Transcript: Council Meeting - 01 Jun 2026

Okay, thank you. Welcome everybody. Uh, welcome to the district of Mosen Council meeting of June 1st, 2026. Uh, councelor Shuken, may I have the territorial acknowledgement, please? Sure. I want to acknowledge the coish people and especially the Chanu nation and also the S first nation uh on whose territory the district machosen is and lies. uh and we recognize and respect the First Nation governments, all of whom uh have a long-standing relationship with the land and sea waters that continue to this day. And I will just mention that the Chanu nation is preparing for their tribal journey which I think culminates in mid July. So thank you Mar Little.

Thank you. Okay, so for tonight we have uh three important topics. We're talking about climate action, the future, who's going to pay. We have most importantly our annual report uh prepared by our staff for your review. We have uh notices motion on Westshore RCMP building project as well as the fireh hall project consultant. So with that, we've got an agenda before us and we've got a couple of letters from uh Miss Bacon, two of them. And uh with that, I'll take a motion to adopt the agenda. Moved by council Schukan, second by councelor Gray. We've also got uh councelor Donaldson who is ill at home.

Uh you can just shout out uh when you're in favor or not? Councelor Donaldson. I'll call the question. All in favor? Opposed? See no one opposed. That's adopted. Thank you. We've got um a uh presentation action for adaptation. I want to welcome uh via team Stephanie Woods um Levienbrink and Dion Bushna Bancha. Sorry to butcher your name. Um of the action for adaptation. Very pleased to have you here this uh this evening to talk about the biodiversity atlas and policy toolkit. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Tina. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Stephanie Woods and I'm the program manager with the Coastal Douglas for Conservation Partnership, otherwise known as the CDFCP.

And I'm joined by my colleagues Dion Bunch with the UBC Botanical Gardens and Levi Oen Brink, who is a part of the Action for Adaptation team and works as a contractor for both of our organizations. Um so we are presenting the action for adaptation project and it includes a biodiversity atlas and policy toolkit which you can explore at the website on the slide here. Um and before we move on I just want to say a quick thank you to our funders environment and climate change Canada and a UBC botanical garden private donor. All right. So what is what is the action for adaptation? Um, this purpose of this project spans back to 2021 and uh, it I'll get into a little bit more of the history, but it focuses around the creation of a website which is now live and the overall focus of that website was to support actions for climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation by developing decision-making and policy tools for both local governments and First Nations on BC Coast. So within this website, two main deliverables were

the focus and that was the biodiversity atlas itself which is a single accessible online platform created by many researchers and governments and um there was some peer review of some of the layers and the policy tools that go along with it is a policy toolkit both for first nations and local governments and it is resources designed to help miners apply the atlas to advance climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation efforts. So the purpose of our uh talk today is to introduce this these mapping layers and Levi will do a demo at the end and to support with MHosen's uh OCP process and any other policy initiatives.

So actioning for adaptation is a collaboration between UBC botanical gardens as well as the CDFCP as I mentioned and if you want to reach out to any of us after our contact information is below. So the geographic jurisdiction um of the project is includes the um outline of the coastal Douglas for conservation partnerships coverage as well as the upland watersheds and that's based on two biogeogatic zones. The first being the coastal Douglas for um western the coaster Douglas for dry marry time as well as the coastal western hemlock very um biogeeocclimatic zone. Sorry about that. that I got a little jumbled on the acronyms um as well as the upland watersheds.

So, as I mentioned before, the conversation first started in 2021 and uh workshops were held with both local governments and First Nations in which this geo geographical area covers 63 traditional territories and um and the workshops are based on what's missing to protect these very special places. And um some of the main themes that emerged were needing finer scale mapping for local use um and updated mapping. Some of the mapping dates back to 1998 for SEI for example. Um difficulty to know what mapping is available for planners and it's always a patchwork of ages and different levels of quality. Um mapping of species and ecosystems at risk is is difficult and there's a lack of data. And we also need to take into consideration climate change and also the valid validility of the mapping.

So from those discussions uh these layers were identified as needed in order to help um apply this information to policy change and help protect these areas. So uh what we've worked on since 2021 uh mostly the last few years working with researchers is land cover which is LAR based and up to 3 m resolution forest carbon LAR and satellite up to 15 m resolution. Um we're currently just loading some updated forest cover and disturbance maps for the end of June. There are some up there already, but there will be updated layers coming. And sensitive ecosystems, which includes includes new high resolution, old and big tree forest and riparian areas, and that includes an updated uh sensitive ecosystems inventory mapping, um an updated TE provincial mapping, potential ecosystems at risk, climate micro refugeia, as well as species at risk.

