21-day in-year budget amendment period prescribed in Ontario Regulation 530/22 Section 9 (3)…

4:12:47exciting bylaws we've ever had since uh since i've been mayor anyways so uh look uh can i just

4:12:57have some grace for a moment for everyone to just to speak for a moment thank you thank you i found

4:13:06a way to figure it out okay dylan do you happen to have the strong mayor order it's a compromised

4:13:18position council may like it or not because it's on them but here it is i using the strong mayor powers

4:13:29i'm increasing the operating budget by 650 000 to reinstate the snow removal services for the on

4:13:36street bike lanes of which 349 118 will be funded by increasing the 2026 tax levy and 300

4:13:458882 will be funded from the environment and utility contingency reserve one time in 2026

4:13:53resulting in the remaining 300 000 tax levy impact into 2027 in other words this will be ongoing

4:14:00it's not just a one year removing the addition of the two bylaw officers included

4:14:07all associated office operating expenses which will decrease the net tax levy by 991 17

4:14:16and decreasing the operating budget by 250 000 by decreasing the transfer to the 100 re reserve

4:14:24reducing the tax levy and decreasing the capital budget for capital project gb 026100

4:14:31re initiatives by 250 000 in each year from 2026 to 2035 capital budget and forecast i'm just

4:14:39pausing on that moment for a second that can always be amended year by year but moving into 2026

4:14:44it will be taken out i have signed this main mayoral order and it's signed by the clerk which means

4:14:51it's done you have the bike lanes back maintained starting today okay now i want to give i want to

4:15:05give some context and no notes in front of me you all know me well enough i don't have notes

4:15:11usually at all maybe i get in trouble for that but um this has been extremely difficult to figure out

4:15:22there are some of you may be listening online some of you in this audience that i have not

4:15:28maybe been contacting you back which is not like me and i've been straight to the point and some of

4:15:34my responses of thank you for your feedback it's because all of my time has been trying to figure

4:15:41this out okay there were a lot this is new ground and i'm going to blame i'm going to blame the

4:15:52strong mayor powers for the situation we have found ourselves in because the strong mayor powers

4:15:59do not allow any of my colleagues to do a notice of reconsideration on emotion

4:16:05if that didn't exist then anyone in my colleagues that had a change of heart on an issue could come

4:16:12they could present a notice of reconsideration they could we could figure it out we could debate it

4:16:17we could approve it okay but they're not allowed because of the strong mayor powers it's all on me

4:16:26and it shouldn't be a shock to anybody that i don't like raising taxes that's what i've been as the

4:16:34mayor and a counselor for years it shouldn't be a shock but i've been trying to figure out a way

4:16:41to get this to work while making it no impact on property taxes which is what i figured out okay

4:16:50so in the absence of a notice of reconsideration it is my duty as the leader as the mayor to

4:17:00acknowledge my council colleagues and the public but my council colleagues who are rightfully coming

4:17:06with concerns changes of heart differences of opinions saying i do i ignore that as the as a

4:17:13leader do i ignore that as the mayor is that good governance is it me to say well too bad for you

4:17:22so here i am using the strong mayor powers in this way which i kind of said i would never do

4:17:27in which i might add many of my colleagues around here have written extensively and told me extensively

4:17:33that it would be undemocratic and that i should never use them but there has been some unity around

4:17:42using them in this way and i believe that to do the right thing i have found a way forward which is

4:17:52taken me through many un-maintained bicycle lanes to get here and i want to explain the situation

4:18:03then because i have signed the mayor order it means that the bylaw that is on here now is mute

4:18:13it has to be removed because as the mayor i have i have directed that this be funded so it is out

4:18:25now there's more to this process though council technically has 21 days from right now

4:18:33to confer with the clerk and say i would like to challenge the mayor's strong mayor order

4:18:42they have the you have the authority to do that but i'll be blunt if you do that then you are raising

4:18:49taxes and i'm not here for that so this is a compromise we're getting this done starting today

4:18:59that certainty is then given to the public and to all of us but there's a compromise built in on

4:19:04this for one year where we're reducing a little bit because i do not want to raise taxes i'm not

4:19:10like that and i hope you understand as the mayor with the authority to do this under this

4:19:15strong mayor legislation this is the way i move forward and if you want to challenge that then

