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January 13/04 Report
1:30
pm
The
meeting was held in room 110 because another meeting was taking
place in council chambers. However, this meant that tape recording
quality was poor, despite the use of microphones by the councillors.
Tom
Jackson was confirmed as the chair of the committee. Phil Bruckler
was selected as vice-chair. Others present at the beginning of
the meeting were Dave Mitchell, Margaret McCarthy, Russ Powers
and Phil Bruckler. Bernie Morelli arrived at 1:38 pm
Three
items were added to the agenda as 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3. The first
two were overviews that Jackson had asked heads of the departments
to present to the committee in order to give new councillors an
introduction to the range of services overseen by this standing
committee. The third item was on the Four Pad Arena which essentially
replaced item 9.3 on the written agenda and resulted in no presentation
or discussion associated with 9.3.
8.1.
A presentation on Culture and Recreation, which is now
a division of Public Health and Community Services Department
(Headed by Jo-Ann Priel). The presentation was made by Bill Fenwick,
the director of Culture and Recreation Division. A copy of the
powerpoint overheads was circulated. They include organizational
charts with number of employees. The mission statements and objectives
are examples of the extremely general direction in the City's
strategic objectives.
There
are five managers including one focused on "World & Community
Events" headed by Shelly Mur-Orzel, which appears to have
been set up to deal with the Canadian and World Cycling Championships,
the Bell Canadian Open, and the hoped-for Commonwealth Games.
The farmer's market is under the culture and heritage manager
which also includes the city's seven museums. The recreational
activity in the city is divided into east and west sections with
a manager for each.
Fenwick
noted that there are 600,000 participants in public swim programs,
68,000 in outdoor swimming pool users, 7200 participants in programs
in the 15 community centres and 5 seniors centres, 3400 kids in
9 day camps, and 500+ kids making use of the 7-week summer playlot
program. Twenty arenas with 22 ice pads which they schedule, along
with all the sports field allocations.
The
operations and special programs manager oversees things like sports
development, seniors programming, a special population program,
youth services and revenue development.
Fenwick
identifed the following as major issues affecting his division:
-
Implementation of the master plan. He noted that "with
the restructuring and the budget situation our recreation master
plan has been in neutral and we have to get it back on track".
- New
facilities: 4 pad report today and in February a report will
be provided on the new south mountain recreation complex
- "with
regard to aging cultural and recreation facilities we need to
look at and how we are going to strategically replace or retrofit
these facilities."
- Recreational
service levels: "want to make sure we provide service levels
that people are used to and this has been a problem with the
new set of eyes coming to Hamilton is the fact that some people
in suburb areas are feeling that their level of services has
gone down since the amalgamation and what we're trying to do
is bring that level back to at least where it was before if
not better"
- "arts
community saying that you put a lot of money into sports programs
but not much into arts and we're looking at that"
Key
accomplishments list provided. The culture and heritage items
seemed pretty small. In fact most of the "accomplishments"
didn't seem very key. "Currently working on a skateboard
strategy. Council through the hydro funds allocated half a million
dollars to look at two new skateboard parks and to do that we
need some kind of a strategy with clear lines of communication
on how we can put that in place. We're currently working on that
and we'll have that back to council shortly."
8.2
Fire Chief Glen Peace made the presentation on the city's emergency
services department. He made repeated references to how complex
the work is that they do, how lean his organization is, how efficient
it is and other comments that essentially said "don't cut
our budget". "We run our own mechanical section due
to the complexity of the fleet". Training "every single
day". "Very lean organization". Own communications
system. Only 13 administrators for nearly 1000 staff. "Among
the most complex departments" in the city with 28 work sites
operating 24/7/365. They have their own stores, their own courier
services, all in-house "because of the complexity of our
business". It isn't clear from the staffing figures he gave
how all these administrative tasks are accomplished - certainly
not by only 13 people. No detailed organizational charts were
provided.