So, I'm going to pass it off to Dion now. she's quickly going to walk through um just some of the details of the layers and then Levi will do a demo of the atlas on the website. So, thank you very much. Hello everyone. Thank you for having us at your meeting today. Um I'm just going to show you a few of the layers, not all of them obviously on the atlas to give you an idea of what work has gone into preparing them. Uh so one is a forest cover layer that we've developed which is uh kind of using LAR data as well as satellite imagery and deep learning to kind of get an idea of what the forest cover in this region is at a finer resolution that exists than what exists at present. So that's 10 m resolution.

Um and this layer will also give users an idea of the age of forests in various places as well as the height of tree forests in those places. And this can be used to track forest uh changes changes in forest cover over time with connectivity mapping uh and also with prioritizing areas for conservation. Uh Stephanie, can you get on to next slide? So this just is again just gives you an idea of what um mapping existed earlier. This is the uh vegetation resource inventory of the province on the left hand side and on the right hand side is the the mapping that we have done which is updated to 2025 and as you can see there's quite a big difference in the resolution of the mapping and also it's updated to show how what's been lost.

Um, so it's at a much more detailed resolution than you would normally get. Um, Stephanie, can you move to the next slide, please? Um, and this is the disturbance mapping layer. So uh we kind of mapped again used a variety of sources uh both the land cover mapping that has already been done in our project as well as mapping from the province uh remote sensing data um and LAR data and you know provincial mapping of roads and cumulative effects to create a map um that kind of shows uh the human imprint on the landscape are both temporary which temporary disturbance would mean places where there are cut blocks and there has been forestry as well as permanent which is more like roads and urban development.

Um and uh this was we received a lot of help from the province in developing this layer and the whole idea is it can be used uh to kind of update because there's so much development in our region it can help us you know update older layers. So if there's a map from 2015 that shows there's an sensitive ecosystem in some place but then that's you know more recent satellite data tells us it no longer exists that will come across in this mapping. So it's a way for us to keep uh you know a lot of the mapping that we've done updated and also track cumulative impacts over time uh land cover change and also map for connectivity um along the landscape.

Stephanie, can you move to the next slide, please? Um, and this is uh just again an example of what existed earlier in terms of sensitive ecosystem mapping. So we've taken an example of the sunshine coast and you had a lot of mapping along the coastal areas which was from 2005 so very out ofd um and nothing in the upland areas and our mappers combined a lot of various layers uh to kind of get what you have here which is a more complete picture of where the sensitive ecosystems are in the sunshine coast. Um and again this just shows uh more I mean in more detail how what the sensitive ecosystem inventory on the coast look sunshine coast looked like in 2005.

And then uh Stephanie next slide how much more the updated mapping reveals as you can see in this area. So this helps planners pick up a lot of ecosystems that may otherwise have been lost if they just relied on existing provincial data. It's way more updated uh more fine scale and helps with planning for conservation or you know just uh cumulative impacts when you're deciding on various development decisions. Next slide Stephanie. Um this is again a comparison of ecosystems at risk mapping. So on the left you can see the BC provincial mapping. It shows 19 out of 95 possible ecosystems at risk in the Sunshine Coast. And as you can see, they're very there's a small concentration along the coast. But with our new mapping, it kind of revealed more than around 59 of 95 potential ecosystems at risk. So again, uh helps you identify what may have been missed by older mapping. Um and then we have a I just wanted to show you the

policy toolkit um on our website. So that's just a screenshot of our website. And if you click on the policy tab, you have two options to either click the first nations uh toolkit or the local government toolkit. If you click on the local government toolkit, you can either look at existing policy and legislation or there's also another tab that's called developing policy for land use which again just highlights policy language from and examples that various local governments have used to kind of protect ecosystems and uh you know plan for cumulative impacts. So this again the next uh slide just shows you uh policy language for OCPS just as an example. So it tells it we've taken language from various OCPS of different uh municipal areas in our region to and provided like examples of sentences that can be used as well as targets that you know local governments can include in their OCPS to protect environmentally sensitive areas. And now I'm just going to hand it off to Levi to kind of show you the atlas

um and walk you through it so you can know how to navigate it. Great. So everyone can see the biodiversity atlas, right? Yes, we can see. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So welcome to the action for adaptation biodiversity atlas. Uh this is an interactive atlas where users can access it through our website and interact with data. They can uh access find uh detailed data within many data sets as we have almost hundred and so you can come back and explore data on your own. Today I'm just going to provide a brief presentation of its general tools and functionality of the atlas and then I'm going to look at you can look at some of the data within the district of machosen. So when you do come back, I would invite you to go through a little bit of a tutorial here on the left hand side which I won't go through today.