4:19:20you go ahead but i think this is a good compromise and all of it can be on the table for another term

4:19:27and another year and i want to thank my council colleagues who have fully and respectfully

4:19:36talked to me for the entire last week about this topic and raised very valid points

4:19:43and some of those valid points have come from the public too thank you some of them i thought went

4:19:49a little overboard but i hope you understand my position and the frustration that i had in trying

4:20:01to uphold unity amongst council banging my head against the municipal act banging my head against

4:20:08the strong mayor powers trying to figure out how not to raise taxes to land at this compromise today

4:20:14so with that i don't think there's really much more to say

4:20:21unless someone wants to jump in because i'm being hospitable but um i want to thank staff too

4:20:30because let me tell you staff have this is all new territory right this is all new territory

4:20:38i hope i've landed at a good place for everybody i really and honestly and authentically do

4:20:43and this has been a really tough budget okay we have to make our city affordable

4:20:56and it means everything has to be on the table sometimes this shouldn't have been one of them

4:21:06and i acknowledge that i think leaders sometime needs to say i'm sorry so i'm going to say it

4:21:14i'm sorry and i mean that i can understand the reasons why this should be funded more so than

4:21:26i knew a few weeks ago okay so i'll i'll no clapping even though i would love that but please

4:21:34no clapping in the chambers all to then boost it till thank you mayor guthrie on a point of

4:21:39personal privilege i would like to extend my thank you to you for as i said to you three or four days

4:21:45ago a road to Damascus moment i don't think there were bike lanes on that particular road so you

4:21:51were probably walking it but for many people and go off this will indeed be perceived as christmas

4:21:57coming early we all understand that this was a safety issue that regrettably became a a challenge

4:22:03at budget time it takes a lot to take a step back and do what you did and i know that many many many

4:22:10people in guaff appreciate this thank you if you could please capture everywhere councillor Allt has

4:22:17said and put that in the minutes that would be awesome uh yeah councillor boosted till and then

4:22:22how's her thank you you know ditto to what councillor Allt said but i also want to acknowledge

4:22:29publicly you don't see this but you know i'm texting cam i'm calling cam and he's like in

4:22:35meetings if you can picture like a big ball of wool all tied tied together with the legislation

4:22:41and the regulations and the acts and kudos to the mayor for you know taking the time hours and hours

4:22:47you don't see the bruises on his head just trying to sort through this but the other thing you don't

4:22:52see i had the privilege after the chamber breakfast i calmed cam into buying me lunch but anyway so

4:22:59we went and had lunch at the delta and i didn't see these emails as a councillor but there must

4:23:04have been a dozen emails that the mayor received from senior citizens about affordability in the

4:23:12city and just his breaking heart around this so many talks about affordability this is sincere

4:23:18these are people who and i do lots of community work who can't afford housing you know and can't

4:23:24afford food so we're trying to find the balance given as you heard earlier with more downloading

4:23:31coming on us as a city trying to do more with last so thank you thank you to the mayor thank you

4:23:37councillor buschett house or um i also wanted to just um express my uh gratitude for finding this

4:23:44compromise um and i do have a takeaway from this whole process um so the amendment period exists

4:23:52so that people can reconsider and go back and look at things and i would suggest strongly to any

4:23:56future council to not waive the amendment period that's all thank you amen to that

4:24:05that's right well you said road to demacus so okay uh clausen and then uh chie and then kipson

4:24:14yes um ditto to what all my colleagues are saying and and thank you for all of the members of public

4:24:21who reached out with their personal stories of their need to ride their bikes every day their need

4:24:27to use bike lanes for motorized scooters and other mobility devices i think it makes a difference

4:24:33when we hear all of those stories um and i'm grateful for those and i also just want to say thank

4:24:38you to my colleagues who reconsidered um particularly councillor gibson um because i think that you

4:24:45put it before us in a in a way that i think many people started to ask questions um about how uh what

4:24:52a process to bring back the winter maintenance of the bike lanes and what that could look like um and

4:24:57it might be different from our you know some of our other reasons but i do appreciate that you did

4:25:02reconsider that with your uh residents in mind and finally thank you for cam for finding that compromise

4:25:09um it again isn't the compromise that all of us want but i also appreciate that you uh apologized

