Accessibility Advisory Committee

0:03Okay, Chair. We're still working to help everyone connect who's having issues and we'll continue to do that in the background, but I think you have a form now. So you're ready to go when.

0:12Awesome.

0:13Thank you so much, Garrett. I really appreciate the help.

0:18All right. Thanks everyone for coming to the AAC meeting today, Tuesday, December 17th.

0:27As always, we're going to begin with the Indigenous Territorial Acknowledgement.

0:33As we gather, let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work in Guelph, a city built over rich Indigenous histories.

0:40We're guests here and we should reflect on the responsibility to care for this land, the people who live here today, and the generations to come.

0:48If our actions today can move us toward reconciliation, we should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude.

0:54This place we call Guelph has served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for many peoples over time, but more specifically the Atta Wanderhawk and the Haudenosaunee.

1:04This land is held as the treaty lands and the territory with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

1:09Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Haldeman tract and is part of a long-established traditional hunting ground for the six nations of the Grand River.

1:17Many First Nations, Inuit and Métis people who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home today.

1:24There is a link in the agenda if you'd like to learn more about the Indigenous Territorial Acknowledgement.

1:32So first, does anyone have a disclosure of conflict of interest and general nature thereof?

1:38Well, there goes my ice machine making noise.

1:44I don't see or hear any.

1:47So moving to the approval of this agenda, we need someone to make a motion that the December 17th, 2024 AAC agenda be approved and we need a seconder as well.

2:00Mike and Elizabeth.

2:04Thank you very much.

2:07Thanks, then, in terms of approval of the minutes for the October 17th meeting, if anybody has looked over those minutes and would like to approve those.

2:18Mike, perfect. We need a seconder for that.

2:27Deborah, thank you so much.

2:31All right.

2:32We do have some items on the consent agenda.

2:35Leanne, do you want to quickly go over those or should I just, I guess we don't go over them at all actually because they're consent agenda unless somebody wanted one pulled, right?

2:44Right. Okay. So never mind. I'm sorry.

2:46There are some items in the consent agenda. So if there was anything that anybody had wanted to pull, I don't think anybody emailed about it.

2:56It's a good idea to, if you ever see a consent agenda that you want to pull an item to email in advance, if you can.

3:08But I don't see any discussion on that. So would somebody like to move to approve the consent agenda?

3:19An order. Thank you. And we need a seconder for that as well.

3:30Oh, Deborah, thank you. Sorry. Didn't show up on my list for some reason.

3:35Thank you both very much. All right, moving into the committee items.

3:41We have item 3.1. I believe Dylan is here.

3:47So we're going to go over the proposed arrangement for the AC from 2025 onward. So go ahead, Dylan. It's all yours.

3:55Thanks so much, Chair Root. Good afternoon, Advisory Committee members.

3:59I'm very happy to be here today joined by Winnie Chan, Board and Committee Coordinator in the City Clerk's Office to present the culminating sort of report from the redesigning Advisory Committees of Council projects.

4:10So I'm going to go through the committee members will recall that we've been here twice before once in early 2024 and once in 2023 talking about the project and this is the last touch point we'll have before we bring this to Council in March of next year.

4:23So just give me one moment and I'll share my screen. I'll go through a fairly brief presentation and then we'll have lots of time for questions and answers at the end.

4:33So just as a quick refresher, this is a project that the City Clerk's Office has undertaken in collaboration with the Guelph Lab, which itself is a collaboration between the City of Guelph and the University of Guelph.

4:43It's a project that we've completed in two phases. Phase one culminated in November of last year when Council approved an Advisory Committee governance framework.

4:53That's an important document because it's the first time that the City's had a strategic level document that talks about why we have Advisory Committees, what their purpose is, what type of topics are appropriate for Advisory Committees, what type of topics might be appropriate for other forms of community engagement, how we resource Advisory Committees, how we evaluate the effectiveness of Advisory Committees.

5:13And at least prior to that, we had never done a holistic review of Advisory Committees in Guelph. So certainly over the years we had amended terms of reference here, we'd occasionally merged committees or dissolved them or added committees, but it was always led by individual departments.

5:29And we never sort of stepped back and looked at our entire Advisory Committee program as one body of work and said, is this working as well as it should? So that's really the purpose of this project.

5:40Following Council's approval of the governance framework in November, we moved into Phase Two of the project, which is reviewing the current 14 Advisory Committees that Guelph has against the framework and City resources and policies, and then also talking to councillors and having conversations with committees about do we have the right topics right now.

5:58We really want to change our frame of thinking, and this is a little bit different for AAC because it's statutory, but when it comes to committees in general, we don't want to think of them as static.

6:07So we don't want to get in position where we create a committee and it exists without review or anything like that for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. Topics change.

6:15Advisory Committees are one form of community engagement, but there are many other forms of community engagement, and the framework in this process ensures that we're looking at committees and asking council, are these the right topics?

6:27Is this the right advice? Have we got things right? So that's really about what Phase Two of this project is about.

6:34As far as engagement, we've met with each committee as part of this project on three separate occasions.

6:43We also had a working group as part of Phase One made up of advisory committee members that met seven or eight times.

6:48We did two workshops with advisory committee chairs and vice chairs as part of Phase Two.

6:53We also met with members of city council and small groups to get their feedback on the important topics that they want to hear from advisory committees on.

7:01And of course, we've worked with city staff in the departments that support advisory committees as well.

7:06And all of that feedback and information has gone into informing the changes that we're recommending to council, which are now listed on the screen.

7:14So we have 14 advisory committees right now. We're proposing to city council in March of next year, shifting down to seven advisory committees.

7:22So it obviously is a significant reduction in the number we have, but there's a few important components to keep in mind too.

7:28The first is that the governance framework suggests that committees should generally be meeting monthly.

7:33Not to say we're having meetings for the sake of meetings, we're not, but we want the mandates to be broad enough that committees can meet monthly.

7:40We heard pretty clearly from committee members as part of Phase One of this project that committees where folks were only meeting once, twice, maybe three times a year,

7:49tended, we tended to hear from members that it was less engaging. They never really felt like they were able to sort of get a sense of the meeting procedures that we use,

7:58get a really good grasp of the topics that were coming before the committee and didn't have a chance to have as much impact as they would like to have.

8:05So generally with these recommendations, we have merged committees for the purpose of creating broader mandates for those committees.

8:12So where you had overlapping mandates, perhaps between, you know, tourism and economic development, for example,

8:18we've said there's some overlap there, let's merge that, let's talk about economic development and tourism with one group of people.

8:25So reduction in the number of committees, but I think as far as the number of times that committees are meeting and the amount of advice they're giving to city council and staff,

8:33there may be a little bit of a reduction, but not the 50% that it initially looks like.

8:39Obviously, it's number one that we're here to talk about today. That's the Accessibility Advisory Committee, which is a statutory committee, as you well know.

8:46And really, we're recommending to city council and we're looking for your support today to recommend to city council the continuation of the Accessibility Advisory Committee.

8:54So keeping your mandate as it currently stands, so the type of items that are coming to the AAC would neither expand nor decrease, it would be consistent with what you've got right now.

9:04We did have discussions with the committee and some discussions with staff about are there other topics that could come, would that make sense?

9:12And generally, we've concluded that the mandate you currently have right now is significant.

9:18You know, we don't have short AAC meetings, we're always working to fit as much into an agenda as we can and we didn't think there was necessarily capacity to add more.

9:26We know that we might be able to have more meetings in a future version of the AAC because we want to set up the precedent that you can meet monthly.

9:33It doesn't mean we have to meet monthly, but you can meet monthly, which would give us a little more capacity to add things like workshops or if we have a particularly busy AAC agenda one month, perhaps a couple of items could move over to the next month.

9:46But generally speaking, what we're recommending, except with a few tweaks, is the continuation of the Advisory Committee as it stands right now.

9:53Just before I get to questions, the recommendation that we're hoping, or we're recommending the AAC pass today is that the Accessibility Advisory Committee recommends to City Council the continuation of the Accessibility Advisory Committee mandate.

10:07And just for your awareness as far as next steps, this is your last chance to provide any formal advice to City Council or City staff on this topic before we go in March of next year.

10:18So when we present to Council in March of next year, we'll be able to include any recommendations or resolutions that you pass today.

10:25Like I say, the mandate isn't changing, but because we need to update terms of reference to be consistent with the governance framework that Council has already approved, there's two pieces I would flag for the AAC should you want to provide some comment today.

10:38First, I already talked about is meeting frequency. So because the framework says we ought to be able to meet monthly, that's what we'll include in the terms of reference when we bring it to City Council in March.

10:48And I think in practice for the AAC, what that means is we're going to hold dates and calendars. So we have a date every month, and then we'll work with the committee and with the chair to figure out do we still want to do, you know, maybe it's regular meetings every two months, but we have that in between in case the agenda is too busy or we need a special meeting or a workshop or something like that.

11:05Second is the size of the committee, the governance framework that Council approved says that committee should have seven, nine or 11 members. The AAC currently has up to 15. I believe there are 12 currently appointed members right now, but the terms of reference is up to 15.

11:20So to be consistent with that governance framework, we're also indicating reducing that down to 11. But certainly if the AAC has comments or feedback on either of those topics or anything else I've presented.

11:32Now is the now is the last opportunity for the AAC to make sure we can get that advice into Council. Otherwise, I'm happy to answer any questions.

11:41Thank you very much Dylan. Deborah, go ahead.

11:45Thanks Dylan, and thanks to all of you folks for for helping move us along. I'm very interested in this and I'm also got two specific questions.

11:57The first is the continuation of the mandate. The first bullet point says removing barriers by integrating Guelph's equity lens into everything that is that new or did I just miss that in the seven years that I've been part of this.

12:11And if it's not new, how does it align with like that's a much broader mandate that I understood the accessibility focus. I'm really pleased by that because it allows us to take more intersectional lens on things.

12:28But I am a bit surprised by that. The second, I'll have to think about the second question. It was in something you said about the numbers.

12:40That's okay. No problem. I can answer the first question and then and then by all means if you have more. So I'll provide some clarity. So the bullet point that you're referencing is indicating what sections or objectives of the city's

12:53strategic plan, the accessibility advisory committee is supporting. And one of those objectives in the strategic plan is the removal of barriers by integrating Guelph's equity lens into everything we do.

13:04It's not an expansion of the AAC's mandate, but it is using the terms of reference to point out that the work that you're already doing does align with that strategic plan objective. So we want, it's a little different because AAC is statutory, right?