So as you can see we have the main action for adaptation study area which we've divided in four regions and I'll just zoom into the district of Machosen and we'll just go through some of the data sets quickly. So we had a contractor develop uh a very high resolution land cover data set which is at 3 meters and it has nine classes. So this supersedes past products um which had resolution at 30 m so much finer resolution and you can see in it uh you can see we have red is buildings green as forests uh and etc. That same contractor who who developed that also did a forest carbon data set.

And so you can see that here where it's in kilograms of carbon per hectare. And so this is great where we can map out carbon stocks. And you can see here on the peninsula in chosen that there's higher carbon stocks in that area. And this was mapped at 50 m resolution. Um as Stephanie and Dion noted, we have our disturbance and forest cover themes coming soon. Uh which is very exciting. And as they also noted, we have our terrestrial and uh sensitive ecosystem mapping products complete. Uh we've divided it by region. So I'll show it's in the Vancouver and Gulf Islands region. And here you can see uh an amalgamation of multiple data sets. And so we've we've compiled some from the BEC freshwater atlas include lakes, rivers and streams, but then also that which was created by our contractors um from the terrestrial and sensitive ecosystem mapping. And so here you can see by the bright green is our riparian areas uh areas from that mapping. Uh you can see woodland, herbaceous and rocky

ecosystems in addition to those hydraological features as well as coastal eco e ecosystems. So, estuaries, beachlands, and rocky coastlines. And so, lots of great data. And like I said, it is interactive. And so, when you were to come here, you can click on data and then you can access more data within including a layer summary and use. Um, I'll just pan to the Yeah. And so there's lots of great data metadata applications and henceforth as well. So lots that can be done with it. So for example uh in our terrestrial and sensitive ecosystem mapping there's also applications particularly for OCPS and zoning. Um and so that is also included in the data sets.

So in addition to our sensitive ecosystems, we've also provided a climate microfugeia theme. And so we have lots of great data sets in that as well. And so being climate microfusia, these are habitats that can uh aid species in a changing climate. And so here around Whitty's Lagoon, you can see we have uh Matt's uh really good riparian areas which takes into account elevation rather than just a buffer around hydraological features which has been used in the past in addition to um moist forests, freshwater areas, wetland forests and and more. Uh we've also had a contractor create a riparian forest data set and so that actually includes the forest stand height in riparian areas given that taller trees can uh offer greater climate microfugeia.

And so um we've also developed yeah our ecosystems at risk theme. So here you can see the red and blue listed species within the district of Machosen. In addition to red andor blue listed and so that this data actually predominantly comes from terrestrial and sensitive ecosystem mapping we also have species at risk as you can see here. This is from the uh conservation data center of BC and the GBIFF records. And so ultimately the the atlas is designed where one can turn on multiple layers and so they can overlap data sets. for example, they can see where species at risk or and their habitats mapped in the past overlap with climate microfugeia.

And so, like I said, there's lots of great data here that I would invite [snorts] you to explore uh in the future. This was very brief kind of rundown as to how we've organized our data in the atlas and within these folders. What are some of the data sets as well and there is more than I've presented. uh given it's a beta version we do invite all feedback and so there is a form within the atlas as well to provide feedback and we invite that always um but yeah I would invite you to interact with this atlas more and how you can add data from your own system how you can download data how you can print maps change base maps etc so yeah thank you so much for listening thank you and I just wanted to add one note that this is the beta version of the map. So, it isn't it isn't perfect and um ground truthing is always encouraged as well. Thanks everybody.

Okay, thank you very much. Uh an incredible powerhouse of of players uh presenting here. I just wanted to mention that uh they reiterate that the action for adaptation is a collaboration between the UBC botanical garden which is the oldest botanical garden in Canada. um my alumni also important as well as um it's the collaboration with the botanical garden and the coastal Douglas fur partnership uh conservation partnership. I've got that right uh Stephanie. Yes. Okay. Yes. Great job. Okay, that's great. So, an incredible body of of information. So, council, including council Donison online, does anybody have any particular questions that they wish to ask this powerhouse team?

