- Okay, good afternoon, everyone.
I'm happy to take your seats.
Thank you for joining us for the ninth meeting
of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services
Committee
under these unusually bright lights today.
Please check the city website
for additional meeting detail information.
The city of London is situated
on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg,
Konnashoni, Anawampag, and the Adwandran.
We honor and respect the history languages
and culture that diverse indigenous people
call this territory home.
The city of London is currently home
to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today,
as representatives of the people of the city of
London.
We are grateful to have the opportunity
to work and live in this territory.
We have a number of visiting counselors with us
in terms of committee members.
We have myself, Councillor van Merbergen
and Councillor Palosa online.
City of London is committed to making every
effort
provide alternate formats and communication
supports
for meetings on request to make a request
specific
to this meeting, please contact icse@london.ca or
519-661-2489
extension two, four, two, five.
And I just also want to say before we get this
meeting
started, we do currently have quorum.
We just have three members, but at two o'clock,
we'll be losing Councillor Palosa.
So we will lose quorum.
So just as a reminder, please keep your comments
as brief as possible, just so we can maintain qu
orum
and get through this meeting agenda.
And with that, I'll look for disclosures
of continuing your interest.
Okay, not seeing any.
We are on to consent items.
I have not had any pull requests.
So unless there are any objections,
we can do these together.
Looking for a motion.
Councilor Van Meerbergen, I will second that.
So that would be, oh, sorry, go ahead.
- Thank you, Chair.
No, I'd like to pull 2.6, consent.
- Okay, so 2.6 will be pulled.
We have 2.1, 2.5, 2.7, any objections
to those being done as a block?
Okay, I'm not seeing anybody,
did you want to move those others?
Councilor Meerbergen, I will second those.
So we're on 2.1 to 2.5 and 2.7.
So those are on the floor looking for questions
or comments.
Councillor Ferri, do you have your hand up or?
Okay, Councillor Hopkins, I think he was pointing
to you.
So you go first and then Councillor.
- Thank you, Councillor Ferriero.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do have a question on 2.2,
which is the Dingman Creek sub-water stage two
lands,
EA and maybe through you to staff.
Really appreciate the update and the work
that is going on with the Dinglin Creek Stage 2EA
.
I understand we have had a number of project
delays.
We are expanding the scope of work,
as well as the community engagement.
Just wondering if staff can just share some more
information
about what that community engagement would look
like,
as well as what is the projected timelines for
completion.
Thank you.
- Go ahead, Ms. Meron.
Meron?
- Thank you, through the chair.
- The additional consultation work is related
to the council resolution to have us go back
regarding the two zone policy versus the cut fail
policy
for the official plan amendment.
So that's the additional consultation work
that will be taking place.
- Follow up, Councillor.
- And just as a follow up to that expectations
on when this work will be completed,
is it, do we have an idea or do we still have to
go
through the necessary community engagements, et c
etera?
- Go ahead to that.
- Thank you through your chair, yes.
I would expect to complete that engagement this
year
and be prepared to bring back the official plan
amendment
to the new council as directed in the new year.
- Follow-up, Councilor, okay, thank you.
Councilor Ferra, go ahead.
- Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for recognizing me as a visiting member
.
I'm just here for the item
with respect to Fanshawe College's agreement
extension.
I did speak with Patricia yesterday on it.
I appreciate the information that you gave me
and I'm in full support of it.
I just have one question and I do see that the
contract
as it is written is supposed to be expiring
on the 11th of May.
And I believe that council will hear this item
on the 12th of May.
I think if I remember the report correctly,
I just wanted to know how, is there any concern
there
or with this, I guess the committee
recommendation here
would that be able to just kind of hold that
contract
and to continue until we resolve it at council?
- Okay, just a thank you through you, Mr. Chair.
- Yeah, so that is something that has certainly
been identified
and been discussed with our legal team.
Certainly approval here at committee
pending final counsel approval,
I think would be sufficient to give indication
that the intention is to continue the agreement
and the relationship going forward.
So from our perspective,
it's a slight timing difference, not a concern.
- Hello, Councilor.
- Okay, thank you for that.
Other than that, that full support of this,
Fanshawe has been a good partner with the city,
especially with respect to what they've done for
downtown.
I do see in the note on the addition here
that the campus continues to bring in 1,000
students
to the downtown daily, which is great.