"Arson
was the number one cause of fires in the last decade in the city
of Hamilton". Twenty-five fire stations. 25,000 fire calls
per year, and 55,000 EMS calls per year. Getting out of patient
transfer because there are private companies that do that.
Reference
to "the growth issues in upper Stoney Creek" east of
2nd Road East, as well as in the Carlisle community. These appear
to be increasing costs for the service.
On
ambulances he notes that you see them backed up at the hospitals
waiting to off-load their patients and this is caused by problems
at the hospitals because the ambulances can't get patients into
hospitals and get back into service. Also province-wide shortage
of paramedics. Even if all currently enrolled graduate, they will
only fill half the empty spaces.
The
province will provide up to 50% funding, but at this point Hamilton
is only getting 42% despite "having one of the better services
in the entire province".
Mitchell
asks about firefighters training as paramedics. Notes over abundance
of firefighters, paramedics etc at accident scenes like his motorcycle
accident last year. Response: current standard in Ontario requires
two years in college to get certified as a paramedic. "Virtually
impossible to train a firefighter, particularly a volunteer firefighter
where we get annual turnover of 25%, to be a paramedic."
Also can't control the EMS allocation because that's under direct
provincial control. Particular issue in the rural areas "because
we are really committed to making patient contact in the shortest
possible period. Initiative in 2003 to "completely reverse
the process". "We've taken our advance care paramedics
from the core of the city and put them in the rural areas"
because of response time issues. They have adequate response in
city but not in the rural areas.
Pearson
raised a question about the situation in relation to number of
people on fire trucks. Peace said new standards were being developed
and there was growing pressure to go to a minimum of 4 people
per vehicle and up to 6 per vehicle.
8.3.
Mohawk Sports Park - 4 pad Arena project: Copy of overheads
including site maps and diagrams was distributed. Bill Fenwick
began by introducing some of the Hamilton Area Partners Inc. group
that were present in the audience. First was Jim Davis, described
as chair of the ice users committee. Then Jim Sproule from Hamilton.
Then Peter Martin, chair of the Hamilton Hockey Council. Gerry
Davis "very much involved in the design of the building"
and John Kilpatrick, who will be the district manager if this
proposal is adopted. Consultant for the project is John Witmer.
Last
presentation to Council was September 8. No decision sought today,
but final report will be presented at the next meeting on January
27. "Mandate from council was to complete the process initiated
in 2001 to develop a new four-pad arena complex at Mohawk Sports
Park to open in 2004." Repeated that "There will be
no tax impact on the taxpayers of the City of Hamilton".
350
car parking lot, retention pond for stormwater management. "Stress
the fact that these are PARTICIPANT arenas". Four participant
arenas and six dressing rooms with each ice pad. Minimal seating
at arena level, and where the spectator aspect is on the second
floor. "The second floor is the food service area along with
the seating area" (It appears possible that you will only
be able to view the games from here if you are buying food from
the arena). You can view all four pads from the second floor.
"Most of the concerns about why don't we have more seating
is the fact that we have seating in other facilities throughout
the city". "Most of the tournaments that come to this
city will be coming with participants and their families but not
great crowds." But there will be a turnover because they're
running four games per hour which explains the six dressing rooms
per icepad. "Staff have been working on this project since
2001". Facility costs are $17 million. "We don't expect
costs to go above $17 million". Debenture costs of the city
"will be made up annually" by the operating revenue.
Only
83% of current ice users are minor hockey. Rest is adults and
this is increasing. Ice users committee supports this project.
This wasn't the case in the past because earlier proposal was
to raise the cost of ice in other facilities. They had objected
as to why should they have to pay for this facility when they
weren't likely to use it. Then "Jim Davis and another group
was formed to look at alternatives" and this is the result.
This is a stand-alone facility that does not affect the hourly
ice rates of any other facilities in the city.
Agreement
between the City and the Hamilton Arena Partners Inc. and intent
is to have 10 year agreement with two five year renewals. The
debenture is over 20 years. Agreements now being finalized by
legal staff. "If approved in January, facility opening date
will be October of this year". Says hopefully this project
will improve ice situation in other arenas such as in Flamborough.