13:17So it's not like we're linking back to the strategic plan to justify why we have an accessibility advisory committee, like we might with a discretionary advisory committee, but where there is that linkage anyway, we want to use the terms of reference to point out the AAC is doing work that also supports this particular

13:33strat plan objective. So it's not that we're going to be bringing that broader equity lens into the terms of reference directly. It's to say the work you do currently is aligned with an aspect of that objective.

13:46So maybe I can just follow up if that's okay, Cherute, by inviting you to just tweak that language a little bit to say exactly what you said, which is, is aligned with this and is in support of, I know that's what it says, but it's the alignment.

14:05And I did remember my second one, which was, and I haven't checked the legislation, the accessibility legislation. Is there a limit on or a guideline from the Accessibility AODA Act around the numbers of people? And if so, wouldn't that supersede what

14:26we'll City Council would like?

14:29It certainly would supersede it. I'm not aware of any indication in the act about the number of members. There is some sections about making sure that at least half of the members have disabilities, but I'm not aware and certainly Leanne or other staff could stop me if I'm wrong there, but I'm not aware of any regulation about the actual number of committee members.

14:48Great. Thank you.

14:52I actually am aware and there is not a number. The only thing it says about membership is that at least 50% have to be persons, like disabled people, persons with disabilities.

15:04That's it. Sorry, that wasn't a question for me. I just realized.

15:13But anyway, go ahead, Elizabeth, you are next.

15:16Thank you very much. Dylan, thank you for the presentation and I guess my question I have to as well. One follows kind of directly from what Deborah was talking about.

15:29My concern is the representation of the population on committees and, you know, from what I can see, I don't think the diversity on the committees match what we have in Guelph even.

15:44You know, I think it's perhaps a representation of power, colonization, I don't know.

15:52But, you know, I don't see a lot of diversity around the table other than, you know, in our committee, definitely there's diversity in terms of accessibility issues, but I'm just wondering if there's any plan in terms of having the committee membership reflect on that.

16:13So, I think it's important to select the population at services in a more broader sense. So that's my first question.

16:21And my second question was just a pretty simple one about the proposed structures. I see that there's one that's transportation and mobility.

16:30But I think that also feeds into our discussions a lot like the accessibility and mobility issues that people with disabilities have. So how will that be like managed?

16:44Yeah, so maybe I'll just speak very quickly to the second question because that's something that has also come up when we talk to the Transit Advisory Committee.

16:54The timing here is good because the AAC is actually the 14th Advisory Committee that we've been with this fall. So this is the last one.

17:01So as far as the name of that committee, based on feedback that we've got from Transit, I think we're likely to recommend to council that it just be called the Transportation Advisory Committee.

17:11The word mobility was originally added in just to try and reference the way that people are getting around the city.

17:16But we use the word mobility transit very specifically in the city. So there was a suggestion that, yeah, that actually confuses what's going to that committee a little bit.

17:26So likely just the Transportation Advisory Committee. Obviously there's still aspects of accessibility that are important there, but it's not a place that staff report would be going in order to get accessibility feedback about something transportation related.

17:41Got it.

17:43And then as far as the first question on diversity, we agree. So our goal is to have our overall committee membership match broadly match the broader community or city of Guelph.

17:57We started collecting demographic information from folks who apply to advisory committees in mid to late 2020. And we've made some pretty significant improvements. We're not there yet, but it's much better than it was a couple of years ago.

18:09What we're doing right now to try and bring that about is firstly our policies indicate that where the base requirements are met, folks who come having identified as being racialized or from an equity deserving group, they can be prioritized for appointment.

18:27We also work with different community groups and organizations representing folks who traditionally haven't been represented in formats like this to try and get the word out through their networks.

18:35And that has been good. And like I say, we see improvement. The improvement was steep at first. And it's sort of plateauing a little bit. There's several components of the governance framework that aren't being implemented right now, but longer term, we think will help a lot.

18:51And I'd point to a section in the governance framework about representative random sampling. So right now, one of the hardest parts about managing advisory committees is the recruitment process.

19:01It's a little bit different for each committee, but generally speaking, over the past couple of years, if we've had two or three vacancies, we'll often post and just get one or two applicants.

19:10So obviously, if you're looking for diversity and you're not getting the number of applicants to even fill the positions, that makes that that pretty challenging.

19:18So we want to move toward representative random sampling where we would actually send.

19:24I'm going to, this is a little bit a little bit hypothetical as far as how we would do it, but something along the lines of we would send mail outs, let's say a thousand or 2000 mail outs to addresses in Guelph to ask people if they're interested in serving on a board and committee, they could go online, fill out a very quick form, and you'd effectively have like a roster of people that we could then when we're doing recruitment use and we think we'd be able to reach a whole group of people.

19:47That way, who we have a hard time reaching right now.

19:50So there's a few components like that in the framework that will require funding and they're not funded right now, but over the next couple of years, we hope to we hope to work those in but our goal is absolutely to have our overall membership look broadly like the like the city itself.

20:06Okay, thanks.

20:08Awesome Kathy go ahead.

20:10Hi everyone.

20:14Thank you.

20:15I just had one tiny comment in regards to the numbers and I could have misinterpreted this, but I think that a few numbers that were mentioned were up to 11 and right now we have 15 members.

20:28I can understand that it's a lot to have a lot of people participating but I've noticed at my time on the committee that sometimes we don't make quorum.

20:39So having a bigger group to do when someone is not able to make it is supporting the conversation to continue, but also the diversity in perspective by having a larger group.

20:54So I think it would be in the best interest to plan for a larger group, not too large but just something over the minimum, so that when conversations do come up, it brings out the diversity in perspective.

21:11So you were thinking Kathy that 11 is too low.

21:15Do I have that right?

21:16Yeah, like, yeah, and I know it's a lot for quorum to have eight people to come, but if there's four people in a conversation, that's going to reflect those individuals and intersectionality is very real, especially in disability.

21:31So having more people will bring out other pieces of intersectionality within the conversation.

21:36So your ratio of diversity is greater.

21:40Thank you, Kathy.

21:49Mike, you're the next person with the question.

21:53Yeah, I was kind of curious.

21:55So I know we've talked about this several times.

21:58Is there a possibility of Honorarium been brought up?

22:02Because I know we've, I've heard this like a bunch.

22:04Like it's always we have to research it, etc. etc.

22:08And I think in terms of expanding our numbers and recruiting people, I think that would go a long way to say, hey, if you work and serve with the city on the committees, I think you'd find a lot more applicants, especially from the disabled community as we're already marginalized anyway.

22:25And it would certainly encourage people to participate in the democratic process.

22:29That's just my kind of thoughts on that anyway, I understand budget being the way it is.

22:35But again, I think it's optics.

22:37I think it would really help.

22:38And I think I know there's a lot of people who would love to volunteer their time, but they can't do it for free.

22:46Yeah, I agree completely.

22:47And Honorariums are in the governance framework.

22:49So they're unfunded right now.

22:51But the governance framework does indicate that we ought to be providing not only Honorariums for committee members, but also reimbursements for things like childcare, meals, transit, mileage, as well as additional training opportunities.

23:04It'd be nice for folks on all these committees to have the occasional opportunity to go to a conference or a seminar or something like that or to bring training, specific training in to be offered to our committees or multiple committees at once.

23:16So I agree completely and we'll get there.

23:19It is a question of funding at this point.

23:22We do have right now and council actually moved it up in the budget.

23:26So it was listed in 2027.

23:30So it was moved to 2026 and that's funding specifically for reimbursements and training.

23:35We've got a little bit of thinking to do over the course of the next year about is that the right place to start?

23:40I sort of think in my head, maybe we actually start with Honorariums and introduce the reimbursements after.

23:46So there's a question maybe about the order and when the funding comes, but that is something that city council has said we ought to be doing.

23:53So as soon as we have that funding, then we want to roll out Honorariums for sure.

23:57Now, is there a possibility of looking at other municipalities of our size and finding out which ones are currently funding their AACs and saying, look, a municipality of this size similar to ours is giving their people Honorariums.

24:12Would that not provide more ammunition to say we need to fund this, this needs to be funded now?

24:18So we I mean, we definitely do that compared to research.

24:23So when we're talking to city council through the budget process, we'll always have that type of information available.

24:27I honestly think this is something that city council believes in.

24:31I don't think we've got work to do to convince them, but there's a lot of priorities come come budget time and it's just about whether it's coming a little bit sooner or a little bit a little bit later.

24:41It's not going to be in 2025 because that budget is already approved, but I think as early as 2026, it's a real possibility.

24:48Thank you so much.

24:54I had my hand up.

24:56I'm just going to be really brief.

24:58My thoughts are around.

25:01I like what you said Dylan about the possibility of having a meeting every month but not necessarily the requirement.

25:08I would really love if we could continue to have six meetings a year.

25:11However, there have been a few times where we're planning agendas and we just have so much business in one month.

25:17And it's very stressful to figure out how to make that work and we end up usually having to call a special meeting for an extra meeting and go through.

25:23So I think that would be a great sweet spot to kind of land in is like we aim for the six, the six meetings, but it would be great if there was a workshop that the city wanted to put on rather than putting that into a regular agenda.

25:35We could have another meeting.

25:36I think that's a great idea.

25:39We'd have the dates and calendars to which is nice right so it means that if you're if you're a committee member.

25:44We're not all of a sudden asking you about your availability for a bunch of new dates you might not be expecting it would sort of be in calendars held available to be used if needed.

25:53Right because I think members have discussed wanting there to be able to be more meetings but also feeling very much like we're already doing a lot.

26:01So I think that's a great.

26:02I just wanted to say I support that.

26:04Thank you.

26:05The other thing is I agreed with what Kathy said about 11 not being enough members, not just because of quorum and intersectionality which are fantastic points.

26:15I also know that over the years that I've been on the AC, one of the questions I'm asked the most often from people in the community when they hear I'm on the AC is like, Oh, how do you get on that because I've applied four or five times and I just never I've never gotten on, and I would love to get on but there are just

26:30never enough spots.

26:31And I know that every year that we talk about it we hear yes there were more applicants than we had spots for.

26:36So to me, I think when it comes to something as diverse as disability, and there are so many like, if you've met one disabled person you've met one disabled person that like very little about our lives is the same.

26:49So the more that we the more people we can allow at the table, the more intersectionality will naturally happen.

26:55It can be a lot to run a meeting with a lot of people in it but I think we can, especially if we're going to be making room for for potentially more meetings we can we can make space for more people to talk.