There's no financial impact here,
so I'm in full support of this,
and thank you for the work that you do.
And yeah, those are my comments, thank you.
- Okay, thank you.
Looking for other comments, questions?
Okay, not seeing any, so we will open the vote on
that.
- Master Palosa votes yes,
to see you scribe online's a bit slow, close and
vote.
- Okay, thank you.
We have no scheduled items, items for direction.
We do have a 4.1, which is Councillor Hopkins
and for your AMO request.
So I'll look to you for that one.
Well, put it on the floor.
Councillor Ramer, we're gonna be willing to move
it.
Okay, I'll second.
Okay, go ahead, Councillor Hopkins.
- Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, for recognizing me.
I'm again, not a member of this committee.
I am hoping the committee will support my
nomination
to apply for the AMO board in August.
We have elections at the AMO conference.
I am hoping that most members that are applying
for elections
in August and with the municipal election as well
.
If you are running, we usually try
to keep members' names on the board.
If members are not reelected in the municipal
election,
then applications are sought to fill in the
vacancies
of the caucuses.
So I am hoping that you can support my nomination
.
I do have to run an election at the conference
and looking for your support.
- Okay, thank you.
Looking for any comments, questions?
Ain't not seeing any of them that we're voting.
- All right, Mr. Chair, online.
- Oh, sorry, go ahead.
- That's okay.
Just thank you for Councillor Hopkins
for her past service and willing to continue the
service
and advocacy on behalf of London across Ontario.
So just thank you for her.
- Okay, thank you for that.
And not seeing any others, we'll open the vote on
that.
- Councillor Palazzo votes yes.
- Opposed in the vote, motion carries, three to
zero.
- Okay, thank you.
In terms of deferred matters,
we have the item that was pulled, which is 2.6.
Can you put that on the floor looking for a
motion
to move that?
- I'll move it, Mr. Chair.
- Okay, I will second it so that that is now on
the floor
looking for comments or questions on this item.
and this is just for a reminder, 2.6
is the findings and next steps
for the provincial e-scooter pilot.
Okay, go ahead, Councillor McMillan.
- Thank you, Chair.
Perhaps I could start with staff.
I just want to confirm the electric kick scooter
that's being referred to is a scooter
that you stand on with two wheels,
like just what we grew up with as kids,
except without a motor.
Now it's got a motor.
Is that basically encapsulating it?
- Go ahead, Ms. James.
- Thank you, and through the chair, yes,
that is a scooter that you stand up on.
There's figure one of the report
basically shows you a typical example,
and that's one where there's a deck
where the rider stands on it.
- Follow up, Councillor?
- Thank you.
Well, it strikes me and it strikes a lot of
Londoners
because I've heard from a number of my
constituents
that these motorized vehicles, such as they are,
are inherently unsafe.
The number of different stories that I've been
informed with, different situations and
instances where people with near misses, they're
very quiet.
It's almost like a wild west out there in terms
of people not knowing where they're
supposed to be riding these things.
Sometimes you'll see them on the sidewalk,
sometimes they'll just pop up on the road.
The other day I was driving along a busy street
and one came flying out between a row of park
cars out of nowhere, inches from being hit from
my vehicle. Not to mention other instances
I've heard of from constituents where they're
even putting their garbage out early in the
morning. Only to have one of these fly by. One
lady told me, she was putting her blue
box out and a mother came by with two kids on one
of these e-scooters and almost collided
with her, just as she had her head down putting
the garbage out, not expecting a motorized
vehicle to blow by at court at a seven in the
morning on a sidewalk. So again, this so-called
pilot, we're looking at going to the end of 2029.
That's a long time to do the province's bidding.
I will not support this. Again, it's inherently
unsafe. I think a board is on the irresponsible
to continue with this. I think we're going to be
seeing really serious accidents as
this may be the uptick goes a little bit higher.
So yeah, I will be voting this against this.
Thank you chair. Okay, thank you. I'm going to
take the opportunity to speak now as chair and
member of the committee. First off, I want to
thank staff for doing engagement at my town hall
about this. It was a great opportunity to get
feedback from residents. And I think you see that
and the results in terms of the mixed reaction, I
think,
but I will say from the conversations I've had,
I think there is more of a desire in terms of
ensuring,
you know, Councillor and Mayor Mergen said,
you know, public safety.