4:25:16and and and and took took the accountability for that so thank you for finding this thank you i'm

4:25:23sorry i didn't uh was it to chew and then gibson and then i see katin as well um coran as well

4:25:30yeah thank you through you mr. mayor thank you for bringing this forward so we have a chance to

4:25:35publicly comment and yeah we appreciate all your efforts uh i don't think look public policy at the

4:25:41end of the day there's black there's white and there's all the gray in between and i think sometimes

4:25:47especially in the last budget conversation a lot of us were zeroing in a lot of the policies and some

4:25:52of the organizational challenges that we face and at the end of the day i just want to share a lot of

4:26:00us were in the position that we needed to stabilize some of our services so some of our local roads

4:26:06can get attention because we have a lot of inclement weather events that are beyond our

4:26:10staff's ability and i think about the folks on tolton i think about the folks on dallen

4:26:16mcnulty hunt street we have a lot of insular communities especially uh outside the downtown

4:26:23core that often don't get attention that they need um we have a policy where uh stone plows get out

4:26:30when it's eight centimeters or more sometimes our those roads don't get seen much more after that so i

4:26:39think this is a good conversation i met with many of you in the downtown community in particular

4:26:45and it's a great opportunity that i had to share with you some of the operational issues that we

4:26:50face that outside the core and i hope in your advocacy that you could share some of those stories

4:26:55from uh some of our insular streets and communities where winter maintenance is very difficult and

4:27:04again we're we have a city that's over 200 years old uh a downtown core that's over 200 years old

4:27:11and that's it juxtaposed by some of the urban communities that have been built up with them

4:27:16the last 20 years so we have a lot of challenges to meet to bridge those service gaps that we have

4:27:21but i just want to commend staff on their work uh again we're trying to build a culture of

4:27:26material solutions on this council and i think this is a good uh step to help um

4:27:32help us have more productive conversations uh that don't pit you know issues against issues

4:27:37because again public policy there's the black there's the white and then there's all the

4:27:42grain between that require all of us to work together so thank you mr mayor for your work

4:27:46as well in particular okay thank you i think i said gipson and then uh uh karan and katin

4:27:53sure yeah thank you mr mayor and i do appreciate you bringing this forward i i sincerely do um

4:27:59i i i want i'm not gonna do any storytelling but i did share this with a few counselors earlier

4:28:04today um you know a couple of issues over the years have been perceived very black and white at

4:28:09the beginning but end up becoming very reconciled with different opinions and i go back to the

4:28:15driveway issue it was a like and my my my ward mate um councillor Caton we didn't agree on why

4:28:22we needed to relax the driveway issue but we agreed that we did and there was different reasons for it

4:28:27i come back to online voting the decision i'll cancel her down and i we have different reasons

4:28:32why we supported online voting but we both did for our various reasons in this situation

4:28:36there are multiple reasons why we need to maintain um we need to maintain maintenance of our corridors

4:28:42throughout the winter my reasons may not be particularly aligned with every single person's

4:28:46reasons but they are aligned in the fact that we do need to maintain the service um so mr mayor thank

4:28:51you you took my calls i know you have 13 different people to listen to and in china managed through

4:28:58but you you did take my calls and you did work very hard on this issue and you for full credit for that

4:29:07to achieve a restoration of service with no impact to the tax base is a win i think for everyone around

4:29:12the horseshoe uh from every angle so thank you all right thank you and caron and then katin

4:29:18yeah just echoing my my colleagues so much of leadership is collaboration um and i know you

4:29:25made a lot of phone calls yesterday uh in an attempt to collaborate but until i saw what was on the

4:29:32screen i was not aware that this was coming when i asked for the bylaw to be pulled so i didn't get

4:29:37to read the entire document of where all of the pieces were coming from and where the offsets were so

4:29:44if you could forward a copy of that to members of council i know it goes on our website

4:29:49but if i if we could get a copy of it as your colleagues um via email that would that would be

4:29:54great and then we can we can move past this and dust off our dust off our bikes no problem it's part

4:30:04of the process that it's actually emailed to all of councils so the clerks is doing that

4:30:09in regards to timing uh this was figured out by me at 12 30 12 45 so this idea came to me