27:06So those are my thoughts and then my final thought was just I want to make sure that any motion that we passed today doesn't conflict with any of the motions that were brought forward at the October 17 meeting last, like our last meeting, where we had asked for a few things to change I think the

27:22recommendation you put on the screen said something about continue with the mandate as it is, and we have just asked in our last meeting for some things about our mandate to change.

27:32So if we could add something into that motion about, we would also still like the things we asked for in our last meeting just so there's no confusion from Council when they hear us advocating so hard for those things.

27:44And then they also get a motion from us saying we would like things to stay as they are.

27:48I don't want that to confuse anyone.

27:50And there is if I may just add very quickly.

27:55There's good timing because the motions that AC passed in October, generally speaking, will be presented to Council as part of a governance review at the same meeting as the redesigning advisory committees of Council project is presented.

28:10The recommendation we have that I had on the screen earlier, talking about the continuation of the mandate which is really talking about the mandate in the terms of reference.

28:20I think all of the other requests from the AC in October would require some policy changes but I don't think they would be in that terms of reference specifically but I would have to go back so yeah I think the right thing to do is include it all here now to make sure we've got it and then

28:37when we go to Council in March there'll be two reports and depending on the nature of the discussion and the motions that maybe is discussed as part of this one or maybe discussed as part of the broader governance review as well.

28:47Perfect. Thank you so much.

28:50And Nortle go ahead. I think you're the last hand up.

28:54Okay, I've got a draft motion here. Can I just drop it into chat.

29:01If you could email, can you email it really quickly to Leanne and or Garrett or someone.

29:12Okay, so if you have any motions for this meeting or if anyone has any motions for anything that they've already gone over, feel free to send those through right now in an email to Leanne and staff so that they can get all ready for it.

29:28Would you like to or are you able to read out your proposed motion.

29:33Okay Nortle and then we can start talking about it well okay.

29:38The Accessibility Advisory Committee recommends to City Council that the Accessibility Advisory Committee be involved in a review of documents and mandates as outlined in the motions past during item 3.1 of the October

29:54and that's what we're doing.

29:56So we're doing a lot of work on

30:00the accessibility advisory

30:02committee meeting.

30:04So would that just be added on to

30:06the motion that was on screen

30:08saying that we kind of we would

30:10like to see the mandate continue

30:12with the terms of reference, but

30:14additionally we want to make sure

30:16that those motions. Yeah.

30:20Okay. So first what Dylan had up

30:32on screen and then we're adding

30:34what you said there.

30:36So we're going to go to the

30:38committee meeting.

30:40So we're going to go to the

30:42committee meeting.

30:44Sorry, chair. We're just working on

30:46it. We just received it and we'll

30:48have it in a document here to be

30:50able to put on screen in one moment.

31:05Okay, cool. Sorry. I didn't mean I

31:07don't mean to rush you at all. Take

31:09your time. I just all of a sudden was

31:11like, am I supposed to do something

31:13now?

31:20Chair will have this up on screen

31:22and then we'll go to the

31:24committee meeting.

31:26So the way that we're going to

31:28do this is we're going to be

31:30able to do this.

31:32So does this still meet the needs

31:34of what the city came here to ask us

31:36for today? Like does this.

31:38This motion. Yes, absolutely.

31:40So the way that I read this is

31:42first, you're saying as it relates

31:44to this broader redesigning

31:46advisory committees project.

31:48Yes, continue the AAC mandate

31:50and then we'll go to the

31:52committee meeting. I don't think

31:54it's a new ask per se, but it is

31:56reinforcing the connection between

31:58the AAC's work and the motions that

32:00were passed in October, which

32:02like I said, will be going forward

32:04to city council at the same meeting.

32:06Awesome. Kathy, I see your hand

32:08up. Do you have a question or comment

32:13or is it a legacy from before?

32:15It's a legacy. I'll put it down. Thank

32:17you. Yeah, no worries.

32:19It happens. I had mine still up too.

32:21I don't see any hands.

32:23I don't see any hands.

32:30I don't see any hands. Do we have

32:32a normal moving this? Do we have a

32:34seconder for this?

32:42Mike is going to second it. Would

32:44anyone like to comment on it at all

32:46before we call a vote?

32:48All right. I don't see any hands.

32:54So time for a vote.

32:56Is anyone opposed to the motion

32:58proposed by an order?

33:00I don't see or hear any opposed.

33:02So that motion passes. Thank you so

33:04much.

33:06Thank you. I'm going to move on to

33:08the next item with the redesign

33:13of this.

33:15That's great. Thanks so much.

33:17All right. The next item on the

33:19agenda is

33:21the vision zero action plan.

33:23We're a little behind schedule, so

33:25the timings are all off, but I know

33:27we can make that up later in the

33:29meeting. I think the last two items

33:31are going to be very brief.

33:33So we have

33:37actually myself, Nico Konik

33:39from Benita's

33:41and I'm joined here with Steve Anderson.

33:43I see it in the list.

33:45Benita is a name in the list.

33:47Well, go ahead.

33:49Yes. I'll just wave hello to everyone. I

33:51haven't seen everyone in a while, but

33:53I've been working with Nico for the last

33:55year on the vision zero action plan, so

33:57he's there in person to present it to

33:59you all.

34:01Thank you. Awesome. Go ahead then.

34:03Sorry about that.

34:05Thank you for you as well.

34:07Okay. As long as that's

34:09online. Good afternoon, everyone.

34:11My name is Nico Konik and I am

34:13the transportation safety specialist with

34:15the City of Guelph. My presentation today

34:17will introduce vision zero, offer

34:19an overview of the action plan for

34:21Safe Streets summary report and seek

34:23your recommendations to refine

34:25and clarify the summary report

34:27and listed actions.

34:29Vision zero is a road safety

34:31strategy to reduce the number of people

34:33who are killed and seriously injured on a

34:35road to zero.

34:37The City of Guelph endorsed vision zero as

34:39part of the transportation master plan

34:41in 2022, which supports

34:43the creation of a planning document that

34:45aligns with vision zero principles and

34:47builds upon the existing community road

34:49safety strategy.

34:51The planning document, which I'm now

34:53calling the action plan, will be a

34:55public facing document which seeks to

34:57introduce vision zero and related

34:59safe systems approach, offer an

35:01overview of specific collision and public health

35:03findings and list cross departmental

35:05actions.

35:07As a brief review, a reminder, vision

35:09zero is a

35:11concept was first introduced in

35:13Sweden in 1997

35:15and has proven very

35:17successful in reducing collision related

35:19deaths worldwide.

35:21Today vision zero has been widely

35:23adopted around the globe and has been endorsed

35:25by 25 cities across Canada.

35:27Vision zero is built on these principles.

35:29Number one, no loss of life is acceptable

35:31on our roads.

35:33Protecting people must take priority over

35:35all aspects of our transportation system.

35:37Number two, deaths and

35:39serious injuries are preventable.

35:41We have the knowledge, expertise and tools

35:43to anticipate and prevent all injury

35:45cause of collisions.

35:47Number three, everyone makes

35:49mistakes.

35:51Roads should be designed to account for human

35:53error and minimize harm.

35:55And lastly, number four, people are

35:57vulnerable. Collisions may happen, but the impact

35:59should never exceed what our fragile

36:01human bodies can withstand.

36:03Vision zero is also guided

36:05by what's called the safe

36:07system approach, which directs our attention

36:09towards new way of understanding and addressing

36:11road safety that accounts for all

36:13road users and proactively

36:15addresses risk.

36:17The summary report

36:19shared with you offers

36:21an overview of the action plan as well as

36:23an excerpt of our full list of

36:25safety measures and actions.

36:27Here are some notes found in the action

36:29plan summary, also listed in

36:31the slide here.

36:33The total number of people

36:35killed and seriously injured by vehicle

36:37collisions between 2018

36:39and 2022 was 101.

36:41This number is overrepresented

36:43by vulnerable road users, including those

36:45who walk, bike, use mobility

36:47devices and ride motorcycles.

36:49Put another way, while only 12%

36:51of wealth residents

36:53walk, bike, or use motorcycles for their

36:55daily commute, they account

36:57for 63% of all serious

36:59injuries and deaths.

37:0183%

37:03of wealth's collision-related

37:05serious injuries and fatalities

37:07that happened between 2018

37:09and 2022 took place

37:11on only 10% of wealth's

37:13roads, mostly represented by

37:15roads designed for fast-moving

37:17and high-volume vehicles and also

37:19occurring mostly at intersections.

37:21Actually, 72%

37:23of all collisions in wealth

37:25happened in that time period at intersections,

37:27as do most collisions

37:29involving vulnerable road users.

37:3150% of all injuries

37:33to people who were walking

37:35occurred due to

37:37a vehicle making a left turn.

37:41This action plan identifies

37:43existing city of wealth plans, policies,

37:45and guidelines that list emerging practices

37:47and initiatives which support

37:49the city's goal of reaching

37:51serious injuries and fatalities

37:53on wealth roads. The summer

37:55report provided to you offers an overview

37:57of key content found in the action plan

37:59and names eight focus areas

38:01containing 68 cross-departmental

38:03road safety actions.

38:05The eight focus areas

38:07guide our entire action plan and

38:09our as follows.

38:11A plan, better ways to grow,

38:13identify risk,

38:15protect vulnerable road users,

38:17design safe streets,

38:19reduce speeds, be data-driven,

38:21work together, and learn together.

38:25It is very important to seek guidance

38:27and support from the AAC

38:29on this report specifically

38:31and we will continue to seek your support

38:33in future road safety policies.

38:35With that in mind, I have some

38:37questions and suggestions, suggested recommendations.

38:39The next slide, please.

38:41So first, I'm very interested to know,

38:43well, generally, what is your

38:45impression of what I share with you?

38:47What is your impression of the summary report?

38:49And specifically, if you looked

38:51into the summary report and also the actions

38:53that I provided, are there details

38:55or actions that could be added

38:57or clarified?

38:59And my next slide, please. The next

39:01recommendations that I have as

39:03a suggestion is one, that the AAC

39:05received the Vision Zero Guelph

39:07Action Plan for Safe Streets

39:09summary report and number two,

39:11that the AAC recommend that the Vision Zero

39:13Guelph Action Plan for Safe Streets

39:15summary report include

39:17some recommendations, some suggestions,

39:19some advice for myself and our team.

39:21That is it. Thank you.

39:23Thank you so much. Deborah, go ahead.

39:33Thanks. Again, I found this a really

39:35interesting report, so thank you for it.

39:37I had some, I had

39:39some desire for more details.

