Council Preview
By John Swartz
Orillia council has two types of meetings happening Monday July 20. The regular council meeting will start at 2 p.m. At 5 p.m., a special meeting of council is scheduled for a review of the winter control policy. If the regular council meeting’s business is not finished by 5 p.m. it will reconvene after the special meeting ends.
There are two deputations. Doug Sexsmith, Mahima Juneja, and Rea Lalonde, Information Orillia, have an overview of the relaunch of its volunteer management services and information hub community calendar.
Info Orillia is proposing to create a corps of volunteers independent of other activities and organizations which rely on volunteers and farm them out, so to speak, to those organizations. Info Orillia would act as a clearing house, recruiting and providing volunteers as needed. This would extend to disaster cleanup.
They are asking for the City to grant $25K to start up the program. Info Orillia has already developed connections with many organizations in town, and has a steady stream of people coming to them wondering what they can do in the community.
The next deputation is by Pamela Hillier and Kathryn Stapley of Community Connection, to give a project update and get council approval to extend the emergency addiction and mental health services project to March 31, 2027, and to get permission to communicate directly with Health Canada on project matters.
Community Connection is the agency operating the 211 service. They also started and emergency addiction and mental health service, and Community Connection hub is a referral point for people to get connected to other agencies important to their needs. Council approved the City’s participation and manages the lease through to November 30, but the federal grant came later and allows for the service to operate until March of next year.
The public forum is next before council moves to a closed session, which has three items to discuss. Development services and engineering has a request for a supplementary 2026 capital budget approval for priority 2027 capital projects.
Next, corporate services and environment and infrastructure services have information about grant funding and a capital project budget increase.
Last the deputy clerk has a report regarding Lakehead University expansion plans and Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital’s redevelopment plans. There is a note the chief administrative office will have a confidential report available to council on Monday, which means some details are being kept from the public. There is however, another report, again not available until Monday, in the public portion of the meeting.
Back in public council has a number of reports to discuss. The first relates to the deputation by Community Connection from councillors Janet-Lynne Durnford and Ralph Cipolla, they are asking council to extend the project to March 31 next year, subject to project funding through the Health Canada emergency treatment fund, and if the money runs out before March 31 to end the project.
Next, council will deal with the Lakehead/Soldiers issue. Council asked for a report in June about the options the City has regarding the land Lakehead wants to sell to the hospital, which was originally donated by the City with a right of refusal on any disposition.
Council has a lame duck period beginning August 21. They will be restricted from approving any transaction greater than $50K. With that in mind, development services and engineering have a number of projects slated for 2027 that require approvals to proceed and would like council to do that now. Normally this would happen in the fall during budget deliberations without a special request, but because of the election the 2027 budget will not be on the agenda until January.
The first project is the Laclie Street reconstruction phase three project which needs $8.5 million approved. Next is $6.1 million for design and construction for the Forest Avenue sewer pumping station and Collins Drive upgrades. Another project is more widespread and staff want $4.5 million for the asphalt resurfacing file. The companion file, sidewalk replacement, needs a $1.5 million budget approved. The Couchiching Point sewer pumping station design work needs $750K.
The big one is the construction of a transit terminal, which has an $11.9 million budget.
All of those will approved as additions to the 2026 capital budget.
Downtown Refurb
Council approved a downtown streetscape project projected to cost $50 million. This would be sidewalks, roadway, lighting and underground infrastructure. Mayor Don McIsaac reduce the council approved project during the 2026 budget process, using strong mayor powers, to eliminate redoing the side streets (Albert, West, Peter and Matchedash) and only doing Mississaga from Albert to Front at $18 million.
This raised some concern underground infrastructure would not be completely redone. Council asked for a report on the condition of underground infrastructure, which is the report they will be discussing.
Staff investigated records for installation dates of components and used average life spans to determine any need for replacement. They found the average age of sanitary sewers to be 41 years, storm sewers to be 55 years and water mains to be 61 years old.
