council group pictureA big night for city council Monday, as the 2016 budget could be passed.

Council will hear reports on sidewalks in South Porcupine, building by-laws and a look at the preliminary design for Kraft Creek Bridge on Airport Road.

Get all the details with our council live blog, starting at 6:00pm.

(Keep refreshing the page as the night goes along for updates!)

We start off with an update to the Whitney-Tisdale sanitary sewer project in South Porcupine.

View their full presentation HERE.

They’re in the middle of Phase 1.  The contract was up last September, but construction isn’t expected to be done until August 2016.

Despite this, this phase of the project remains on budget but that cost could go up depending on geo-technical reviews.

Construction isn’t expected to resume until March.

Campbell says this is the second time we’ve seen something like this, after the Mattagami Waste water plant.  He says it’s likely this could go to litigation due to people not being held accountable or responsible for their actions.

Rinaldo recalls a presentation last July and says this was anticipated.  She asks if there’s something that could’ve been done differently.

Duval says they have a lot of good information, but says they’re not the experts in construction and would’ve asked more questions to the constructors.

Dubeau says WSP was there to oversee work being done, but raises questions about contractors not going by geo-technical evaluations.

The design cost the city about $1.8-million, and warns JL Richards better not come asking for more money when they didn’t follow the plan.

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Now to the Kraft Creek Bridge design report, with Laura Donaldson.

View their presentation HERE.

Bridge construction will cause some detours with Airport Road closed.  For passenger vehicles, they would go to Laforest Road via MacLean Drive and go up Airport.  Commercial vehicles would have to use Laforest Road via Highway 655.

There is a recommendation to spend $3.1-million to do an accelerated construction that would take 8 weeks to complete.  The city could spend less to construct the bridge a different way, but would take another month (perhaps more) to complete.

Again, all those details are part of their presentation.

Construction wouldn’t take place until 2018 at the earliest.  2016-17 would be for the detailed design to come in once council decides what method of construction they’d like to have.

Donaldson is requesting a public information session sometime in March.

This item will be back later tonight for council to pass a funding application to send out.

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Raise the Flag from Autism Ontario goes without questions.

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Now to a letter about building the region as the “World’s Best Snowmobile Destination.”

View the request from the Northeast Community Network HERE.

Doody says this is an excellent item for the NEOMA meeting being held next month.

Other councillors also echoing each other that this could be part of the tourism budget.

This will be deferred until they have the NEOMA meeting to discuss it further.

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To a request to the OPP to have a helicopter in Sudbury, instead of having them all in Orillia.

It goes without questions.

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Black moves ahead to cost saving options at the Timmins Museum.

There is a large crowd here to hear about this.  The presentation points to just under $20,000 worth of savings, as recommended by the KPMG report.

The savings works out to be a 3.2% reduction to their expenditure budget.

Mark Jensen says he hopes there are no more cuts after this.

Curator Karen Bachmann says one of the options is eliminating 6 hours on Wednesdays, to get some flexibility for workers.  Most staff at the museum are part-time with an extra job on the side.

Doody says you can’t put a price tag on the museum.

There is talk of a restructuring plan as well.  Marks isn’t in favour of any changes until that plan takes effect, neither is Grzela.

Bamford makes mention that if council is bad at decision making, they should just get North Bay’s city council to come up here and run the city.

He says the more the museum is built, the better they are as a community.

“Let’s just move on,” Bamford says, adding his support to keeping the status quo at the museum.

Dubeau says he agrees that the museum is important to a city that’s “on an island” in terms of location.

He says he is a history buff, adding the city is nickel and diming and have spoken on the issue longer than the $1.5M to $3M for the Golden Manor.

Now the vote on the four recommendations in the museum presentation.

Campbell wants to defer it to a regular meeting, as he doesn’t feel comfortable having a consensus vote here.

This is also one of the last things on the budget left up in the air.  With this deferred, the budget vote would have to wait.

All council supports keeping the museum at status quo.

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We move on to Duval, who is talking about sidewalks in South Porcupine.

Not much coming from that, and this will come back.

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Back to Jensen on the building by-law.

For a bit of clarification, CLICK HERE.

Of note, people changing out something like a window will not be charged if it’s for the same size of window.

Rinaldo says they need to be consistent in enforcing these by-laws.

Council votes against a provision that requires permits for doors, windows and siding.

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Deeming by-law and transfer to reserves goes without questions and we’re taking a 5 minute break.

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Aaaaaaaand we’re back, and the first item post-break is on establishing minimum ridership standards on Timmins Transit.

This is to put together a report that will come back at the end of August.

Dubeau says we’ve already had this discussion recently, voted on and basically defeated.

Rinaldo is comfortable with having a report, as does Doody.

Dubeau says we’re just changing the words around and shouldn’t come back.

This will come back for a vote in the special meeting.

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Next is setting a rate to parking for seniors.

This is to look at getting a low cost parking permit in the lot closest to the Seniors Community Centre.

Rinaldo questions the accessibility due to the lot being behind the transit station.

We will wait for the parking department plan to come forward.

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Black now bringing in a couple matters, one is Code of Conduct and the other on a procedural by-law.

The first report is HERE, while the other is HERE.

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Now to a matter of a new potential hire at the TEDC.

The salary would be funded 50% in city reserves in 2017, and put into the operating budget in 2018.

Grzela says he appreciates the TEDC covering the first year, and doesn’t see why they shouldn’t.

Doody says he supports this, pointing out the price of gold has gone up over $100 in the last week and a half.

Torlone asks what the position this new person would be.  Black says it’s another body to help with their projects, getting grant funding and more.

Everyone supports this.

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Disclosure of tender results with Campbell.

He says this is on the agenda so everyone understands their right under the Municipal Act.  He says more accountability and transparency in terms of companies bidding on contracts and purchases should be better than it has been.

This goes back to conversations held over the last couple months in council chambers.  Usually, it comes up every time the city is making a purchase and turns into a large discussion.

His resolution can be found HERE.

Torlone explaining the difference between an RFP and the city tendering out for bids.

Torlone says the accusation that they’re holding stuff back in this is unfair.

“What have we got to hide? Nothing,” he said.

Rinaldo says decisions are subjective.

Council votes to get a legal opinion on the subject.

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We’re into the special meeting!

The first item is on upgrades to the Deloro weigh scales.  The recommendation is to sole-source (city went to the supplier that they know can do the work, and K-4 Integration is the only one that knows the scale currently in place) it for just over $28,000 plus HST.

Council votes in favour of this.

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Next is the hours at the Deloro Landfill discussed last week.

This is to pass the recommendation made last week, where summer hours will have weekends open 8 hours a day instead of 10.  Winter hours would have Sunday’s closed.

At the Tisdale Transfer site, the only change is to have Sunday’s closed in the winter.

Bamford asks to have the dates changed from April 1 to September 30 shifted up 14 days.  That would make winter classified as April 14 to October 14.

It is passed, and this will take about 4-8 weeks to implement.

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This next one is for funding support from the Building Canada Fund.

Timmins would use this money to fund the Kraft Creek bridge on Airport Road, which was talked about earlier tonight.

It is passed.

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Transfer to reserves is next.

It is passed.

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Now to the 2016 budget.

The expenditure increase would be for $3,396,913

It is passed.

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Now to the transit item mentioned earlier.

It is passed so there will be a report coming back on this in August.

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Deeming by-law is passed unanimously.

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The final item is for a new licensing by-law.

This will not be officially passed, but first reading is.  Now, this item will go out to local groups for more support.

and we are adjourned!