39:41So, and part of it is,

39:43we have had the active

39:45transportation folks

39:47here as well.

39:49And I think, you know,

39:51you're coming at similar

39:53issues from different perspectives.

39:55And so I wondered,

39:57it says that

39:59there is a,

40:01is it 10%

40:03of the city's

40:05roads are

40:07where most of the

40:09accidents happen

40:11with vulnerable

40:13road users.

40:15And I wondered how

40:17did those intersections

40:19and

40:21things align

40:23with the goals in the active

40:25transportation plan?

40:27Yeah. Should I

40:29respond to that now? Or yeah, okay.

40:31So to clarify the statement,

40:33it is 83%

40:35of serious injuries and

40:37fatalities that happened between

40:392018 and 2022

40:41were occurred

40:43on 10% of road

40:45network. So it's not accidents

40:47or collisions specifically. It's only

40:49those 101 serious injuries and fatalities.

40:53So in terms of how that is, it was quite

40:55not an easy process.

40:57You had to kind of choose, create

40:59different segments of the roadways, and we cut it

41:01up by one kilometer segments

41:03for the entire roadway and below

41:05as well.

41:07And then you had to decide, well, if a collision

41:09or intersection, how would that, how would you

41:11work? Would that be this road or that road?

41:13We had a complicated process of doing that, but

41:15we followed some literature and were able

41:17to kind of figure that out. For the most part

41:19that was mostly entirely

41:21on arterial roadways and collector roadways,

41:23high-moving,

41:25fast-moving, high-volume roadways.

41:27To your second point,

41:29how, like, one of our actions

41:31is basically is, you know, Vision Zero

41:33is essentially

41:35an add-on to the existing transportation

41:37plan. Any actions that were related

41:39to extra protections

41:41for vulnerable road users such as cycling

41:43protections or cycling master plan

41:45that was listed in the transportation master plan

41:47are also listed in this

41:49Vision Zero action plan.

41:51So the real question is, one of these

41:53actions is, like, how can we bring that analysis

41:55to high risk

41:57or our own analysis of

41:59data? How can we incorporate that

42:01into our existing plan?

42:03So that is one of the actions in terms of

42:05our recommendations is incorporate

42:07our high-risk network into our capital

42:09and operating budget, which is also

42:11informed directly by the transportation master plan.

42:13So

42:15I'm not sure I still quite

42:17Yeah, it hasn't been integrated yet.

42:19Yeah. Okay, that's

42:21the answer. So you can't tell me

42:23that what we're doing on active

42:25transportation will actually help

42:27reduce, address

42:29the pieces

42:31that you've identified as high-risk areas.

42:33Yeah, and on a location

42:35basis, I can

42:37say that the actions that are listed

42:39in terms of the transportation master plan

42:41like protected

42:43cycling infrastructure, I can say based on

42:45research, I can clearly say that

42:47there is extra support for all

42:49road users in that respect in terms of

42:51its geographic location. I'm not sure yet.

42:53I'd

42:55encourage you to do that analysis because

42:57to me,

42:59what you're arguing is a piece of

43:01why we have things like protected lanes.

43:03Especially

43:05in the context in the province

43:07right now. But thank you.

43:09Thanks, Deborah.

43:13Jeanette, go ahead.

43:15Hi, good afternoon. Thank you.

43:17So I'm just going

43:19through the details on

43:21the report itself.

43:23And I

43:25have known of

43:27an intersection at Wellington

43:29and Edinburgh that has at least had

43:31a couple of fatalities. I believe

43:33one was on a motorcycle. So then I was

43:35looking into the report

43:37to see if that route

43:39was identified as a high

43:41high-risk area.

43:43Can you just show me in the report

43:45where you've sort of validated

43:47those high-risk,

43:49high-injury fatality areas?

43:51Yeah.

43:53We don't list the map

43:55that we have right now in the summary

43:57report. Although

43:59what I've provided to you is to say

44:01that we have a new

44:03map we're calling the High-Risk Network.

44:05It's our first draft map.

44:07It's the first of its kind

44:09in Canada. And instead

44:11of taking a more traditional approach

44:13which looks at responds immediately

44:15to all types of collisions,

44:17it proactively lists, well, what are the risks

44:19that are known for increasing risk

44:21specifically to serious injuries and fatalities?

44:23Which are, what you know,

44:25are overrepresented by vulnerable road users.

44:27So it takes a number of different datasets.

44:29It includes

44:31previous collision history, includes

44:33demographic data like that we know that

44:35are related to increased risk such as

44:37people who have lower income,

44:39older populations as well.

44:41We also have speeds and volumes

44:43of all roadways and especially of all

44:45pedestrian movements. So we've integrated

44:47that into what we call a

44:49High-Risk Network, but I have not actually

44:51provided you with the detailed

44:53map for that. That will be coming in the

44:55next few weeks. And that will go to

44:57Council. But I think what you should

44:59note is High-Risk Network is

45:01integrated within the entire action plan

45:03and about 10 of the 68 actions

45:05implicate the High-Risk Network

45:07specifically.

45:09Thank you. I guess for myself

45:11I would just be looking at sort of

45:13that detailed plan

45:15and what are the different factors

45:17that are being assessed and you brought

45:19up some of them.

45:21You know, the

45:23accidents, injuries, fatalities,

45:25the

45:27how many kilometers an hour

45:29traffic can go, and then

45:31sort of what is the mitigation strategy

45:33that would go along with that

45:35and sort of I imagine

45:37you would have marked it high, medium, or lower

45:39risk and then

45:41set up, you know, sort of your

45:43recommendations along those lines

45:45for instance that example

45:47I brought up of Wellington and

45:49Edinburgh and

45:51you know, is one of the

45:53recommendations therefore then

45:55decreasing speed in those areas because

45:57I know the city's really decreased a lot

45:59of the speed on many

46:01of our arterial roadways

46:03to about 40 kilometers an hour

46:05so I'm just wondering if

46:07that information will be available

46:09and is that sort of the strategic

46:11methodology that you

46:13had used to develop

46:15your recommendations.

