city council group pictureThe core services review is back up at council Monday.

A report on city water, Canada Post, a sale of land from the MRCA and provincial funding for the Great Canadian Kayak Festival are also on the agenda.

A bit of a change to timing, as council will start at 5:00pm.

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

Wawrzaszek is not present.

We’re starting off with Oscar Poloni with KPMG to discuss the financial orientation session for the core services review.

This information is self-evident to those who have served on council beforehand.

He wants to give their perspective to the city’s financial performance and update council on the review status.

None of this information is available online, so bare with me on the details.

He says in 2013, there was a surplus but it doesn’t mean the city budgeted a surplus.

Poloni says he heard a story about poor road maintenance, and that it cost the city $15,000 because it hit a manhole.

He says when they find savings, he wants to find ways to reinvest.

He says of most of the cities he’s covered, many didn’t spend enough on capital.

One thing he wanted to talk about post-employment benefits.

He says when they look at debt, those numbers aren’t included.

Often times, he says people will look at accumulated surplus as money, which isn’t true because that money is already invested in stuff the city needs done.

Most of the ratings in these reviews range from bad, to very bad, to even worse than that.

“There is no good in this exercise,” Poloni says.

He cites examples of replacing pipes.

Doody says theoretically, if the city went bankrupt, would we be able to manage paying liability.

He says you wouldn’t be able to, but the city would be taken over by the Province of Ontario.

Now is his perspective on taxation analysis.  Poloni says he got the info from the Timmins Taxpayers Association.

He says an assessed value will change depending on location.

Poloni says to imagine if you moved your house, as is, to Mississauga.

He says from 2000 to 2013, taxes have gone up around 4.5%.  This is consistent with other comparable cities.  However, it terms of other own-source revenues, Timmins’ numbers are up 5.48%.

The next highest increase for comparable cities is Belleville, which is up 4.22%

He outlines tax ratios.  Going on to taxation analysis.

Poloni says municipalities with higher assessed values will have lower tax rates.

Timmins has a residential assessment of over $2.6-billion between 19,546 households.  The tax rate here is 1.79%.

The residential levy here is just over $40-million.

Poloni suggests if we are a low-income community, have a low tax rate.  Anything else can be a disconnect to the community.

He says in terms of taxes, we are a high income community with high taxes.

He says when Kidd Operations closes in 2021, and the city isn’t set, we will run into an imbalance and an affordability issue.

The costing for personnel wages and benefits goes up 4.13% on average.

The big thing is homes for the aged, where Timmins spends $12-million a year, while places like North Bay and Quinte West spends $0.

Poloni says the first round of team meetings are happening this week, and opportunities for one-on-ones can come afterwards.

He says he’s pleased it only cost $10 to park in front of a fire hydrant.

Bamford asks about the home for the aged.  The ones in North Bay are privately owned.

Also being asked is the consideration to Timmins’ size geographically.  Poloni says it will factor into the final report.

If you want to see a copy of KPMG’s presentation, CLICK HERE.

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Norm Bruce, Scott Tam and Mark Johnson are up for drinking water reports.

This is an annual report.

This past year, they did emergency testing and updated risk assessment tables, among other things.

This year, they want to provide additional training for staff, provide details on a 10-year capital plan.

In summary, they took just over 11-million cubic metres of water from the Mattagami River.  They’ve used a number of chemicals in 2014, including alum, caustic soda, polymer, chlorine gas and actisand.  They also conducted bacteria testing in 2014.  Nothing adverse in 720 samples.  95 samples were collected for e-coli and total coli forms with no adverse tests.

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Next up is baseball fields being used as a fundraiser, which they just added to the agenda.  It will be talked about later.

As well, something about spring clean up, which is also now on the agenda.  Just some housekeeping items and now to move on.

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Now to the MRCA, which is a sale of land for the parking lot along Highway 655.  The sale goes from the city to the MRCA to take care of.  It will come back for formal approval.

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City now approving the Karl Habla Canada Day walk from city hall to the Schumacher flag park at 11am.  Chief John Gauthier with the thumbs up on having it supported by the Timmins Police.

It is approved.

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Now to the community mailboxes in the town of Aurora.  This is to support that city’s request to keep their door-to-door delivery.

He says for Timmins, it hits home as Canada Post recently put Timmins on notice to have our home-based delivery eliminated by 2016.

Black says one of the main issues was people with mobility issues.  He says Canada Post has an application process to have mail delivered to those residents.

