Council Preview
By John Swartz
Orillia council’s October 20 regular meeting should start at 2 p.m. There was however, a couple of meetings relating to the 2026 capital budget occurring beforehand which may affect the start time. You can read the preview of those meetings here.
Heading the agenda is a deputation by Mina Fayez-Bahgat, County of Simcoe general manager, social and community services; Sophia Stanberry, manager, community partnerships; and Brittany Doner-Gilroy, community strategies supervisor, to discuss the County’s response to the City of Orillia’s declaration of a household food insecurity emergency on September 8.
“The presentation will highlight County actions – integrating food insecurity into Community Safety and Wellbeing planning, developing a Regional Poverty Reduction Strategy, realigning the social and community investment fund toward basic needs, and supporting Orillia’s local food strategies; demonstrating opportunities for continued collaboration to address the root causes of food insecurity.”
Council will not be having a closed session following the public forum and go straight to reports.
The first is to deal with a postponed motion for the City to ask the province to do the mandatory Greenbelt review they have not done and which is supposed to happen in this tenth year of the Greenbelt Act.
Next is a staff report responding to an enquiry from last April by councillors Janet-Lynne Durnford and Jay Fallis regarding a housing needs assessment. The report basically outlines to council what is available from the County since that county is responsible for social housing.
There is a motion for council to endorse asking the provincial and the federal governments to support the county as the level of government handling this issue.
There are also some stats about housing needs in Orillia now, and projected into the future. It’s interesting to note nothing has been documented, even as a snapshot of unoccupied housing in Orillia.
It has been reported there are 20,000 unoccupied housing units in the GTA while each level of government is pointing fingers at the others for not having enough housing and people living on the streets. Other communities have similar situations. Is Orillia any different? Who knows?
Rotary Place Alcohol
A staff report following a deputation earlier in the month regarding the fumbling of a permit to sell alcohol at Rotary Place is next on the agenda.
The legion is the vendor and alcohol was initially sold and patrons were allowed to take the drinks to their seats. However the City then pointed out policy does not allow alcohol in the seating area, so the area was moved to the standup area. That proved to be impractical for serving cold beer and the legion asked council to change the policy to what was originally understood to be the case – allow people to take their beers to their seats.
Staff are still not in favour of allowing beer in the seats, but do concede if council allows it the legion should be required to hire paid duty OPP. That would satisfy the City’s liability exposure.
Operating Budget
The mayor’s operating budget proposal is being released to council. It proposes a 1.52% increase. That means property taxes will go up $21 per $111K of assessment. The budget meeting will happen Monday, October 27. Details of the budget will be previewed this week in a separate story.
Emergency
A report outlining a memorandum of understanding for emergency use of the Orillia Recreation Centre by Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital is next.
Soldiers’ staff identified the rec center as a suitable place to use should an evacuation of the hospital become necessary. The agreement states the hospital would be responsible for costs and lost rec center revenue if any emergency is declared.
Downtown
A decision to cancelling recyclable pickups to businesses (all, not just downtown businesses) was delayed from the last council meeting. The Downtown Orillia Management Board has sent a letter objecting to this development.
The province changed the rules, payment, for collecting recyclables and put the cost of producers, which means the City does not have to pay through property taxes for picking up recyclables. The pick would end January one next year.
Ending pickups will remove $275K from the operating budget. However, council may choose to continue picking up recyclables from businesses, but they have to register for pickup.
The downtown management board sent a letter stating reasons to not take away pickups. One is residents in the downtown will still get pickups of recyclables, confusing exactly who gets the pickup. Another is the timing of this change is not good for many business to have to plan for pickups in the new year at a time when many of the businesses are focused in holiday shopping (which for many businesses means the difference between making or losing money on the whole year). Of course the extra cost to businesses is an issue.
The next item also relates to the downtown, specifically, the design of a planned reconstruction of the streets. Staff are proposing to created an ad-hoc committee composed of three councillors. Staff expect the design phase will take two years.
It should be noted there is no involvement from the DOMB, any local businesses, or citizens at large in participating on this committee for a project of such great importance to the City. At the very least such a committee should include two business owners and two residents from the wider community. Prediction: things will not go smoothly once a ‘design’ is released to the public.
The End Is Near
Next, councillor Fallis pulled a report/update on the rebuilding of the Brian Orser Arena from the council information package for discussion. The agenda does not state why.
Readers might recall staff has unilaterally renamed the arena to the 433 Gill Street Community Complex without the matter coming to council.
Fallis also has an enquiry motion for staff to report on the “feasibility of amending Item 16 of Schedule “A” in Chapter 938 of the City of Orillia Municipal Code – Noise to restrict the operation of construction equipment generating noise no later than 8:00 PM on weekdays and 7:00 PM on weekends, with operations resuming no earlier than 7:00 AM the following day.”
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