46:17Yeah, so I can

46:19Oh sorry, yeah. I can speak to

46:23specifically what data was included with the

46:25high risk network it was our historical

46:27collision data

46:29that includes all sorts of from

46:31pedestrian was impacted

46:33or for cyclists or

46:35you know, even

46:37vehicle to vehicle and nobody was

46:39specifically impacted but still a collision occurred

46:41so historical collision data

46:43average daily vehicle volume

46:45average vehicle speed

46:47average daily pedestrian volume

46:49average daily cyclist volume

46:51percentage of population

46:53over age 65

46:55and percentage of low income population

46:57there's a few other factors

46:59that we're considering in our next

47:01volume such as percentage of population

47:03under 14

47:05and people who have like

47:07transit stops that are

47:09used by people with affordable bus passes

47:11but for right now those are the factors that we've

47:13implicated in terms of how we're using

47:15them a number of our actions

47:17implicated in a few different ways to consider it

47:19one is we know that

47:21based on our own studies

47:23though areas that have

47:25higher marginalization are less likely

47:27to request traffic calming studies

47:29so we also know that

47:31if you're in those areas you might also

47:33have less just traffic calming

47:35generally in those areas

47:37so we one new priority is to look

47:39through the high risk network and say well

47:41these are areas we also want to do more

47:43public engagement with

47:45specifically these are areas

47:47specifically that we want to do more public engagement with

47:49learns of what people's mobility patterns

47:51are and what safety concerns they have

47:53and also we know that older adults

47:55are much more likely

47:57to have a severe impacts

47:59with if impacted

48:01by a collision so we also

48:03want to use high risk networks to prioritize older populations

48:05to figure out their mobility patterns

48:07and safety concerns so that's

48:09the public engagement side in terms

48:11of the actual built environment side

48:13in terms of road safety measures there's a large number

48:15of directions to take

48:17one area is something that we're pursuing

48:19that is listed in the actions called road safety audits

48:21so we do want to be proactive

48:23in doing audits

48:25on areas implicated

48:27in the roads and the high risk network

48:29but also we have the capacity

48:31to also change the roads

48:33it's less common to do it

48:35right now in Canada on

48:37high volume arterial roads but it's not

48:39out of the question to redesign

48:41an intersection based on

48:43our analysis of where the highest risk exists

48:45I appreciate that thank you

48:49thank you

48:52awesome

48:54I just really briefly wanted to say thank you

48:56I've looked through the entire report and the appendix

48:58and I think

49:00I see a lot of the conversations we've had

49:02at the AAC with you folks really heavily reflected

49:04in there and I really just appreciate that a lot

49:06it's nice to see

49:08and one thing that I wanted to

49:10point out was there was

49:12a portion in the appendix where there was

49:14a comment about

49:16the design of roundabouts

49:18or redesign like I do know

49:20that the AAC since I've been on the AAC

49:22and then just generally in the accessibility community

49:24like the disabled community

49:26in the world roundabouts

49:28are not an accessible way

49:30to cross the street

49:32like we typically hate though

49:34I don't know if there's anyone in here

49:36who has different opinion than that but I was surprised

49:38to see that in there as a safety

49:40thing because it's my

49:42understanding that at least for pedestrians especially disabled

49:44pedestrians roundabouts are not

49:46safe

49:48like super unsafe so that was just a

49:50thing I wanted to point out but otherwise I do

49:52appreciate all the work

49:54I'm somebody who lives outside like I can actually

49:56see right now

49:58the road on Scottsdale where the bike lane

50:00is that a lot of people right now are not very happy

50:02with that bike lane I also

50:04am not very happy with that bike lane but

50:06I do think that like

50:08the work that we were doing toward protected

50:10bike lanes and safe

50:12infrastructure for cycling is really

50:14important work and bike lanes are important

50:16to me as a disabled

50:18person as well so

50:20yeah those are

50:22my not really questions just more comments

50:24for you to take with you

50:26thank you

50:28and then I saw Kathy's hand go up

50:30Kathy go ahead

50:32thank you I really appreciated

50:34your comment and understanding mobility

50:36patterns the one

50:38piece that I would want to reflect or

50:40speak about is in regards

50:42to your community engagement and really encourage

50:44you to think a little

50:46differently in terms of when we're asking

50:48mobility patterns

50:50in terms of the high volume

50:52intersections

50:54those are all individuals

50:56driving patterns and their mobility

50:58patterns within a vehicle I myself don't

51:00drive a vehicle and so when I talk

51:02about my mobility patterns

51:04I don't think about that I just

51:06go to where safe and where safe is

51:08very different than someone who

51:10feels confident to

51:12walk around their community

51:14I've always gone places that

51:16I can get around to find the way

51:18so to stop and think what would make the most sense

51:20for me is not

51:22something I don't do on a regular

51:24basis I survive

51:26and for those that are high

51:28vulnerable

51:30they're age related

51:32they have little mobility

51:34parents without cars and small children

51:36I live in a very nice neighborhood in Guelph

51:38and the policing

51:40of the vehicles are ridiculous

51:42at the point that sometimes I can't cross the street

51:44because I'm not secure

51:46that they're not going to just

51:48blow through the stop sign

51:50so in terms of community engagements

51:52really nice to hear what the community has to say

51:54but asking really difficult questions

51:56to learn the true perspectives

51:58and what mobility patterns actually

52:00mean because

52:02maybe those individuals who

52:04use that can because

52:06it might not be accessible but they don't have those accessibility issues

52:08and I

52:10don't mean it like as a stop walk

52:12like understanding what accessibility

52:14is and why people choose their mobility patterns

52:16to be able to actually

52:18find a solution

52:20to these issues because it might

52:22turn out to be another bandaid because

52:24the more specific

52:26questioning or

52:28specific questioning to

52:30actually identify the issue wasn't asked

52:32just because it seems like

52:34you asked a question they gave an answer

52:36and that should work it doesn't really work like that

52:38thank you

52:43I can't see your name was it

52:45who spoke there

52:47thank you so much

52:49it's been very important for me

52:51to

52:53reconceive how we can do

52:55community engagement and integrate that

52:57and I think that

52:59it's been a

53:01very important part of those findings

53:03into road safety traditionally

53:05it has been focused on a

53:07complaint based

53:09approach you have a problem

53:11you called the city

53:13they respond to it and I think

53:15transportation and mobility is much more complex

53:17it's not just about

53:19getting from work it's also how you

53:21care for your people in your neighborhood

53:23and getting out the door it's also part

53:25of the community engagement

53:27and making sure that we're

53:29opening up our scope with

53:31how we can see transportation and

53:33understanding how everyone's everyday mobility

53:35is incorporated into safety

53:37making sure that we're prioritizing

53:39both the neighborhoods generally

53:41and also vulnerable road users

53:43specifically older populations is something

53:45we're trying to work out and it's integrated

53:47in this plan as well

53:49thank you

53:51it just strikes me to continue to comment

53:53and I think that's a complaint that is all I would do

53:55every single day

53:57all day long because

53:59that's just reality at the moment

54:01and another piece is roundabouts are

54:03terrifying I would never be able

54:05to get to the other place that I need to go

54:07I would just avoid that and structure my life

54:09around not passing that

54:11because it's something I could never actually do

54:13so then again I don't have

54:15access to my community because I can't get

54:17to the other side of the road even though it's

54:19technically there

54:21it does complicate things so

54:23speaking to the disability community is

54:25thinking within the perspective of how we

54:27manage our lives

54:33thank you so much

54:35some really good conversation on that item

54:37would anyone like to put a motion forward

54:39could we maybe get the recommended motions

54:41back up on the screen

54:43I think a lot of the conversation we've had

54:45kind of reinforced that

54:47someone might be willing to move

54:49the recommended

54:51motion

54:53Chair Roode we're just getting that

54:56recommendation up on screen for you now

55:04and I don't know that we heard anything

55:06specific

55:08that we want additionally included

55:10aside from

55:14just our comments here today

55:16but if anybody would like to take a crack

55:18at adding a little bit

55:20on to number two there

55:22that's up on the screen

55:24I can't get my screen reader to actually

55:26highlight it so I need somebody else to read it out

55:28but

55:30number two

55:32yeah or just the whole thing

55:34Leanne if you don't mind could you read the whole

55:36yeah I sure can yeah

55:38so recommended motion

55:40number one that the AAC

55:42received a vision zero wealth

55:44action plan for safe streets

55:46summary report

55:48and number two that the AAC

55:50recommend that the vision zero

55:52wealth action plan

55:54for safe streets summary

55:56report include

55:58and it's blank

56:00and Chair Roode I'll just jump in here

56:02those are recommended motions

56:04if the committee doesn't have anything to

56:06add to clause two there

56:08it's not required we could remove that and just

56:10receive the report that's also an option

56:12for the committee if they wish

56:16would anyone like to move

56:18the first motion or add something

56:20to the second motion and move that one

56:30I think it's likely

56:32that the first motion will be enough

56:34we've seen staff

56:36work really well with us on any comments

56:38we give and keep those in mind moving forward

56:40so that would probably oh Jeanette

56:42go ahead oh I just wanted

56:44to move forward the motion yeah

56:46is that just

56:50number one that we receive the report

56:52and yeah I'll

56:54leave it open I'm

56:56just hoping like given what you said

56:58in the previous comment or talked about and

57:00were regards to roundabouts would be reflected

57:02somewhere and

57:04also I know

57:06the speed bumps can also be an issue

57:08for the disabled community

57:10so thank you

57:15we could do number two

57:17and say something

57:19about the AAC would like to

57:21continue to be included

57:23in conversations

57:25around the vision zero

57:27action plan in the future or

57:29changes to traffic coming

57:31and those but it's just that

57:33we have to list every single thing then I feel like

57:35there's so many things

57:39right so you're moving

57:41the first so you're moving that we

57:43I'll move the first and

57:45and I'll leave it up to

57:47you how to frame the second part because

57:49it's

57:51not just about being incorporated

57:53in the consultation process but

57:55that you know the comments

57:57made towards certain

57:59traffic calming measures or other strategies

58:01are reflected

58:03by the disability community

58:05here and would be

58:07revised

58:09or somehow amended to reflect that

58:11thanks

58:13okay

58:15I am never as you all know I'm never the

58:17person to say we need less in emotion but

58:19I really think the first one probably

58:21encapsulates everything we need to do at this meeting here

58:23today and I know that moving forward

58:25we would be consulted on

58:27things like around about coming into

58:29Guelph so we can probably go ahead

58:31and just move that first one that you've moved but

58:33we need a seconder still

58:35in order are you seconding or

58:37okay

58:39and would anyone like to discuss that motion

58:41or add to it or change it before we vote

58:43I don't see or hear

58:50any

58:52is anyone opposed we'll go into voting on it

58:54now is anyone opposed to that motion

58:56I

59:00don't see or hear any so that one

59:02passes thank you so much

59:04for coming and talking about this with us today

59:06we really appreciate

59:08every time you folks are here

59:10thank you thanks for having me

59:12chair roots to jump in real quick

59:14although we show both clauses

59:16I just want to confirm we've only voted on clause one

59:18correct

59:20yeah I think no one moved

59:22anything

59:24to add anything to it I think we're just receiving the report at this time

59:26thank you just wanted to confirm

59:28appreciate it

59:30thank you

59:32alright so we're moving along

59:34in the agenda now we have the 2024

59:36play equipment life cycle project

59:38we have a five minute staff presentation

59:40and then 15 minutes of

59:42a AC discussion

59:44it says Jude is here

59:46but I'm not sure

59:48things change in December I feel like

59:50so Jude if it is Jude

59:57or whoever is here to present this item

59:59the floor is yours if you'd like

1:00:01he's just coming into the room

1:00:03oh perfect

1:00:05nice timing

1:00:07you're on

1:00:16I'm ready

1:00:18thank you very much for having me

1:00:20my name is Jude Kabori I met most of you

1:00:22I guess earlier this year

1:00:24I want to come in to present the beginning of the 2024

1:00:262025

1:00:28playground replacement projects

1:00:30so I want to meet with you at that point

1:00:32we chided about Colonial Drive, Holland Crescent Park

1:00:34and Highview Park

1:00:36so this meeting for us is kind of our second round

1:00:38we finished our second round of engagement

1:00:40we did a preliminary round of engagement

1:00:42with the AC as well as the public

1:00:44operations department to kind of ask

1:00:46what high level questions or things should be

1:00:48considered as part of these three parks

1:00:50so we took that engagement back

1:00:52came up with two concepts for each one of the parks

1:00:54that looks at

1:00:56the playground itself

1:00:58as well as kind of improvements that could be done to the parks themselves