In terms of maintenance, there is a grant process, where the city will get $50 for every mailbox installed.  Rinaldo asks about access in the winter time.  Black says clearing snow around the boxes will probably have to be done by the city.

Doody says door-to-door delivery is excellent, and will not support the change.

Bamford says things may change in the next year with the fall election, so take things slow with Canada Post.

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Now onto the Timmins Golden Trails Festival.

It is an annual event, a half-marathon.  That will come back.

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Now to the Great Canadian Kayak Challenge.  The city is applying for funding, they haven’t received funding.  This will come back.

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A bit of talk on a demonstrated need for aggregates.  This will come back.

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Now a request to waive fees at baseball fields for a fundraiser.

The organizers want this decided upon so they can go ahead with planning for costs.

Bamford says this will not go over well.  He says usually, this is given out to events that represent the city.

When we go down this road, giving $2300 in fees to a private event, you may as well take away rental fees.

He says he doesn’t want to take away from the cause the organizers are trying to raise money for, but there needs to be a line.

Bamford adds we need to separate the emotion from making decisions.

Black says this is to fund for a resident who is going through a medical issue and needs the money to travel.

The fields are currently not being used.

Dubeau asks about insurance and clean up costs.

Rinaldo wants to know if they can tie in to another organization to get insurance.

Marks asks about putting in an amendment to this that requires the group to fix the insurance issue.

Campbell says he’d like to see a formal policy developed on a request like this.  He agrees with Marks, in the sense that nobody’s exactly knocking on the doors to use the fields right now.

Rinaldo says this could be just a tie in to their softball league.

Black asks if council is comfortable this coming back to council at a later date.  It is passed and they will discuss this again the next meeting.

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Now to a report on unmaintained rural roads with Luc Duval.

He says a policy has been in effect since 1981.

Essentially, the city has three options on the table going forward.  The first is to stick to what they have now, where private property owners personally invest in building the rural road to a standard before the city takes ownership.

The second is to do a cost-sharing agreement with the Cottagers’ Association, where they’d split the cost 50/50 to a limit of $15,000 per resident.

The final option is to have the road prepared so the city can provide services during the summer and winter months, with the cost going to the city.

Bamford says cottagers would prefer having the roads graded in the summer and snow plowed in the wintertime.  He says the status quo would bring up costs.  Bamford says Option 2 would be a good compromise.

Rinaldo says in the last 10 years, seasonal homes have become year-round homes.

She says in the official plan, she’s torn because that was the home owners’ choice, not the city’s.  She adds we’ll have to take a look at the official plan down the line.

Marks says we are a “damn big city,” and need to represent the city as a whole.

Dubeau says there’s a reason people live out in the country, “so they don’t have to pay taxes.”

Doody says this is a great opportunity to look at the Official Plan.  He mentions how he was around when consolidation happened, but that they didn’t realize the problems that would come with that.

“We want to be as fair as we possibly can,” he said.

Black says the discussion concerns him, and mentions that they need to consider Poloni’s presentation in terms of where they will spend the money.  He says we just increased winter maintenance by $1.4-million to better serve the area they do as it is.

Black would vote against upgraded service to private roads.  We shall see where the rest of council sits.

If council does want to go this route, Black would like to see another report on the issue, to see costing and how many roads falls under this classification.

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Now to the disposal of dewatered sludge, grit and rags from the Mattagami Water Pollution Control Plant to the Deloro Landfill.

The city budgeted $70,000 for this, and a recommendation is in place to take Northern Industrial Services Group for just over $66,000.  This will come back at the next meeting.

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Now to the HR Bielek Report.

This is for an annual approval for an elderly person’s centre, where the city puts in $10,000.

This will come back.

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Dubeau now up with the “buy local” issue.

He says there are things we can do to better policies.

He says he’s met with various city officials, as well as the Chamber of Commerce.  He says he’s still gathering information and will bring this issue back to council later on.

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Now to spring clean up.

Dubeau says this is for an absent Wawrzaszek.

He says were burying recyclable material, when we can get money for it.

Dubeau asks if this could be implemented as early as tomorrow.

The current rule is not to put recyclables into your spring clean up piles.

Dubeau says he’s “stunned” we’re even having this conversation, with so many recycling initiatives out there.

Dubeau says he’s withdrawing the resolution, until he gets more information.

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They are going in-camera once again, so media is gone!