[snorts] Councelor Fukin. Thank you, Mayor Little. Um, Stephanie, Levi, and Dion, thank you so much for the presentation. I'm going to have a look. Um, as it happens, we are on the verge of um, uh, designating a new park and there has been talk about doing ecosystem mapping in that area. So, I'm curious to know what you may have already covered, but but really um, basic question, what is the source data for all of the stuff you're putting on the website and with the mapping tool? That's a good question. Uh, I can take a swing at that. So we've sourced data from multiple sources including that of the BC Freshwater Atlas where we've got hydraological data. We also have parcel fabric data and so that includes all the parcels within the district of Mosen. So you can access that. Um, a lot of has come from the BC data catalog which has been great uh for the development of our kind of A4A data sets including the land cover, the forest cover, um, forest

carbon and our terrestrial ecosystem mapping. uh particularly the terrestrial ecosystem mapping has taken mapping products from many different sources including sensitive ecosystem inventories and amalgamated it into this up-to-date uh and more thorough concentration of data. So it's uh all in one place. Uh and like I said, our yeah our land cover and our forest carbon data sets came from u remote imagery and satellite imagery and LAR data and they use we use train models to develop those products. So it's a lot of data from many different kind of sources uh to bring it all to kind of one place and uh counselor we can share with you the methodologies for each of the mapping uh layers that we've developed because the the sources of data will be different depending on which mapping layer you're using. Um, and we're happy to provide more details if you need to know the sources and how they were used.

And if if you click on the layer on the atlas, it should give you highlevel uh data sources, but as Dion mentioned, we could provide a much more detailed methodology as well. Yeah, I I thank you. I I wouldn't be able to understand. So, I appreciate Levi's uh explanation. And one thing I just want to note is um we have um worked with CDFCP before and they helped us with the uh carbon credit assessment of the bufferland. So uh great to have you all back again. So thank you. Thank you uh councelor Gray and then perhaps council Donaldson. Go ahead. Yeah, just a word of thanks to the chair to the presenters. Thanks very much. Um, I think the the work that you've done here will be very helpful for us here in Machosen as we work to meet the obligations in our official community plan to identify sensitive ecosystems.

Um, that's a a piece of work that will take some time and the the um advisory select committee that's working on this in the chosen adi environmental advisory select committee meas looks forward to engaging further uh with you guys and with our staff. Thanks so much. Thank you. Council Donaldson, did you want to ask any questions or um make any comments? Thank you very much. Um I don't have any questions, but I can see where this would be very valuable for our staff and certainly for ourselves at the table um as we start looking for uh planning in the future um understanding what our land has and what uh species at risk. We understand also that you know there's a lot that still needs to be put into those databases. So this is um this is amazing amount of work. I really appreciate it. Um and I'm looking forward to actually going and trying to sift through those layers. So thank you very much for all the work that you've done.

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. This is really scientific tools as you say for naturebased solutions um specifically for the southwest of of BC. We really appreciate this and um it it really is remarkable that you've been able to bring together the ecological data, the tools uh the mapping tools and the community knowledge uh to help guide uh this process and guide uh planners um as they deal with uh conservation uh decisions. So we really appreciate that and we thank you for your presentation. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks so much, Tina. And there's a whole team behind us. Behind us as well. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And if any of the public want to know more information about this, they can go to the website for the UBC University of British Columbia. Look for UBC Botanical Gardens. The action for adaptation is on that website. Thank you. Um Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Say that again. Hi Dion. Yeah, it's a it's a separate website called actionforadaptation.ca. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks. Okay, bye-bye now. Bye. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Missing a council member here. That's okay. Okay. Uh we're on item number three. This is for public participation. Um everybody is welcome to have four minutes at the microphone. Uh, and uh, if you can state your name and your road, that would be great. And, um, the topic. Thank you.

