April 11/06 Report
Scheduled start of meeting: 1:30 pm. Actual start of meeting: 1:32 pm. Meeting adjourned: 2:00 pm

[Disclaimer: The notes below reflect what the reporter was able to record and to transcribe. Care was taken in preparing these notes; however, errors, omissions, etc may have occurred and often what is said is paraphrased here. For greater certainty, the reader is referred to the tape of the meeting.]

Committee members present: T. Jackson , Chair, 1:30 pm , in; T. Whitehead , 1:30 pm , in; P. Bruckler , 1:30 pm , in; M. McCarthy , 1:30 pm , in; B. Morelli , 1:30 pm , in; D. Mitchell , 1:30 pm , in; A. Samson , 1:38 pm , in.

Others present: Councillors C. Collins, S. Merulla and staff: G. Peace, G. Beasley, J. Priel, B. Fenwick, S. Paparella

CATCH: C. Babb

No changes in agenda.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

No conflicts declared.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1 Community Services Committee Meeting Minutes, dated March 21, 2006

Minutes of Mar 21 06 approved.

DELEGATION REQUESTS

4.1 Cheryl Kemsley, President - McMaster Ice Hockey Club, to request a reduction in ice time costs for non-primetime hours for McMaster University Clubs.

Delegation Request: Item 4.1 - McMaster Ice Hockey Club - reduction in ice time costs - approved for next meeting's agenda. Whitehead asked if a report will be available then with the reply "yes."

DISCUSSION ITEMS

8.1 SupervisedPark Program (Supie) for Dundas (CS06017) (Ward13)

Item 8.1 - Supervised Park Program (Supie) for Dundas The following was approved: (a) that a Supervised Park Program (Supie), currently called Summer Playlot Program be re-established in the Dundas Driving Park and the required operating costs for the program, totalling $2,870 be funded from the current Culture and Recreation Division, Dundas Community Centre Summer Program budget and (b) that Item "L" re. the Supervised Park Program (Supie) for the Dundas Driving Park be identified as completed and be removed from the Community Services Committee Outstanding Business list.

GENERAL INFORMATION/OTHER BUSINESS

11.1 Outstanding Business List Items:

(a) Indoor Soccer Facility - Outstanding Business List Item "A" (Due April 11, 2006 - no copy) - May 23, 2006

(b) Creating a Healthy Nutrition Environment - Outstanding Business List Item "F" (Due April 11, 2006 - no copy) - To be Determined

(c) Bernie Arbour Facility for Use by the Hamilton Thunderbird's - Outstanding Business List Item "I" - (Due April 11, 2006 - no copy) - May 23, 2006

(d) The City's Strategy to Manage Green Space and Open Space Deficiencies Outstanding Business List Item "Q" - (Due April 11, 2006) - To be Determined

re. Item B - Creating a Healthy Nutrition Environment Priel said that the first draft of a report needs work and won't be dealt with until the meeting after next. re. Item D - The City's Strategy to Manage Green Space and Open Space Deficiencies Priel reported that senior staff are working on this matter. Whitehead said there is a policy in place re. purchase of surplus land and there has to be certain acreage before the park division will support that, where surplus lands are congruent to gravel land and school board land and park land and that he wants to be sure that this whole policy is reviewed and add another point .5 acre on Gourley Park and school board lands, you'd have enough land for a soccer pitch and under the current rules this wouldn't be considered.

Mitchell referred to Item H, Arena Renovation Replacement, and commented that on Fruitland Road the Saltfleet Arena, there's not enough space to have that arena twinned and there's a lot of development in the Winona area and then with Summit Park and Binbrook and Winona, the Glanbrook Arena is 100 per cent used by the youth and that there'd be the possibility of twinning this arena which would come from development charges and money is being spent for a brand new park design for that park with 15 acres of undeveloped land and the plan will be coming to the meeting soon with a charge of $6.5 million which was sent back as being too expensive and twinning and there is a huge tile bed in front of the arena and due to this many departments are involved, rather than this be just on a map. Fenwick wanted clarification that Glanbrook Arena is of concern, not the Saltfleet Arena; and it was approved by the Committee that this arena be included in the study which is to be brought back in Oct 06. Mitchell stated that his adult group had been meeting 29 years but have given way to the youth.

McCarthy asked if there had been any look at Carlisle for twinning and Fenwick replied "no." McCarthy spoke of further twinning of both arenas because of heavy growth in Waterdown-Flamborough. Considerable discussion ensued on growth in new areas and the need for facilities.

Jackson asked for a synopsis of public use policy from Priel who said that staff were just about releasing a request for proposals to have an expert analyse facilities and that Fenwick is doing a business plan on these arenas as to funding, land availability. This wasn't the public use effort, it was about the financing of the 3 arenas and this is to come early fall 06 and the public use study will come after this.

Mitchell said this is not rocket science and the study can be picked up by the DC by one of the committees and we need to know what the costs are so we can inject them into the financing and if staff is going to hire outside help, those dollars could come out of DC. When you've played hockey for 29 years and all of a sudden that league is done because of the need of youth, we are going to have more unhappy people and it's not costing the taxpayer a cent; it's coming out of DC.

Jackson noted that it's coming out of DC for capital, but it'll cost taxpayers to operate them down the road. Further Jackson suggested that we have H, to look at the business aspects of those 3 areas (arenas) and Priell is coming back with a public use policy that will determine the demographs, the growth re. more arena ice. Following comments about the public use policy by Priel , Mitchell wanted to be sure that needs/plans be sent over to the DC people for consideration.

Whitehead wanted to know about community centres and Priel replied that this was in the community based master plan and 4 things are to be tied together: 1. the public use study, 2. work on the culture and rec master plan, 3. is the most recent report on barriers to access and 4. how do we turn our rec centres into community centres. Whitehead said that we had completed the asset review report and a number of facilities had not been reviewed and wanted to know what was happening. Fenwick commented that study of community halls had not been completed on outlying areas in the asset review report and that he would check with capital planning to find out about this and get back to Council and Whitehead, in particular. Whitehead said he was interested in Westmount . And he asked this: You've embarked on a needs approach in regard to facilities in regards to MacNab and wanted to know what the status is of this study and in particular what the story was on MacNab so that this could be dealt with earlier. Priel replied, re. the public use study and needs we will have this back before the end of council's term and consider the 3 to 10 year capital plan for next term of council. Whitehead wanted to know if the McNabb piece be done early and the response was that staff would consult with council individually at committe before priorities are determined.

Collins asked for an update re. the zambonis and that an e-mail had been received and that he had asked for an update as to whether or not we were going to be taking some disciplinary action and that this was to have gone to Public Works Committee, but perhaps to this (comm. serv.) commitee. Priel replied that neither the area supervisor nor the senior operator were involved in the meeting where the specifications were reviewed. Had that happened, things would have been different, so the specs would have been more carefully reviewed and we would have had a machine that fit our requirements for the particular arena and in terms of disciplinary action we are working on this. Collins indicated that he didn't want this to go by the wayside. Jackson said he'd had discussions with staff. Priel said at the very next meeting the area supervisor and the senior operator were involved and that front line staff be involved with purchasing decisions.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:00 pm.