and a crisis and recognizing the humanitarian crisis that this is we did not expand services with almost 60 percent of the money that we were given we were given federal funding last winter and 1.7 million of that ended up in our surplus so and we also had auditor general reports that I’ve mentioned provincially and federally and I don’t see us taking the steps to show what we all want which is meaningful outcomes how much of this money is getting to the people who truly need it there were reports years ago about charities and rating charities on how much money actually went to the purpose for which it was intended well we get hpp money from the province 85 and a half million dollars over the last three years if we have 2,000 2,100 homeless people that’s another almost 850 dollars a month per person on top of their ow or odsp but they’re not seeing those kind of differences we’re not making that kind of an impact so I feel like yes we need more money there’s no question about it we need more funding but we need to be able to show how we are making a difference with the money that we receive because if we’re not making a difference more money does not help us in the to the degree that is needed and there’s lots of evidence that money is not the answer look at california how much they have spent and in the situation has gotten worse we’ve got west coast policies here in this city you know why are we expecting to see better results why are we not evaluating them why aren’t we looking at what is it we’re doing that’s working what is it we’re doing that’s not working why don’t we look at like the industries that are being created in terms of security and shelter services we’re creating employment but are we really helping the people who desperately need it if you talk to them they are so grateful for the respite that they get but then if you tell them that that agency gets fifty thousand dollars a month to do it all of a sudden their expectations go up and they’re not as grateful because they think it’s being done on charity but when they realize it’s taxpayer money four thousand dollars a month for a shelter bed sometimes 25 to 30 people in a room talk to the people on the streets they think that’s insane they say give me 400 bucks I can find a place and I don’t know it’s not that simple we can’t just hand out money but I think I think this is the wrong way to go I disagree with it I think we risk the I wouldn’t we risk offending the very people that we want to help us which is the province and I think we should take their advice I think we should move in the direction that they want us to move so I think we should provide them the established standards for shelters and address the safety perform sufficient inspections and make sure we have effective processes to monitor the third party service providers those were the things that were identified by the auditor general that municipalities could and should be doing and I think that’s our space to lead and then ask for more money thank you counselor Stevenson other speakers it’s our privilege thank you I’ll just make a comment it’s something I would agree with everything that was just stated by my fellow counselor on the other hand I will not be supporting this either I don’t see any advantage in it oh it was already addressed by OBCM and we got AMO FCM and I really if anything from this I see potentially I don’t see any benefit in it I really honestly don’t and I will not support it and that’s it thanks any counselor Frank thank you yes I will be supporting this I have similar similar perspectives to counselor McAllister as mentioned earlier I think one of the issues is we can’t solve a problem if we’re not given enough resources to solve the problem so if you have just enough money to maybe slap together a bunch of band-aid solutions and try to do your best with trying to deal with the resources you have and make it work I think obviously it’s not going to look perfect and things aren’t going to get exceptionally better because you don’t have enough money I think that’s one of the things we saw at the police services ask is that they you know we’re trying to do the same thing over and over and they told us they weren’t getting enough money and then we heard I was surprised here that money is not the answer because it seemed to be that to be the only thing that police services need to do a better job so I think in this regard we do need more money we see it constantly time and time again that we need more highly supportive housing you know we need more staff we need more affordable units we need more shelter beds we need more outreach services across the board we need more money to do this work and if this creates any kind of pressure on the provincial government to recognize and care about that I think that it is definitely worth our time and effort can for any other speakers Councillor Ferrero thank you chair and I just got it sorry I just want to let you know you got two three 15 left in your time three minutes three minutes and 15 seconds I won’t go that one I just need to expand on Councillor Frank’s comments I would also include that we need a provincially led organization that has services supports health care distributed evenly provincially wide we can’t just have specific municipalities if there’s resourcing operating in isolation from other ones it has to be a provincially integrated effort and it has to be distributed evenly provincially or even nationally maybe any other speakers seeing none then I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote closing the vote motion carries 10 to 2 thank you colleagues that completes our agenda items looking for a motion to adjourn Councillor van Mirbergen and Hilliard we do this one by hand all those in favor motion carries we are adjourned thank you