Jackson
recognizes Peter Martin and Jim Davis for running for office in
last municipal election.
Bruckler:
"As you might expect I'm very pleased to see this project
move forward".
Morelli:
How are you going to get it completed by October. Is there a list
of specifications. Fenwick: RFP called in 2001 and HAPI along
with Ellis-Don Construction made this proposal so detailed work
has been done. "Site plans have been submitted to staff".
"All permits and approvals have been filed and are in place".
Only thing is that the ward councillor wants to have an open house
with the public.
Morelli:
I'm assuming we learned something from the experience with the
Chedoke twin-pad arena deal. "I want to make sure that we
get a copy of the memorandum of agreement well before council
approval." Thinks it is "imperative" that there's
an escape clause for the city "if it doesn't pan out".
This didn't happen with the twin-pad deal. So "now is the
time to negotiate an escape clause, not after". "I will
certainly be spending a lot of time with the legal department
going over these agreements. The last time it came, it came recommended
by the legal department and had to go back and was subject to
an extensive amount of corrections which allowed us to get out
when we did have to. I certainly don't want to re-live that experience
again."
Fenwick
in response: "…certainly what we do with surpluses,
what we do with deficits should they occur". "This is
a unique partnership. It's not like a lot of other partnerships.
Usually when you're working with a private entity you come into
a situation where you're turning a facility over to somebody else.
That's not the case here. The City will own this facility. There's
a facility management team made up of a majority of City versus
HAPI and there's an opportunity for sharing in the surpluses for
both parties and there's an opportunity to share in the deficits
if they occur."
Morelli:
"Everytime we've done this in the past, we've gotten ourselves
into a situation where we couldn't get out without some major
costs, so now's the time to ensure the clauses to allow us to
have the control."
Mitchell:
Impressed that everyone in the community supports this. "It
will be filled and used to capacity by many groups"
Jackson:
"The existing inventory of arenas, that may be within the
next 5-10 years of our capital budget, and made some restoration
of existing inventory, this project does nothing to bump that,
supercede that, impede that whatsoever? I just want to make that
clear please?"
Fenwick:
Response. "The only way it may affect it is if we get into
a situation if our debenture ability is in question and council
has to make a determination of how much they can debenture at
any one time, then it may be in conflict with another project
that needs debenturing as well".
Pearson
left after this item. Powers left as well at 2:52 but was back
at 2:58.
9.1
Re-establishment of Sub-Committees Reporting to the Community
Services Committee (City Wide) (FCS04003(a))
All committees eliminated and staff will report directly to Community
Services committee instead. Sub-groups of citizens on ice allocation
will continue to function. Morelli raises that Seniors committee
should be reporting to this committee rather than Corporate Administration.
Moved by Morelli seconded by Mitchell.
9.2
Outstanding Business - Committee of the Whole and Hearings
Sub-Committee (City Wide) (FCS04004(a))
C and D deleted. A - report in Q1-04; B - Q1-04; E - Q3-04.
9.3
Mohawk Sports Park - Four Pad Arena Development (HSC04002)
Dealt with as item 8.3 but staff report is at 9.3.This is an update
on a long-standing controversial plan to build a new four-pad
arena on part of King's Forest Park. The facility will cost $17
million and the current plan is for a public-private partnership
which has the City borrowing $17 million and the private partner
operating the facility and paying back the debt. The private partner
is Hamilton Arena Partners Inc., a group formed specifically to
run this arena. It will provide the City with a security bond
of $150,000.
Item
of information: Championships/Tournaments Hamilton won or bidding
on
- National
Rugby Championship - won - this August
- Seniors
Activfest Games - in bidding - meeting in Hamilton on February
5
- World
Juniors Hockey - Hamilton didn't make the short list
- Royal
Bank Cup National - lost
- Hockey
Girls championship - March 25
- Figure
Skating Competition - here next week
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