We're accepting respectful conversation here. Thank you. There we go. Uh, good evening, Kiara Kahakawa, Perry Crossroad, and I speak tonight as the president of the Machosen Community Association. Um, I would like to start by thanking counselors Gray, Donaldson, and Shukin for um, your participation over the years actually. Um, for the last four years, you've each been able to come and spend some time with us at the at the garage sale, but in particular this time around for some setup, some um, and some stuff on the sales days. Um, also would like to put a shout out to the Machosen Equestrian Society, the Hall Society, the Fire Department, and Old Barn Books. And if I've forgotten any other Machosen organization that has assisted us, uh I apologize for that. But it was um a spectacular event. The Machosen Wind did not disappoint. Um if you were there on on Saturday, you were definitely getting whipped around. Um I'd also like to give a shout out to Tina um and the staff here at the district who helped us with um some of our garbage disposal and our

recycling of the cardboard. Um, you may have noticed that we would fill up the bins over by the fire department and then Tina graciously would call GFL, they'd come and take it and we will be getting a bill at some time for uh for the extra usage of those facilities. Um, I would like to um the we did a cleanup today. It took about three hours to get the rest of the cardboard broken down and uh we will be be doing one more final sweep of the parking lot to make sure that any metal pieces are are picked up once the GFL bin is gone. Um, and I also wanted to invite all of council to our AGM on June 11th at the community house at 7 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Does anybody else wish to see the microphone? Just uh staff before you start, Mr. Smurfett, we've got the timer going. It's going to be short. Don't sweat it. I'm not sweating. Thank you. Just natural process. Okay. Thank you. Is the timer ready? It's ready. Thank you. My name is Gary Smurfett. I live on Gilbert Drive here in Machosen. I've lived here for 40 years. The fireh hall technical committee submitted a proposal to council that was discussed at the May 11th committee of the whole meeting of council. At the May 25th council meeting, item 7D on the agenda, council passed a resolution number 160-2026 directing the CAO to engage with the proposed volunteer fireh hall technical team.

On tonight's council meeting agenda as item 8b, the mayor seeks to basically bypass this resolution 160 and consider hiring a paid project lead consultant to steer the fireh hall project. I submit without a firm concept as to what the project is to be, the hiring of a project lead consultant will be a waste of taxpayers dollars at this time. Further, I request that council stand by the accepted proposal from the fireh hall technical team and resolution 160 2026. We are looking forward to meeting with the CL later this week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak in the microphone? I hit the button. There we go.

I hit the button the wrong way. Um, boy, I can't hear in here. Anyway, I have it's the the mayor has made this uh resolution to direct staff to hire a lead consultant for the fireh hall project and re-engage the fireh hall steering committee, which is good because that was what you agreed to do last uh May 25th or whenever the last meeting was. I don't know really why you would change what the resolution was. Um, please return to the May 25th resolution to consult with the fire hire tech team and we've got to listen to what the community wants and needs. We don't need to hire consultants to tell us how to spend our money.

There's going to be lots of time to hire a lead consultant later in the future when the community has come to a sensible plan for our new fire home. Thank you. Please go back to it. Thank you. Hello, I'm Andrew Gage, a resident of Squiml and a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law. Um, I always love coming back to Mosen. This is the first place I remember being home. I I grew up on many years of my childhood and on Olympic Drive. So, um, it's a pleasure to be back. I want to thank mayor and council for uh raising again the question of climate costs and how to pay for them and cons reconsidering the question of whether or not to support a climate cost recovery lawsuit um to recover those costs from global fossil fuel companies.

uh the mayor's report I think raising this issue talked about the sort of uh you know rural versus urban perceptions around this uh issue and I wanted to just emphasize that uh rural communities are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change uh not necessarily in terms of the overall dollar cost but in terms of the cost per capita uh with to take care of infrastructure that's spread out over a large area. Uh I'd like to just make a few points. First, I'd like to commend to you uh this this report uh prepare or repair by the Canadian Climate Institute which came out a few months ago. Uh what it does is examines the uh impact of just chronic increases in heat and precipitation on different types of infrastructure. Uh demonstrating that currently just in terms of increased cost of maintaining and replacing infrastructure, Canadian uh governments are currently paying an extra 8.8 8 billion uh in terms of maintaining roads and buildings uh storm drains uh water systems and the like. It doesn't include

disastrous wipeouts. It's just the chronic imp impact. So the impacts that every community is suffering. It doesn't include building new infrastructure or putting new services in place to protect people from climate change. So it's actually fairly narrow. But nonetheless, they found 8.8 billion dollars in harm that all levels of government are are facing uh or are paying currently. That's going up obviously. and 72% of that is by local government. So uh massive costs the methodology in here can be used to help communities understand better how much they are individually paying uh in maintaining their infrastructure. The second thing is that of the 11 municipalities that have currently are currently supporting the idea of a climate cost recovery lawsuit uh they range in size from Slocan which is population of two or 300 people all the way up to Burnaby. Uh so uh you know the it runs the full gamut and there certainly are other rural communities that are um recognizing the massive costs that they experience. And finally