1:01:00so we took that out to the public

1:01:02and our

1:01:04operations team

1:01:06through the month of October into November

1:01:08now I'm here to

1:01:10meet and chat with you about that work as well

1:01:12try and get some engagement from the AC

1:01:14so that we can finalize things

1:01:16and then be ready for

1:01:18getting ready for tender

1:01:20and construction for 2025

1:01:22so yeah, two for design options

1:01:24prepared for each one of the parks

1:01:26what I know with you earlier in the year

1:01:28we are looking at this work through a lens

1:01:30which is the Rick Hansen

1:01:32and the Divine Guidelines

1:01:34which really look at it from

1:01:36can I get there, can I stay, can I play

1:01:38so we're really trying to address those three key items

1:01:40as we work through the design

1:01:42and we get into construction

1:01:44so for each one of these parks that looks at

1:01:46can I get there, is there an accessible pathway

1:01:48to the play space

1:01:50when I get to the play space, can I get into the play space

1:01:52is there a rent

1:01:54when I'm

1:01:56can I actually play on, physically play on

1:01:58the equipment

1:02:00is it inclusive and is it accessible

1:02:02and then when I'm there can I stay

1:02:04is there comfort

1:02:06do we have benches that each FADM and are comfortable

1:02:08so that's what we really

1:02:10we try to address through the

1:02:12design work that's been done to this point

1:02:14so yeah

1:02:16focusing the report purposes

1:02:18primarily on colonial drive in terms of

1:02:20showing the two options what we took out to the public

1:02:22was basically two options for

1:02:24kind of park improvements

1:02:26which in fairness are kind of similar

1:02:28for each one of the two concepts but then also

1:02:30two concepts for playground design

1:02:32really the intent was not

1:02:34to tell the public, you know, pick which one you like

1:02:36but

1:02:38have a look at each one of these two concepts

1:02:40and tell us what you like or don't like

1:02:42about each one of the concepts and then we will take that

1:02:44along with the engagement that we've heard from operations

1:02:46and what I hear today

1:02:48we'll take that into a final concept for each one

1:02:50of the three parks and then from there

1:02:52find my states

1:02:54so

1:02:56yeah that's I guess where we're at

1:02:58now so within the report

1:03:00and highlighted

1:03:02where we were at

1:03:04so four colonial drive

1:03:06park as I mentioned there are two concepts

1:03:08each one of them has

1:03:10a new at fault pathway

1:03:12that connects the municipal sidewalk to the park itself

1:03:14we are then providing

1:03:16for concrete ramps into the play space

1:03:18in both options

1:03:20the playground equipment for option one has meant

1:03:22a variety of inclusive and accessible

1:03:24options, concept two

1:03:26however has those as well as a ramp

1:03:28and a ramp structure so there is

1:03:30an ability for somebody in a wheelchair to get

1:03:32to the place

1:03:34for inclusion and engagement

1:03:36when we look at the

1:03:38surrounding play space we've

1:03:40posed a variety of

1:03:42seeing locations as well as trees to the

1:03:44variety of comfort again those would be

1:03:46designed to the FADM standards

1:03:48making sure that we have the

1:03:50intermediate hand rest for lift

1:03:52and mobility as well as the

1:03:54curb barrier curb to keep mobility devices

1:03:56from rolling away

1:03:58so

1:04:00yeah I guess

1:04:02that's kind of where it's at so I was hoping to

1:04:04get any feedback that the AC might have

1:04:06based on what we've done up to this point so we can

1:04:08take that in with as I mentioned

1:04:10we'll be further in the public

1:04:12and then try and find what's the designs

1:04:14and be ready for early 2024

1:04:16or probably 2025 construction

1:04:18alright are you ready for

1:04:24just questions then is that the whole

1:04:26yes that's the big deal

1:04:28cool

1:04:30no that's great

1:04:32that's perfect that's what we want we've all

1:04:34looked over the agenda materials before

1:04:36hand right so

1:04:38does anyone have any

1:04:42I don't see any comments so I will just

1:04:44jump in I'm just reiterating stuff that I

1:04:46know we've said at previous AC meetings

1:04:48when I was looking through

1:04:50the

1:04:52the report attached to the agenda that had

1:04:54kind of the images of the three different

1:04:56structures and you talked about how the second one

1:04:58has an accessible ramp

1:05:00I wanted to point out that

1:05:02the portions of the other

1:05:04images that talk about an accessible

1:05:06transfer station

1:05:08at the AC we've been pretty vocal in the past

1:05:10about the fact that a transfer station

1:05:12that transfers to nowhere is not actually

1:05:14inclusive play

1:05:16so just a spot where someone can

1:05:18get out of their chair and sit there and not

1:05:20get any further up on the play

1:05:22structure isn't really accessible so

1:05:24we don't usually love those

1:05:26I do like the idea

1:05:28of the ramp that is shown in the second

1:05:30image but it wasn't clear to me whether

1:05:32or not that actually attaches

1:05:34to the full play structure

1:05:36or whether it just lets you get up on to one

1:05:38small portion and then the rest of the play

1:05:40structure it looked like might be inaccessible

1:05:42like there are steps and things like

1:05:44that so I just wanted to get some clarification

1:05:46around that because a fully wheelchair accessible

1:05:48play structure would be fantastic

1:05:50yeah no that's fair

1:05:52that is about the point and I'm sure it would

1:05:54have been clear but you're right so

1:05:56the design

1:05:58it's not fully accessible

1:06:00basically we are providing the accessible ramp

1:06:02into the first deck

1:06:04and then from there if somebody

1:06:06with a mobility device would have to

1:06:08transfer out from there

1:06:10so none of these

1:06:12playgrounds that we're talking about for this one

1:06:14are truly 100%

1:06:16accessible they are

1:06:18AOBA compliant

1:06:20from an accessible perspective but yeah they don't take it to that next level

1:06:22for accessibility

1:06:24but they do provide a variety

1:06:26of accessible and inclusive elements within the play space

1:06:28but yes your point is

1:06:30heard

1:06:32and well

1:06:34I think the AAC

1:06:36has been pretty vocal in the past as well

1:06:38about just having some little elements

1:06:40of play isn't

1:06:42inclusive and that we don't support it so I

1:06:44don't know that anybody is going to

1:06:46wholeheartedly love

1:06:48any of these three because

1:06:50yeah giving somebody a ramp to get on to

1:06:52the play structure where they can then

1:06:54learn nothing and walk everybody else's life

1:06:56isn't

1:06:58great that there's a ramp but a ramp that leads

1:07:00to nowhere a ramp that doesn't

1:07:02actually lead to any place

1:07:04for the people in the school

1:07:06and you mentioned like they get up there

1:07:08they'd have to transfer out of their wheelchair but for someone who doesn't

1:07:10walk

1:07:12like what you get on the ground

1:07:14just sit there

1:07:16so I don't think that any of these

1:07:18and I know they meet AOBA

1:07:20as we know the AODA isn't a very

1:07:22very very long time and is

1:07:24a very very very low bar

1:07:26for what accessible play spaces should look like

1:07:28so we're still fully redesigning something

1:07:30I wouldn't

1:07:32recommend that we redesign something

1:07:34with just individual

1:07:36elements of accessibility which could really be

1:07:38at this point in 2020

1:07:40with all of the conversations that the AAC

1:07:42just had with parks about

1:07:44designing accessible play spaces

1:07:46like we've given examples of other communities

1:07:48and where there are accessible

1:07:50like truly accessible

1:07:52with an example of reporting in wealth

1:07:54and you could go back every other meeting

1:07:56that we hope to come to say the same things over and over again

1:07:58so I don't want to just look at them

1:08:00and look at all again but I think

1:08:02you will find at least to me

1:08:04I shouldn't speak for everyone but at least to me

1:08:06it's frustrating to see the same designs come up

1:08:08and have to give the same feedback

1:08:10and then especially when we're building

1:08:12something brand new why not just make it

1:08:14actually accessible

1:08:16so those are not really questions

1:08:18that you need to respond to because

1:08:20you're just my thought

1:08:22Kathy I saw your hand going

1:08:24Hi thanks

1:08:26just given from that conversation

1:08:28that just happened

1:08:30can you name a few of the barriers

1:08:32that are causing this

1:08:34to not have full accessibility

1:08:36I'm curious

1:08:38Dustin

1:08:40sort of what in the planning

1:08:42space was

1:08:44this acknowledged but also

1:08:46something that

1:08:48you were confident

1:08:50to say like this is the best that we could do

1:08:54Sure, yeah that's a very valid question

1:08:56I mean so currently our

1:08:58like the model that we're using in terms of

1:09:00implementing fully accessible playgrounds

1:09:02is using the 2.5 kilometer radius

1:09:04or being very specific in terms of where we're providing those

1:09:06throughout the community and to see what's building that

1:09:08that we've done a few of the last couple years

1:09:10including University Village that Stevan had worked on

1:09:12but they really meant to try

1:09:14and fill that gap and then build that up

1:09:16slowly over time but we are focusing

1:09:18those types of fully accessible

1:09:20parks and locations where we have

1:09:22the ability to have where we have parking

1:09:24on site, where we have the space

1:09:26to be able to do the additional seating

1:09:28and the rubber and be able to

1:09:30have enough space because I'm sure it's been mentioned

1:09:32in the past but I mean when you're talking about a fully accessible

1:09:34ramp structure in order

1:09:36to get height you have to go

1:09:38you need a lot of space so we're really

1:09:40focusing on providing those

1:09:42specific accessible

1:09:44parks when we're talking

1:09:46about accessibility

1:09:48in those locations and then again

1:09:50building that out using that 2.5 kilometer radius

1:09:52that being said

1:09:54I mean I guess another part of it too is

1:09:56you know we're looking at it from accessibility

1:09:58but also from inclusion

1:10:00so we can't make every park everything

1:10:02for everybody we

1:10:04you know this some of these designs may be

1:10:06better for children with sensory needs

1:10:08but they might not be as well

1:10:10for a child who is

1:10:12using a mobility device or a wheelchair

1:10:14but they might be okay for somebody

1:10:16who

1:10:18has death perception

1:10:20issues so it's trying to strike that

1:10:22balance I guess across the board

1:10:24and then again when we know we have a park

1:10:26or that has the least of

1:10:28the criteria that can

1:10:30really provide that fully accessible

1:10:32space that's where we're doing it so

1:10:34that's basically how we

1:10:36we're working right now if that

1:10:38helps at all. Yeah, no thank you

1:10:40I kind of put you on the spot there, thank you.

1:10:42That's good that's what we're here for

1:10:44I mean again it's been to be

1:10:46an open conversation.