I think, obviously, ensuring compliance,
which I know is called out in this report,
and I do have a question for that in a moment,
but I just kind of want to start with my comments
.
I think this is still a core form of mobility for
folks.
time's change. You know, it's not a kick scooter
anymore. It's electric. We also have to recognize
that people use different forms of transit to get
around the city. And this is definitely one,
a lot of cities have different pilots with this.
I've witnessed it in a number of cities in terms
of the e-scooters and what they're doing with
them. I think for our own benefit, we do still
have to
keep this pilot going, see what the province
ultimately wants to do with it. I think this is
important data though to collect to see what we
want to do, how we want to
regulate it. And with that point on regulation, I
do have a question for staff
in terms of the recommendations. I appreciate
there's the two additional
recommendations in there. But from bylaws
perspective in terms of being able to
follow up with parents issue the amps and then
also coordinating with LPS. If you
just maybe comment a bit further in terms of how
that will roll out. Thanks for
the question chair and in terms of communicating
with LPS I can say that we
We have a very close working relationship with
the road safety section of the London
Police Service.
They would be the officers who would be
responsible for going out and enforcing the
Highway Traffic
Act provisions of electric kick scooters.
We have had several meetings in the past
determining what the best path forward is in
terms of
education and joint enforcement.
Our resources on both teams are limited and so we
feel that we may have the best impact
if we go out at separate times, trying to conduct
education within the spaces in which
these e-scooters are most readily used. The
difficulty, of course, that we have with
compliance
and municipal law enforcement officers conducting
compliance-related activities is that we don't
have the authority to actually demand
identification from individuals operating these
vehicles.
And so that's where we rely on the public to
provide us with the information that we
need to be able to investigate further because we
can knock on doors, we can have conversations
with folks, and we can certainly conduct
enforcement if we have that information available
.
Thank you and appreciate those answers. And I
recognize the struggles. I mean, in my last
town hall, I was speaking with LPS in terms of we
have other types of vehicles get modified,
whether that's cars, dirt bikes. It doesn't
really matter what form people will always
find a way to modify these things, unfortunately.
So, appreciate the report. I think we have
have to be diligent in terms of, you know,
clamping down on bad behavior and sharing
that people are utilizing this in a safe way.
There are always going to be bad actors,
unfortunately, with these sorts of things,
but I don't want to strip away a way for people
to get around the city, which I know,
especially in my ward, a lot of different people
get around, don't necessarily have,
not everyone has access to a car,
so this is another way for people to get around
the city,
and I don't want to take that away from them at
this time.
recognizing there are still issues,
but we are trying to address them.
So again, thank you for that.
And I will look to Councillor Paluzza.
You have your hand up, go ahead.
- Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to staff on this one.
I know it's been a conversation at council for
some time.
And I think in the community, I'm not surprised
to see the accounts for JALMA and Bradley area
between the population, it being some younger
families
and a great trail network.
I know those are there and hearing
community concerns interested in the helmet piece
and that people under 16
aren't supposed to be on them through you to
staff having looked at section 3.2
within staff's report. What kind of advocacy can
we or have we done with
the two different school boards realizing some of
the parents get the
scooters or kids' friends get them and they don't
know that they're actually
unsafe. They need a helmet and they're actually
too young to be
operating them. So have we done any engagement
with those school boards
directly with those parents and the families.
- I should staff would like to comment on that,
go ahead.
- Thank you and through the chair.
Yes, we have engaged with the four school boards
about e-scooters and depending on the principals'
notifications have been sent out to students.
I know at my own children's school that we did
receive
frequent notifications that, you know,
kids under 16 are not supposed to be riding them.
They're not allowed on the school property.
And we would hope that the other school
principals
are receiving and sending out similar messages as
well.
- Follow up, Councillor.
- Thank you.
I appreciate that as elected officials
and we do our own engagement with different
schools.
I know sometimes you can have advocacy
with them in partnerships
and sometimes you're just kind of shut out.
Also in addition to 3.2 realizing
how we also had the bylaw with graffiti,
looking for staff's comment on the opportunity
to have things posted within the stores,
the physical stores in London
who are selling e-scooters to post the bylaw,
make people aware.
If we have capacity or who would need more
capacity,
even if it's just once a year making sure
that something's posted,
especially near the holidays or the springtime
when they come back into an upswing of sales.
- And go ahead, staff, you wanna come on that.
- Thank you and through the chair.