uh I think in my experience although uh sometimes people in in rural communities uh have political questions about climate change they are the first to recognize the impacts of climate change. I've had conversations where uh people can tell me how many fewer frost days there are in their in their neck of the woods or or how many more heat days and the fact that they're sort of more aware of the impacts is borne out uh in the polling that uh we were briefing uh Mayor Little about uh and and the fact that not only are rural residents very concerned about climate change, but they are more likely than urban um residents to connect uh climate change to quality of water issues to uh home insurance uh costs to a wide uh lately general cost of living and the like. So there's a wide range of of um those types of connections that people are making. And in fact, when we actually looked at the results of our of our survey of our poll

that was conducted by Stratcom, um more rural voters supported the idea of a a lawsuit to recover costs from climate change, a higher percentage than uh the urban residents. So, uh you know, I I have great confidence in the the common sense of rural uh British Columbombians to try and recover some of these costs. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, Jill Colrich, uh, Kangaroo Road. Um I'm here bea on I'm here tonight on behalf of the South Island Primary Care Society um who I'm working with to bring a new primary care center to Mosen. Um, I just wanted to um let everyone know and formally invite everyone who is able to um an information night that we'll be holding um also on June 11th uh the same night as the MCH AGM, but it starts an hour earlier at 6 p.m. Um so anyone who can make it uh we'd love to see you there. Um it's going to be 6 pm uh and running until 7:30 if we need that time in uh classroom one in the old school

building. And um thanks so much to Mayor Little for um helping secure that space for us to give an update. Um it'll be myself and um Alyssa Andre, the um executive director of the South Island Primary Care Society, and Jade Wong, who um is going to be our staff counselor. Um so the three of us will be speaking, and so we'll present for about half an hour um just about some of the exciting updates that we have and some of the timelines um that have shifted slightly as well. Um and then uh there'll be lots of time for um folks to give um feedback, ask any questions. Um and uh yeah, um we hope to see as many people there as possible and uh really are looking forward to the opportunity.

Okay, so that's June 11th as well. So looks like a really interesting evening starting here and then going to the AGM at the MCA. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak this evening? Okay, let's move on uh to the rest of the agenda. Thank you for everybody that spoke this evening. Okay, council, uh gear up your iPads. Uh we've [music] got the council agenda before you and we've got the adoption of the minutes from May 11th, 2026. Special council meeting. This is moved by councelor Schukan, seconded by councelor Gray. Are you with us? Councelor Donatson? I just want Yes, I'm here. Okay, great. Want to make sure you're there. Uh, move and seconded. I'll call the question. All in favor? Those opposed?

None opposed. Thank you. We've got the May 25th regular council meeting. Move adoption. Uh, councelor Schukan, seconded by councel Gray. All in favor? Hearing um hearing no opposition. That's carried unanimously. Moving on to the number item number five. Uh this is the mayor's report uh from the 26th of May. Um, as uh Mr. Gage uh mentioned, um given the new metrics that we received just uh last month, I request that council revisit the question of uh who is going to pay for the cost of these climate change effects um and have a a very serious uh discussion about the climate crisis, our strategic priorities and our climate action plan. And so um I will uh also I'll just give it a little bit of an update. We have right here in Machosen Dr. Thomas Homer Dixon uh with Royal Roads and the Cascade Institute.

As you know that he wrote the book Commanding Hope, the power we have to renew a world in peril. Um new information that was provided by uh Mr. Andrew Gage at the West Coast Environmental Law and the Climate Action Caucus virtual meeting of May 27th were really sobering to me. In particular, what I hadn't heard or maybe he has talked about it, but what st stood out for me was the um emphasis on what rural individuals um are thinking about. And so um what what and and the costs that are greater per rural residents per capita. And so there are real local costs to climate or sorry there are real local costs um to climate change and uh the effect of of climate change and and that's why I thought I would uh [music] bring it to council with this a link or um some uh more information on the rural community. So there's some resources here as well. You received some correspondence from Mr. Gage earlier today. I provided you that with with you

