Council Preview: Feb 6, 2019

Another Wednesday, another Middlesex Centre Council meeting. 😉 Here is the full agenda. This will be our sixth Council meeting of 2019 thanks to a few special Council meetings that were scheduled in for January. After Feb 6, we will go back to our normal bi-weekly (roughly) cadence until Summer.

Delegations, Presentations & Petitions

Only one item here, that being residents from the Ilderton area seeking for a reduction in their utility bill for some additional water usage no one seems to be able to explain.

Consent Agenda

  • First we have the December building report. Fewer building permits issued in Dec 2018 vs. Dec 2017, however 2018 was still a very healthy year. Given the current state of things, I suspect 2019 will see a large increase in single family detached and condominium building permits issued compared with 2018.
  • The year end building report has a good summary of everything the Building department has completed. Here are a few highlights:
    • A total of 502 permits were issued in 2018.
    • Over $1.7M of development charges were collected, which goes towards the DC eligible portions of a variety of projects like the Ilderton WWTF expansion, the DC-funded portion of the Wellness Centre’s debt, and so on.
    • The inspection team completed 2,850 building, plumbing, and septic inspections.
  • The year end by-law enforcement report also has a good summary of everything by By-Law Enforcement department did in 2018, and includes the following highlights:
    • Hiring Mark Russell.
    • The addition of a streets by-law and parking by-law.
    • Additional training provided to staff.
    • The number of files opened, closed, and continuing on into 2019. 78% of cases were closed in 2018! An impressive number in my books.
    • And you’ll see staff try to warn people about illegal parking far more often than simply ticketing them immediately.

Staff Reports

  • The first staff report is seeking for budget pre-approval to award replacing the playground equipment at Weldon Park in Arva, and Delaware Park. You’ll note that the scoring criteria has playground design as the biggest portion, at 60 out of a possible 100 points. As such, neither the most expensive nor the least expensive vendor is being recommended.
  • Bonus! Middlesex Centre has been successful at obtaining a $120,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation for the Weldon Park and Delaware Park playgrounds! This is a terrific amount of funding given the amount of money we’re spending on them.
  • The next staff report seeks to approve the budget we reviewed in tremendous detail last week.
  • We also have a legally mandated report on expenses not included in the budget, that being amortization of the municipality’s assets.
  • And finally, there is a request to award Stantec the detailed design and contract administration services for the Garden Ave (Delaware) storm sewer replacement job.

Correspondence

Under correspondence we have a notification that AMO has partnered with eScribe, which could lead to lower fees for Middlesex Centre for the digital agenda management software we are currently implementing, along with eScribe’s live streaming solution. MPAC has also provided their year end assessment report, and Niagara Falls felt it was necessary to let the whole province know they were opting in to retail cannabis sales.

That’s it! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please let me know.