We certainly considered this option
when we're looking at trying to educate
and get out to the public.
I think the biggest constraint we saw
in trying to pursue that initiative
was simply that there's so much availability
online.
And so the effort for staff resources to go
and pursue the sale of these scooters throughout
the city,
you know the effectiveness is really questionable
we feel when there's so many things going on.
That being said this past holiday season we did
launch a specific campaign basically encouraging
parents not to purchase these scooters as
presents for their children during the holidays
and I think
we can continue to do that each holiday. Go ahead
Councillor for a follow-up. Thank you no I
appreciate
that I know I've come into similar issues with
the size of outdoor gazebos and the types of
coverings
they have on the bylaws and in snow loads and
just sometimes people stuff is sold in our local
stores and they're unaware of the bylaws and
things that mandate them. I don't know I think we
still have a place to do for public advocacy and
getting the word out on our channels not saying
we're not doing it just it takes a while
sometimes to get traction that conversation
changed within
the community also realizing it's not just
children who uses these e-scooters and with the
rising price
I'm sure more people will be turning them to a as
the viable mode of transportation.
So thank you for that and I will be supporting
the staff report today.
Yeah, thank you looking for visiting Councillors,
Councillor Hopkins, go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I want to just start off maybe thanking staff
for their engagement in the community.
I attended one of the events and I know there was
a lot of engagements throughout the city
collecting this information.
And I think that's part of the advantage of
having a pilot project is that we're able
to get the data that is needed.
I hear loud and clear, Councillor Van Mirberg and
about the safety issues, I've seen them
myself in the ward that I represent and I've been
, you know, deeply, deeply concerned.
But I think the more we engage with one another,
educate each other, understand what the rules
are. I think many of us would be surprised that
we would even need to wear helmets compared
to the amount of scooter use out there that
people do not wear a helmet. So I think there's
a big education piece there. I agree, Councillor
Palosa, with more work that needs to be done.
I think this creates the conversation in our
community by having this pilot project. I
I do think it's an equity situation as well,
creating more opportunities for people
to move around our city,
opening up the roads for cars to use them,
and then having the opportunity for bikes and sc
ooters
to be used by other people.
So I think there's the enforcement piece too,
that really helps support the project,
supports the enforcement piece,
where we can work collaboratively with the
community
and create more of a safety environment in the
city.
So I would encourage the committee to support
the recommendation.
Thank you.
- Okay, thank you.
Go ahead, Councilor Trussell.
- Thank you very much and to the chair,
I'll keep this very brief.
I wanna start by really thanking the
transportation demand
management staff, Ms. Miller and Ms. Mixa.
I watched them work, I went to some of these
events.
And they just were so professional the way
they were able to deal with the public.
And they were real credit to the city.
They had some difficult questions to answer.
And they did it in a very, very unbiased and
neutral
and professional way.
So I have a lot of confidence in the statistics
that we have in the staff report.
We, I'm going to avoid talking about other modes
of transportation where people feel unsafe
and they come up on the sidewalk or hit
pedestrians
or kill people or do things like that.
I'm just going to avoid that.
So what I'm going to, oh, sorry, Council Member,
if you could just keep it down.
Thank you.
- Go ahead, Councilor Trozano.
- So I just want to say I fully support
the staff recommendation,
But this is an equity question.
And this is also a question to sort of recognize
that different people have different
transportation needs
and different budgets and different ways of
getting around.
In my word, I see a lot of people using these.
I see them using them responsibly and legally.
And I think that there are a lot of mobility
problems
that people who like to use this mode of
transportation
are facing, and we're trying to make the streets
safer.
We're trying to improve transit.
We're trying to expand our bicycle networking,
all ages, all levels of competency.
But I think this is something that's very
important,
particularly to youth, and that includes people
over 16.
And I think we're gonna do a lot of work on
education
about why it's important to have the helmet.
We need to be doing that with cycles.
We need to be doing that with a variety of
different things.
So this is a very balanced and well-thought-out
staff report and I'm very pleased to be
supporting it.
So thank you very much.
- Okay, thank you, Councillor,
looking for any other speakers.
Okay, I'm not seeing any rule open the vote on
this.
- Mr. Chair, could you call A separately?
Yes, we can do that. Okay, we're doing A right
now. We're all open for voting.
Motion carries, 3 to 0.
Okay, and we'll do the rest of them together.