1:10:50I raised my hand again just since there aren't

1:10:52any other hands raised I just wanted to comment

1:10:54on something you said about the 2.5 kilometer radius

1:10:56when that conversation

1:10:58came to the AAC and that conversation

1:11:00was happening it was my understanding

1:11:02and we really really clarified this a few

1:11:04times to make sure that that

1:11:06is just kind of a bare minimum

1:11:08like the city has to at least

1:11:10have accessible in the

1:11:12I didn't realize that the city was viewing

1:11:14that as we are now only

1:11:16putting fully accessible

1:11:18playgrounds in the like 2.5

1:11:20kilometer radius and like I really

1:11:22want to shy away from I really want to like

1:11:24warn us to stay away from conversations where we're

1:11:26saying things like every space can't

1:11:28be for everybody and that in order

1:11:30to accommodate one disability we need to take

1:11:32away from another because that

1:11:34in and of itself is a pretty ableist

1:11:36ideal that a lot of people it's not

1:11:38I'm not saying that you are unable I'm not trying to

1:11:40I'm just saying that idea

1:11:42is actually not

1:11:44built in a lot of fact

1:11:46when we look at universal design

1:11:48there are ways to accommodate

1:11:50a lot of disabilities that like

1:11:52accommodating one doesn't take away from another there's

1:11:54no reason that a wheelchair accessible

1:11:56play structure

1:11:58can't also have sensory play

1:12:00can't also be safe for sensory needs

1:12:02can't also be safe for deaf and blind

1:12:04and you know

1:12:06other other kids or other

1:12:08people who are going to be using that structure

1:12:10so I just want to push back on that and say that

1:12:12like I really I don't see

1:12:14that tracking

1:12:16the idea that like we you know we

1:12:18can't really make this fully accessible because

1:12:20it has other elements and then we'd have to take

1:12:22something away from other disabled children

1:12:24we don't have to do that that's like the entire

1:12:26principle of universal design

1:12:28so those are just my thoughts I really

1:12:30strongly don't

1:12:32want to say that any of these

1:12:34designs are accessible enough

1:12:36but that's just me

1:12:38oh thank you

1:12:40but yeah the 2.5 kilometer thing

1:12:42that stresses me out a little because we really

1:12:44really really hammered home that like

1:12:46this is just a starting point right nobody

1:12:48at the city is going to point to this later and say we now

1:12:50don't have to do it anywhere else because we're meeting

1:12:52this requirement and we were told that

1:12:54no it was very much a starting point and we're

1:12:56trying to go beyond that so that

1:12:58stresses me out a little yeah no I apologize

1:13:00I shouldn't have I'm sorry if that

1:13:02that was the tone that it created it wasn't

1:13:04meant to be that's one of the criteria that we use

1:13:06as part of it it's also the other elements that I

1:13:08spoke to in terms of having access you know parking

1:13:10that's close by and all the other amenities

1:13:12that we want to make sure that and the space

1:13:14to be able to make sure that we're actually providing

1:13:16you know a good solid accessible playground

1:13:18so it is not

1:13:20the key driver in how we choose these sites it's

1:13:22really those factors in combination

1:13:24as we move forward

1:13:26so the three parts that I'm talking about this year

1:13:29don't meet those criteria that being said

1:13:32I'm not sure what we have on mind for next year but

1:13:35it's not yeah it's not meant to be a

1:13:38you know oh we've checked that box great we're moving on

1:13:41and then to your point about I'm sorry if I again

1:13:44if I most misspoke to it it's not meant to be a

1:13:46compromise of saying yes we're doing one or the other

1:13:49but inevitably we can't

1:13:52in some of the projects and the sculpts that we're working

1:13:55we can't achieve everything I guess

1:13:57and in all of them but it's not meant to suggest that

1:13:59one is you know what one is favorite over the other

1:14:02and I know you made that clear that's not what you're saying

1:14:04so I appreciate that so again I do appreciate the feedback

1:14:07it must be nerve-wracking to come present these things

1:14:10here as well knowing that some of them aren't fully accessible

1:14:13so I hope it doesn't feel like I'm attacking you or

1:14:16making this a not fun place for you to come and present

1:14:19because it's not about you at all

1:14:21honestly this is great I mean again this is why I'm here right

1:14:24it's because again we're taking the community feedback

1:14:27that we've heard the operations feedback

1:14:29that we've heard and then we're taking your feedback

1:14:31and then we're combining them all together to try and come up

1:14:33with the best play space that was you know

1:14:35response to as much of what we've heard as possible

1:14:37and then explains the reasons why we did or didn't

1:14:40make this decision so that's really why I'm here

1:14:42is to give some meaningful feedback so thank you

1:14:45Thank you very much would anybody like to put forward

1:14:49a motion to receive this information

1:14:53or a motion saying that they would like to see something

1:14:57different out of these play spaces that we do or don't

1:15:00Kathy perfect go ahead

1:15:06I'm sorry I don't know how to move anything

1:15:10Okay I thought you were going to do it

1:15:12I thought you were going to do a motion that's fine we'll leave it

1:15:14would anyone like to I think it makes sense to move that

1:15:17we receive this information right so number one does make a lot

1:15:21of sense because somebody wants to move it

1:15:23and then we'll do the following be included for consideration

1:15:27perhaps somebody would like to put forward a motion about

1:15:31increased accessibility for these play structures

1:15:35because the designs we've seen do not meet the level

1:15:39of accessibility we would like to see or something along those

1:15:42lines if anyone I got in the chair so I can't craft motions

1:15:45but if we don't put down motions we don't have any record

1:15:49of this conversation so

1:15:58I think we can take a crack at that Leanne am I allowed to

1:16:08write a motion and see if anybody wants to move it

1:16:12I'm not allowed to move things but can I let put a motion forward

1:16:16and yeah chair to keep your

1:16:18chair here yeah you can definitely support in

1:16:22in writing any material you just can't be a mover

1:16:26Okay or a seconder

1:16:29Okay in the interest of time because we're quite a bit behind

1:16:32I would like to attempt to craft something here

1:16:36just adding to the end of item two after consideration

1:16:40Oh can I see that back up on the screen for a second

1:16:44I'm so sorry I need to see it to

1:16:51that we the AAC recommend the following be included for consideration

1:16:57increased accessibility for all three designs

1:17:01as the proposed designs do not meet the standard

1:17:05we would like to see for accessibility

1:17:12Oh Jeanette I didn't see your hand up are you trying to craft a motion

1:17:30or are you moving that motion

1:17:34I was going to move that I think that

1:17:38encapsulates sort of what we're talking about and

1:17:42yeah just increasing the targets

1:17:46for all accessibility needs thank you

1:17:52Chair we're going to put a slide up with

1:17:56hopefully what you said and I'll read it off and maybe you can help me if there's any

1:18:00edits or changes it says that so you have the first clause

1:18:04that the AAC received the information provided regarding

1:18:08the 2024-25 play equipment life cycle project

1:18:12and then clause two that the AAC recommend the following be included

1:18:16for consideration increased accessibility for all three designs

1:18:20as the proposed designs do not meet the accessibility we want to see

1:18:24and I apologize if I'm not correct but if you wanted to change that let me know

1:18:28yeah maybe the standards for accessibility we would hope to see

1:18:32or the accessibility standards we would hope to see

1:18:36yeah that's the part that I'd like to fine tune is we want to see

1:18:40what would you propose Jeanette

1:18:44I'm just trying to think of the right language

1:18:48so you probably need another two minutes on this because we're half an hour behind

1:18:52I could say that we could end at

1:18:56accessibility and take out we want to see because we're saying that the goal

1:19:00is increased accessibility for all three designs

1:19:06do not meet our desired accessibility standards

1:19:10can we say that? That's great please I would move that

1:19:14do not meet our desired accessibility standards beautiful thank you

1:19:20nice so we have Jeanette as the mover do we have a seconder

1:19:30we have Elizabeth seconding that one would anyone like to talk about it

1:19:34any further I don't see or hear any

1:19:40so it's time for a vote is anyone

1:19:44Kathy go ahead sorry sorry really quickly

1:19:49I think this is a really difficult topic because we're trying to implement

1:19:53something community based in an idea like an inclusion diversity

1:19:57equity and accessibility manner but the city of Guelph essentially

1:20:01many cities were not developed and created like that so that's why

1:20:05I think it's not as simple because parks are

1:20:09stuck in one spot with limited spaces so I think this should be

1:20:13a strategic plan brought to the system of Guelph

1:20:17and connected with all parts of transportation and diversity

1:20:21within the city and the community even based on community

1:20:25bases like the West End Rec Center

1:20:29I just think that's an important piece to remember when creating this because that's where most of the barriers are going to come with

1:20:33because to make this really inclusive like a playground

1:20:37we're going to need a clean slate and the city just doesn't exist that way

1:20:41so I think that's like the largest barrier that we need to consider

1:20:45to be able to move forward because it would be so unfortunate we couldn't move forward with a topic like this

1:20:49and create something that we can actually move

1:20:53to have a fully accessible inclusive city

1:20:57okay thank you

1:21:01we really have to move along we have we are half an hour behind

1:21:05on a two hour meeting so we're going to go ahead and call a vote now on that

1:21:09motion because we have a moover and a seconder is anyone opposed

1:21:13to that motion

1:21:22I don't see or hear any so thank you so much I think that concludes that portion

1:21:26thank you so much for coming to our meeting I know it's not always fun to come talk to us so

1:21:30I appreciate you being a good sport

1:21:34again I do appreciate the conversation of both thank you very much for your time

1:21:38thank you so much

1:21:46alright so the last two items on the agenda and the last one honestly we may just end up moving

1:21:50to the next agenda depending on time

1:21:54but the last two items on the agenda you will note are saying that they are

1:21:58chair presentation which is me we're going to be talking about

1:22:02transit mobility applications like mobility transit

1:22:06and then also the applications and processes for the taxiscript program

1:22:10however I probably am seeing that we're not going to have time to discuss taxiscript

1:22:14and I think that will work out well because transit are actually coming to our next

1:22:18meeting to discuss that anyway so the reason that I

1:22:22am presenting this item is just because transit weren't able to be

1:22:26at this meeting and there's a deadline for when we have to publish the agendas

1:22:30and on the morning we had to publish the agenda we had to

1:22:34we found out that transit are going to be doing this work in February

1:22:38and we're A not going to be able to make it to this meeting to discuss this with us

1:22:42but B are going to be coming already they were planning

1:22:46to come and talk to us about this very thing in February so there may not

1:22:50be much for us to discuss here but members brought it forward and

1:22:54asked for this to be added to the agenda so when we realized

1:22:58transit weren't going to be able to come and discuss these last two items we decided

1:23:02to still put the space in the agenda here in case people would like to have kind of a preliminary

1:23:06discussion about these topics even without

1:23:10staff here to answer any questions right now they will be here in February so

1:23:14very briefly I will say that the concerns that

1:23:18were brought forward that people wanted to put on the agenda around the

1:23:22mobility transit application which is the first item here

1:23:26so people are concerned

1:23:30that the mobility transit application is incredibly lengthy

1:23:34it is a very very very detailed and a little invasive

1:23:38and kind of sets up a tone it's attached to the agenda as well

1:23:42so if anyone needs to look at it it kind of sets a tone of like please prove how

1:23:46disabled you are I don't think that was the intention from the city but that's how it

1:23:50reads as a disabled person trying to fill it out and there are just a lot of

1:23:54things that I think the AAC I heard different points from

1:23:58different members of people wanting to have this discussed with the city

1:24:02some of the concerns that have been raised are a the length of the

1:24:06application it's far longer than like a disability tax

1:24:10application or a passport application or it's a very very thick

1:24:14stack of paper you have to take that paper to your doctor's office

1:24:18to get them to fill it out and like qualify you for

1:24:22being disabled enough for mobility transit but it's just

1:24:26a lot of paper and some doctors offices will charge

1:24:30for that some of them will charge per sheet they charge more for longer forms

1:24:34so there is just a lot there that doesn't

1:24:38kind of align with true accessibility for people

1:24:42one of the things that I looked into when I was looking at kind of comparator

1:24:46municipalities is there are a lot of municipalities where rather than asking

1:24:50us to fill out a long form that says like can you do this

1:24:54task if not please explain in a paragraph why not

1:24:58can you do this thing if not and then also

1:25:02another thing to note is the last page of the mobility transit application

1:25:06is it's a sheet that you signed that says you are giving

1:25:10the City of Guelph permission to access the entirety of your health records

1:25:14from your doctor and contact your doctor and ask any questions they have about your health

1:25:18and I personally for myself as someone who's looking to

1:25:22apply as well I'm not comfortable giving the City of Guelph

1:25:26that someone working at transit I don't think needs to know

1:25:30things about my body in order to

1:25:34allow me access to mobility transit I personally don't

1:25:38love having a gate kept by doctors at all given the fact that there are so