Staff say the average life expectancy is 75 years and that video inspection of the sewers showed no deterioration. The water mains cannot be inspected visually. They contend any replacement would happen in 25 years, or about the time the surface work needs replacing. It should be noted the downtown as we know it was built in 1978, or 48 years ago. Either construction standards have deteriorated in the last 5 decades to yield an expectation any work done now would need to be replaced in only 25 years, or previous councils have kicked the can down the road until now.
The report is rather light considering the scope of work being considered and council can either receive it as information, which means do nothing further, or approve an expense of $165K to have a detailed CCTV inspection of storm and sanitary sewers ($70K), and acoustic/sensor-based water main condition assessment ($85K) and doing a report ($10K)
The Downtown Orillia BIA has sent a letter expressing concern the underground infrastructure needs to be investigated more thoroughly.
Here’s Your Change
Staff are reporting to council that of 27 capital projects completed during the first 6 months of 2026, 25 of them came in under budget and $1.9 million will be returned to reserves. Two projects, the Rotary Place maintenance and equipment rehabilitation and replacement, and replacements of some of the City’s fleet of vehicles were over budget in the amount of $6,962.
There’s Your Problem
The City has had a number of issues maintaining some of the fleet of vehicles and staff are asking council to increase the budget for parts and repairs by $325K and for contracted services by $90K. The main issue was a longer winter and equipment had greater wear and tear on snow clearing vehicles.
Capital Spending Forecast
Staff have an updated the 10-year capital spending forecast for council to approve. The forecast estimates the cost of maintaining or replacing things like roads, water (in and out) pipes, vehicles and other assets.
The total amount of money projected to be spent increased by $27 million from last year to $808 million by adding 137 more projects. There are more than 900 projects on the to do list. The plan outlines where the money comes from to pay for everything, which includes reserves, grants from other levels of government, debt financing and taxes.
On debt financing, the province limits municipalities to 25% of total spending. Orillia has limited itself to 10% and currently carries only 4.1% of the total spending at 4.1%.
Staff also say the amount of spending derived from development charges will be lower in the future thanks to provincial meddling in a long-held tradition that developers pay for expansion of services their projects add to the load the City carries. That means instead of developers paying for things like wider roads, more sewer capacity, another fire truck and etc. Existing taxpayers will be paying the freight. So when the province says, ‘you need to build 1,000 more homes, or else,’ you get to pay for the extra burden on services instead of the developers.
The total cost of $808 million is broken down, $616 million is attributed to infrastructure renewal, $106 million to growth (for which development charges are supposed to pay for), and $85.5 million for improvements (new projects, replacement because of higher standards required by the province, etc.)
Motions
An enquiry motion by councillor Cipolla postponed from February is back. He wants a report from staff on the feasibility and options to reduce the overall cost of the Downtown Orillia Streetscape project, including, but not limited to, an approach that retaining current streetscape design elements like roadway layout and sidewalk configuration, and instead focus on:
– Repaving the existing roadway;
– Replacing streetlights;
– Reinstalling sidewalks using the same style of brick currently in place;
– Planting new trees;
– Any other cost-saving measures that would result in a significant reduction from the estimated $18,000,000 Capital Project budget.
Councillor Jay Fallis has a new enquiry asking for council to waive policy regarding stop signs and for staff to review the Bass Lake Side Road and Line 15 Intersection.
Winter Control Special Meeting
The bottom line is staff are asking for council for an extra $1.45 million in the 2027 budget for snow removal equipment and an ongoing operating budget increase of $1.25 million for staffing and contract increases.
Part of the problem is with more frequent major storms, and the time between being shorter, plowed snow can’t be hauled away fast enough to make room for more. Staff recommend hiring more operators, both full-time (4) and seasonal (8). Those people would operate two more snow loader/blowers and 2 sidewalk plows.
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia; Images Supplied)