with that. Um, councelor Donaldson has her iPad with her. So, with that, I'll open it up for debate. Go ahead, Councelor Shukin. Well, thank you, Mayor Little. I um appreciate you bringing this back for discussion, but the the motion that is in the agenda um that council revisit the question of opting into the super big oil and have a serious and respectful discussion regarding the climate crisis, our strategic priorities and our climate action plan. So my my read of this is that you you're proposing this for a discussion for a later day like a few weeks or like in in a workshop setting potentially. Well, no, we we we as you know we have very little time left in this in this term. Um I've given you advanced notice of what uh the motion was. I've given you links here. I thought we could have a conversation at this table. Um I mean there's there's you've you've been provided with links. You got a letter from Mr. um Andrew Gage. Um I just what what we haven't heard or what I haven't

heard before is that rural sentimentality and that the increased um impact on rural residents uh per capita. And what as you remember uh what the ask was was a dollar per resident. the permit chosen uh $5,067 uh dollars is what they are looking for. So, how about if we have a discussion? Go ahead. The the only um my only concern I do recognize that we're running out of time, but I feel like to have that full discussion, it would be great to have the climate action plan, have time to review it. um again do this in a in a workshop session where we can actually dig into the issues because I I feel like this is a deeper topic. Um I've spoken with Mr. Gage a number of times and I do appreciate him coming out um tonight as well. Um I believe that there is a rationale behind subig uh the question is whether we will have the community on side with this. Uh the

one thing I will also mention is we we chose not to fund the village initiative which um was a commitment for three years over 5,000 $5,000 a year. So I I I don't feel like I'm prepared tonight to just make a decision without more more discussion, more engagement with the community and maybe even more information from Mr. Gage. I I'd hate to think about taxing him again because I know he has been here before, but um Okay. I just feel like this is something for a more focused discussion. Sure. Sure. I can see the value in that. So, let's move to other council members and and uh we could I've got some comments I can make later. Thank you.

Did you want to speak or did you want council Donaldson's to speak first? You go ahead. I guess like councelor Schukan, I'm not sure is are you moving this motion here that's um in the agenda. Mayor, there's there's no motion on the table. We're having a discussion first. Very good. Well, as um expressed earlier uh meetings um it was recommended by me ask the environmental advisory select committee that we actually join the um subig oil campaign and I continue to support uh the idea that we ask the courts to decide if there's any liability on the part of the fossil fuel companies to benefit um to the benefit of municipalities to pay for climate preparation um or damage. It's a lowcost item, a dollar per resident as you mentioned, and we only uh would be paying for that if enough municipalities join. Uh to me, um it's very similar to the tobacco lawsuits launched by the province with great success and significant payouts. So, I think it's worth the uh a run at this.

Um, as regards the climate uh plan, I'd be happy to bring back a status report to council on that if you so wish. Um, I agree it's important and in fact we've done relatively well with progress on our plan. We've made a few steps contrary to the plan. Um, which I don't need to run through tonight, but I think we are facing significant risks from the climate and need to be paying attention and planning. Maybe I'll before finishing I'll just say and the fire department has done a great job in sending us up a whole lot of the questions of risk and how we might um deal with those risks. So they're our staff are busy at it and that's terrific.

Yeah. Thank you. We'll move to uh councelor Donaldson. Are you there? I I [clears throat] still am here. Yes. Thank you. Um yeah, I was um I I too was wondering why this had come back to us, but I was re um pleased to be able to read through the report, learn a little bit more, go in deeper, and look at some of the links that were provided as well. And um I'm I'm like my colleagues, I I support this. I'm not sure about the timing um and as far as the investment. Um, so as far as the timing goes, I would like to have a um a more wholesome discussion of course and understand from our community what they would like. Um, the as far as the financial part, are we would we be paying that now or we be paying it when uh maybe a lawsuit comes out or not? And I would like to see us have a better plan for that. uh like you say, it's just a little over $5,000 and we have

deferred a lot of other asks asks for sums of money um this past year. So um looking forward how to plan and build that in um these are all factors that we need to um take into consideration to um have well part of a bigger discussion. But I I do think it's worthy. It's just as far as what the timing is. Mayor Little. Yeah, thank you and thank you for all your comments. Um I can see uh councelor Shuken um the value of the workshop to bring the community in [music] and and that's great. I'm just going to turn to our deputy corporate officer. I think it's a marvelous idea uh because it gives uh sorry it gives uh the community a chance uh to weigh in again. Um, Deputy Corporate Officer Hansen, could you comment on I think that's possible, but could you comment?

