Council Preview
By John Swartz
Orillia Council’s Monday, November 4 regular meeting starts at 2 p.m. following it’s 1 p.m. 2025 budget meeting.
First on the agenda is a deputation by Matt Spencer of the Community Empowerment Collective. He will be introducing council to the non-profit’s work with people through addiction recovery with the use of physical behavioural therapy (which means exercise and working out).
Next is the public forum. Council does not have a closed session scheduled, so they will move right into the rest of the agenda.
They have a report from Mayor Don McIsaac regarding council appointments to boards and committees. This is the mid-term shuffle of appointments for councillors.
Next is a report from development services regarding a request by council to look at making the intersection of Orion Boulevard and Monarch Drive either a 4-way stop or installing a traffic circle.
Staff say their investigation showed none of the criteria of the Ontario Traffic Manual are met and are not recommending a 4 –way stop. They also say the intersection is not large enough for a traffic circle, nor have there been any collisions to require a 4-way stop, so the motion is to receive the report (do nothing).
Council also asked for a no parking zone be extended 10 meters on Orion. Staff say another report will be coming to council on that issue.
The same department has a report requesting an additional $3 million be added to the budget for the Bayview sewage pumping station.
Council previously approved a $3.5 million budget to refurbish the station and increased the budget by $2 million in 2023 to replace it. Since then consultants found some issues which required design changes. The total budget is now $8.5 million.
Charge It
Environment services has a report asking council to change the scope of a fleet optimization program to now include 8 more charging stations and buy fleet optimization software.
The City currently has 4 electric vehicles (a fire department vehicle, an environmental monitoring vehicle, and two ice resurfacers at Rotary Place) and has two more on order and an ice resurfacers for Brian Orser Arena..
The cost of charging stations is $83K and a grant from the feds will provide 50% of the funding. Te software cost is $27K.
Motions
Councillor Tim Lauer has a motion to change council representation from the ward system to at-large.
He presents the argument that councillors are more focused on ward issues at the expense of community-wide issues. He does not present any quantitative data to support the argument.
He also says the ward system makes councillors only accountable to one quarter of the voting population. That may be true, but there are councillors who were not re-elected because of their general performance on council since the City adopted the ward system.
Lauer addresses the idea running a campaign City-wide has never been easier because of social media, but does not consider social media still has to be discovered by user. You can’t just make a website, or Facebook page and expect people will flock to it.
In the end voting at large favours those with time and money, retired people, and discourages many who might otherwise run for office once they consider the logistics of trying to reach a critical mass of voters. Since the system was changed, the aver age of councillors has gone down considerably, and well below age 65.
There are three enquiry motions. Councillor Janet –Lynne Durnford has one to have staff report on the feasibility of creating a community safety zone at Borland Street from West Street North to Laclie Street and Peter Street from Jarvis Street to Benner Street.
Councillor Jay Fallis has one to have staff make an amendment to the zoning by-law to provide a 72 hour exemption for parking recreational vehicles
Mayor McIsaac and Councillor Jeff Czetwerzuk have an enquiry to have staff write to Parks Canada to return control of the Champlain Monument to the City of Orillia.
There is a by-law listed to name Daniel Kirby as the City’s new clerk.
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