4:30:23while eating so so uh anyways um because up until just yesterday i honestly did not know

4:30:33up a path forward until i figured it out just an hour and a bit ago so uh it's sometimes a

4:30:40little bit easier with some people that are in the room just to be able to talk to you a little bit

4:30:44with those that are online and so i apologize if you didn't catch wind of it but it literally

4:30:48happened within the last hour and a half uh and then i'm sorry oh katin go ahead thanks uh through

4:30:55you mr mayor so i i wanted to to thank like i i've been one of the people who is against strong

4:31:01mayor powers and i understand that uh specifically with the budget the the province didn't give mayors

4:31:10um it wasn't doing you a favor i don't think to like put all of that on the mayor's shoulders um

4:31:17and when we got ourselves into the situation that we were procedurally i think that that was

4:31:23the only path forward so i appreciate that you used it in this moment and um i wanted to thank

4:31:29all of the folks who have been contacting us and bringing up the issues and um and i want to

4:31:36thank my council colleagues because there has been a lot of conversation in this past week

4:31:41and we don't always vote on the same side of things and like councillor gibson said we all

4:31:44have different reasons for that um but it was really good to be able to talk through these issues

4:31:51with you all and um kind of bring forward those thoughts and the community's thoughts together

4:31:59and i'm very happy with the outcome of the resolution overall and i also want to thank snow

4:32:05because i think that without seeing it in action uh i don't think we would have been able to kind of

4:32:11visualize the actual impact there's a lot of things that i didn't think of until i saw it and

4:32:15i was like oh yeah that um so i appreciate everyone and i'm happy that uh it's come about in this way

4:32:23thanks okay thank you i don't think i see anyone else so thank you oh okay billings go ahead thank

4:32:32you mr mayor yes ditto um however just one thing i want to mention and that is thank you so much

4:32:39procedurally because voting against the bylaw is horrible governance and it was very disturbing to

4:32:48meet um to do that so thank you thank you for doing this so that that we were not put in that

4:32:55in that terrible position thank you yeah i did owe to that um okay um so may i ask someone to

4:33:09please move the bylaws without that one bylaw counselor downer will do that oh i'm sorry i

4:33:18didn't have the sorry counselor downer will move all except for or have you already fixed it it's

4:33:24been removed okay okay go ahead do you want me to read this all or do you want to buy a lot of

4:33:29no that's good i'm going to buy a lot seconded by counselor out okay any questions i hope not

4:33:37all right i'll call the vote is anyone against the bylaws all right thank you um

4:33:48guys confer with the clerk for a moment everyone just one second everybody um there is one option

4:34:13that i want to i want to speak to you all about and that is uh you can i just i didn't know what

4:34:20was going to be said around the room here it seems like there is a lot of unity here around this issue

4:34:25so i throw it back to my council colleagues um there is a motion that can be tabled right now

4:34:31if you want to throw it up on the screen dylan just so council can see it that you we could right now

4:34:39stop the 21 day period and accept my mayoral order right now and then that way we're done

4:34:46or you can take 21 days and try to figure it out and and consider your next moves but yes

4:34:53we ask a question of clarity yes of course if we don't accept this amendment will it delay the

4:35:00implementation of the winter maintenance it will not and i'm going to have a calling

4:35:06wco clock bush confirm that publicly right now thank you through the mayor we in fact have already

4:35:12updated our public notice to say that the winter maintenance of the bike lanes has been restored

4:35:16and we will resume that work immediately so i you know we could we could table this motion we could

4:35:25see if it passes and then we we are done um and then there's no sort of our clerks waiting up to

4:35:3121 days which is your right by the way of no pressure but 21 days and then also there's

4:35:37scheduling of meetings like in the new year early in the new year whether or not we have to come back

4:35:42and decide all that um so i leave it to my council colleagues if there's someone that wishes to

4:35:47consider moving and seconding it okay linda busatil and and and councillor howzer will okay so that

4:35:54motion has been moved and seconded is there anything more on that then before i call the vote

4:36:01no okay i'll call the vote is anyone against limiting the 21 day just goller okay so that

4:36:10considers the matter then then done okay thank you everyone i am looking for a motion to adjourn so

4:36:16we can all bike i mean go home uh who's going to move that all right uh gibson and uh billings