Council Preview
By John Swartz
Orillia council has a special meeting July 25 in the training room at fire station one (Gill Street and the Highway 12 Bypass) at 1 p.m.
There are a few items on the agenda and it appears a closed session regarding legal matters and passing a by-law to put in all way stops on Canice and Brant Streets and Tecumseth Street and Lightfoot Drive could be the reason for straying from the summer meeting schedule. Those two items are self explanatory and no further information is provided in the agenda package.
There are three other reports on the agenda. Each are primarily Powerpoint presentations. One is an overview of Lean projects administration has undertaken.
You’ve Lost Weight
Lean is originally a manufacturing methodology derived from Toyota’s Just In Time processes. The idea is to find and root out waste. In government this seems like an easy task, but there are criticisms of the effectiveness of the concept. First of which is viewing taxpayer and citizens as customers.
Another criticism comes from people who have spent years in school learning their profession about the short training period, which in this case appears to be provided by, or through another provider (in this case Leading Edge Group) using something called Lean Six Sigma (which is a combination of Toyota’s philosophy with a competing system developed by Motorola).
One of the important parts of manufacturing is evaluation of doing the same things over and over and finding ways to cut costs and do things better. How that applies to many aspects of government is interesting since often different people need different things.
Twelve staff members began their certification training in March consisting of 5 days and an exam. The administration views the program a success and will be submitting a 2025 budget request to expand training to more staff.
Each of the 12 trainees had to create a project. Of the projects where it would seem there is a high degree of repetition fire vehicle maintenance, tracking capital project records, managing water and wastewater asset lifecycles, crating maintenance plans for parks and trails, roads, and other facilities were each scrutinized.
The projects dealing with shifting criteria where some standardization may be a benefit, but rigid practices may not, include: hiring new staff, administering the sign by-law, advertising contracts, purchasing, renting the Opera House, de-watering from construction projects into the City’s sewer systems, managing user demand of the swimming pools at the Orillia Recreation Centre, and managing communications plans from the we should do this stage to it’s done.
Survey Says
Next are the results from the City’s communications survey. There were 406 responses to the survey, 377 of those from Orillia residents, and 303 from those over the age of 50. The first takeaway is young people weren’t aware of the survey, or couldn’t be bothered to respond.
The top five areas people wanted more information about were: road closings, construction projects, operations (snow plowing, road work) information about their properties and recreation programs (including community events).
Of respondents, 104 did not feel informed about the City’s activities. Only 137 watched council meetings (the most effective way to understand what is happening) and 162 of the remainder didn’t even know council meetings were available to watch remotely, either live or after the fact.
Staff determined respondents wanted mandatory ward meetings and councillors should be speaking with constituents more (which is likely news to councillors). They also believe there should be an Instagram account (which may go a long way to reaching young people), and there should be more polls and surveys (280 of respondents regularly take the City’s surveys).
Respondents wanted to see more of their councillors at events and informal meetings. This may be more a function of perception, rather than reality since most councillors do attended public functions.
Nice Building You Got There, How Much To Slap My Name On It
Next, council has a report stemming from a council enquiry report on options, opportunities, costs, potential revenues, and impacts of leasing vacant space within municipally owned properties such as, but not limited to, the Orillia Public Library and the Port of Orillia for commercial purposes.
Included are the rec centers, the Waterfront Centre and Centennial, Tudhope and Couchiching Beach Parks and the library.
Somehow staff leapfrogged from investigating putting a coffee shop in the library (for example, which was a public request from before the new library was built) to looking at ‘naming opportunities’ for the recreation centers and places that already have names, like the Opera House, Brian Orser Arena, and Rotary Place.
This goes much further than putting in a coffee shop to be operated commercially in the library (which was originally included, but scrapped by council), but extends to a ‘this space for sale,’ philosophy for parks, trails, other facilities.
Staff will report again regarding changes to 5 municipal policies (including the alcohol policy) at a later date. They will also report about changes to parking fees for non-residents on the waterfront.
This report is more about how staff are breaking down the request and direction to continue working on it, rather than answering the request.
The meeting is public and can be attended, but it will not be livestreamed.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