1:25:42many people in the city who don't have access to doctors

1:25:46and also don't have access to the income required to have doctors

1:25:50regularly filling out forms I personally have to bring forms to my

1:25:54doctor at least once a month to fill out and it gets very expensive

1:25:58so cutting out the bureaucracy is something we've talked about at the AAC a lot in the

1:26:02past and that's one of the points that people were bringing forward is that they

1:26:06would like to see some of that cut down but additionally there are other

1:26:10municipalities where all of that private medical information discussion

1:26:14happens at your doctor's office between you and your doctor and then the doctor

1:26:18just signs a single page form saying my patient and I

1:26:22have discussed it and they do need mobility transit so you're not being

1:26:26required to disclose to someone who works at the City at

1:26:30the moment you aren't being required to disclose to them about your

1:26:34things you can and can't do and then justify with a paragraph about why you can

1:26:38or can't do those things you're not being asked in detail can you do this sometimes

1:26:42can you do it all the time can you do it never if not why can't you do it

1:26:46like these are just not questions that I think staff at the City of Guelph need

1:26:50the answers to because those are private that's private information

1:26:54so I'm trying to think about the other

1:26:58issues that were brought forward I think that pretty much covers it people were

1:27:02concerned about equity of requiring people to pay

1:27:06to sign up for mobility transit pay their doctors whether or not people even have

1:27:10doctors that can fill those out one person said they don't believe that the

1:27:14emergency department would be even willing to fill those out

1:27:18so for people who don't have a doctor does that mean they can't use mobility transit

1:27:22one other concern actually that was brought up is about why

1:27:26people have to reapply after a certain number of years so for myself

1:27:30for example I was on mobility transit then

1:27:34throughout the pandemic with my bad immune system I haven't been traveling with mobility

1:27:38transit and when I went to book a ride about a year ago

1:27:42I was told you're not a mobility transit user anymore we've

1:27:46took you off the system because you didn't book any rides for a little while and or for

1:27:50quite a while and I am I am disabled

1:27:54and I'm going to be disabled tomorrow and I'm going to be disabled 10 years from now

1:27:58I have a degenerative disease that does not have a cure so it's progressive and degenerative

1:28:02so I'm always going to need a bus probably

1:28:06the same amount if not more in the future so to me it doesn't make sense to ask us to

1:28:10keep doing so at that time I just said okay I guess I'll take

1:28:14a cab everywhere so anyways those are the items that were

1:28:18brought forward and we were hoping to have transit here to kind of

1:28:22talk to us about this because when I brought this up I was made aware that transit are already

1:28:26on it they are already aware that the mobility transit application needs

1:28:30to be reviewed and that it does not line up with what comparative

1:28:34municipalities are doing that it's like I'm not I don't want to speak for them but

1:28:38I was told that the staff let me know that they are already aware and they're already

1:28:42on it and they want to come talk to us about this in February so if anybody

1:28:46now would like to kind of discuss it for a little bit we can

1:28:50do that if there is no discussion we don't

1:28:54have to yeah Mike go ahead sorry it's kind of informal

1:28:58oh yeah like I was just going to say I completely agree with you like I take mobility

1:29:02transit literally every day I'm friends with multiple drivers at

1:29:06multiple levels and yeah I hear a lot of this like the process

1:29:10definitely needs to be streamlined you do not need

1:29:14information to my complete kind of medical history as the city of Guelph I'm completely

1:29:18on board with you and it would be nice just for us to

1:29:22help transit out as best as possible because by helping them we help

1:29:26ourselves and anything to streamline the process

1:29:30would definitely be good because I know like I've

1:29:34heard similar things in the community too because I get stopped on the street

1:29:38about Guelph mobility transit guaranteed at least two three times a week

1:29:42and people asking why is this so difficult why can't

1:29:46I access it blah blah blah I'm like well you just have to apply and

1:29:50then I hear again from community members and well I have to fill out this

1:29:54virtual bible of information and say well that's why we

1:29:58at the AEC are pushing for a kind of change there so hopefully

1:30:02like I've heard from you there is a change coming hopefully and when we talked

1:30:06with transit in February we can get some real answers because

1:30:10Guelph mobility transit 99.9% of

1:30:14drivers are awesome there is one troublesome person but

1:30:18it is what it is. I've got to cut you off there we can't be

1:30:22disparaging. No no no that's why I'm not saying names. Not saying names personal

1:30:26experience. I understand I would I would really like us not

1:30:30to call into question the integrity or

1:30:34behaviors of city workers at these meetings I understand where you're coming from though.

1:30:38Yeah but yeah anyway. Yeah of course

1:30:42yeah long story short mostly listen 99.9

1:30:46I think it's good we'll see what happens in February.

1:30:50Awesome thank you sorry not to cut you off Mike it's just part of the terms

1:30:55and like the procedures for the meeting.

1:30:59Yeah so really I just

1:31:03on the morning of we didn't know I didn't want to remove

1:31:07the ability for people to discuss this just because staff couldn't make it

1:31:11but realistically I don't know that we need

1:31:15any motion further than something maybe saying the AAC would like to discuss

1:31:19the mobility transit applications or you might not

1:31:23even need a motion if nobody wants to put one forward but if anyone would like to

1:31:27take a crack at it go ahead Jeanette.

1:31:31I think just based on what you said I think we could craft something along the

1:31:35lines of we would want to be continued to be consulted in regards

1:31:39to the process and planning of

1:31:43because it's not just the application it's the whole process right

1:31:47and the issues and barriers within it.

1:31:51Thank you. Yeah that's great

1:31:57would anybody like to take a crack at that or would you like me to take a crack at it?

1:32:01Would you? I know Nortel mentioned that they might

1:32:05have something earlier but I don't know if they actually ended up doing it.

1:32:09I'm drafting. I was going to say I don't want to step on

1:32:13I'm watching for it.

1:32:24The check is great. Thank you guys.

1:32:30But I believe the motion that Nortel had mentioned to me before was basically just what

1:32:34you just said Jeanette so that's great. So yes

1:32:41transit are coming and it's not like they didn't want to come to this meeting it's just

1:32:45December and then also they are already planning to start

1:32:49this work and do this work I believe in around

1:32:53the February meeting so it just made a lot of sense for them to come to the

1:32:57February meeting and we just didn't have time to change up the agenda at the last minute so I figured

1:33:01we might as well just have a preliminary discussion.

1:33:10Never hurts to buy some extra time either on the agenda.

1:33:14Okay I just thank you. Perfect thank you.

1:33:18The taxi script item was a similar item

1:33:22it was once again people wanting a review of the taxi script

1:33:26program for similar reasons which is a program where

1:33:30the city of Guelph helps subsidize taxi rides for people with disabilities that

1:33:34are incurring extra costs due to their disability

1:33:38so for example if you get your wheelchair loaded up into a

1:33:42taxi they run the meter for that whole time or if you're somebody

1:33:46who has other reasons that the meter might keep running

1:33:50so there was some desire for review of that

1:33:54process as well because as it stands it's currently only for wheelchair users

1:33:58so that was what the second item was going to be but again transit are going to be

1:34:02here at the February meeting to discuss that with us and we'll make sure that we have ample time for

1:34:06discussion then. So those are the

1:34:10final two items I think we can move them both.

1:34:14Sherwood we have on screen what we received from the number there.

1:34:18Would you like me to read it out?

1:34:22Yes if that's okay. Absolutely recommend the motion 1 the AAC

1:34:26request to be involved and consulted on the application

1:34:30and processes involved in the transit mobility program

1:34:34period. That's fantastic. In order would you

1:34:39be open to adding and the taxi script

1:34:43program because it's all the same stuff they're similar concerns

1:34:47it's about like how difficult is to do it apply how much bureaucracy.

1:34:51Yeah so if we also just add that in there then we can call the meeting after this

1:34:55I really didn't have anything else to say about the taxi script program

1:34:59unless other people wanted to and we don't have a ton of time for me to get into

1:35:03the details of people's concerns but we will have time for that in February

1:35:07I'm confident. Just one minute it's coming. It was

1:35:20very nice to see that transit are already on top of this when I brought it forward

1:35:24in the planning meeting everybody at that meeting was like hey they're already working

1:35:28on that so we're already

1:35:32starting from a really good place with transit on this one. I think we've got very shared

1:35:36goals. And to the rest or to what I read earlier

1:35:44we've added and the taxi script program period

1:35:48if you want me to read the whole thing let me know.

1:35:54Mike I saw your hand go up and then go down did you need to ask a question about this before

1:35:58we or were you seconding?

1:36:02Yeah that's fine. Yeah you were seconding?

1:36:06Yeah.

1:36:10So we have a mover and a seconder

1:36:14it seems like nobody has but if anybody has any last thoughts before we go through with this

1:36:18alright I'm going to call a vote. Is anyone opposed

1:36:24to us requesting that we be involved in a review of the

1:36:28applications and processes for the taxi script program and mobility transit in

1:36:32February? I guess it didn't specifically say February but that is what we're looking

1:36:39at right now I believe right Leanne and Garrett? That is correct

1:36:43February is correct yeah. Yeah alright

1:36:51no one is opposed so that one passes also

1:36:55that was all we really had

1:36:59for this meeting I know the end of it there is a

1:37:03little bit informal but I wasn't sure we kind of had to make a call

1:37:07of whether we cut out a whole hour worth of the meeting and just have a shorter

1:37:11meeting or whether we still just have space for this conversation.

1:37:15So apologies for it being so informal it just felt like the right call

1:37:19to at least open the space for people to discuss it since it was something

1:37:23that was specifically asked to be added to the agenda by members.

1:37:27I think we need a motion to adjourn

1:37:31the meeting. Yeah. Because we're done 10 minutes early which is

1:37:35not what I expected when we were running half an hour behind

1:37:39we have Mike motioning and is that a second

1:37:43Elizabeth? Yep. Perfect

1:37:47and is anyone opposed to us concluding the meeting

1:37:51I don't see or hear any so thank you all so much it's been

1:37:57a pretty good year make sure to review in the

1:38:01next meeting. There's a list of kind of our accessibility wins that we've had

1:38:05in the consent agenda so have a look at that because we have had a really good year

1:38:09and I really appreciate the work of everyone of the city

1:38:13and everyone on this committee dedicating so much time to making

1:38:17Guelph a better place for everyone thank you I'll see you all next year

1:38:21Thank you everyone. Happy holidays

1:38:25Thank you. Happy New Year everyone. Thanks