Yeah. Yes. Um, if I may, the uh the group could put forward a motion just to post postpone a decision to an upcoming meeting and then staff can um work on scheduling a a date and having all the information brought forward to that that workshop. Okay. Yeah. Okay, that's great. So, we we already have we know we've got the climate action plan that's on our website already. We we all have copies in our ourh files. Uh I think we have all the information. You got some new metrics uh from the email that Mr. Gage sent today. Um but let's let's work work towards that. Okay, everybody okay with that?

So, we'll table this until uh the next meeting. Go ahead. U deputy corporate officer. Could we just have a motion to postpone a decision to an upcoming meeting and then we'll just work on scheduling a workshop? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, council. Uh the motion is to postpone until another meeting to Sure. Um you want to reiterate it for the people at home? Um to postpone a decision on this motion till the future meeting. Yeah. For a workshop. Okay, correct. That's moved by councelor Schukan. Uh, do I have a seconder? Sorry. A second. Oh, that's seconded by councelor Donaldson. Sorry. Um, comments. Go ahead. One bit of information that would be really great to have around the Sup.

Um, and I think it would be reiterating what Mr. Gage has already told us, but this is a few years ago. um mechanics, when we pay, um how the lawsuit is bound to unfold, what the timelines are, and also what the risks are as well. Um but um yeah, just again some of the mechanics around all this would be would be great to understand. Yeah, thank you. Um go ahead, councelor Gray. I don't want to be too much of a stickler, but it seems to me if we pass the motion because it's looking to the future. It says council revisit the question of opting into Subiego. So, we would revisit it at a workshop, I suppose, and have a serious and respectful discussion regarding the climate crisis, our strategic priorities, and our climate action plan. That would all be in the future. If we postpone the decision, then our next meeting will be to confirm this that at some future time we'd be doing it. I'm really the point you made earlier, councelor Shukin. So the motion is a bit awkward. I'm happy just to

proceed, but I think if you read the motion, it's um if we postpone a decision on the motion, then things won't happen for quite a while now. Yeah, that was on recommendation from our deputy corporate officer. I'll I'll just turn to her. She wants to provide clarity. Go ahead. I guess if uh to provide more clarity, maybe it would be to direct staff to schedule a workshop. Sorry. Do you want to amend your motion to direct staff to con uh consider a workshop? Sure. Okay. So, that's an amendment. Uh do I have a seconder for the amendment? Oh, sorry. Okay. Just before we get to the second, I'm going to turn to our uh CEO.

Okay. Just for clarity, council's directing C staff to schedule workshop, not to conduct the workshop. That's right. That's just to schedule it with all of us and and we can look after the the workshop. I can share that. No problem. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the reminder. Okay. So, the amendment is uh has been proposed. Do I have a seconder for the motion? I will second that one. That's seconded by Councelor Donaldson. That's on the floor. Okay, councelor Shukin, just really quickly um the deeper discussion around this topic is how do we take environmental action? How do we address climate change within the machos context? We are a small community with a big land area. So I I feel like many of us are doing things almost every day. Um probably like many people, I was out picking in bases this morning.

Collectively we are taking steps to make the bufferland um a park and ideally a a an environmental conservation area. So we are taking those steps and the question is what more can we do potentially you know enter the subig oil class action suit. Um and I think that's maybe where the the purpose of a of a workshop might be. So okay councelor Donaldson did you want to motivate on that? Uh, no. Thank you. Okay. Uh, councelor Gray, did you want to what? Chime in. Okay. So, there was a couple of uh points that you had made. Uh, oh, let's deal with the amendment. Okay. We're going to deal with the amendment first. I'll call a question. All in favor? Opposed? No one opposed.

So, that's uh the workshop. So, the the staff will organize a workshop run by council. Go back to the main mo. Pardon? The staff will schedule a workshop. Schedule a workshop, not run it. Thank you for that clarification. So, councelor Schukan, back to the main motion, postpone. We postpone this until a future meeting. So, okay, Miss Hansen will clean up statement up a little bit. So, okay. So, that has already been first and seconded. Do you wish to speak more to that? Okay. Seconded by council uh Donaldson. Do you wish to speak to that motion? Councelor Donaldson. No, I'm good. Thanks. Okay. Anybody else wish to speak? No. I'll call the question. All in favor?

Opposed? Carried. Um, so on, uh, some of the points that you made, uh, councelor Shupin. Um, I I I think it's a great idea. You did mention the village initiative that we didn't, uh, fund. [music] Um, and, uh, that was a council decision, which I will honor. Um, but don't forget that was for 70 organizations working together to support health and well-being of children and that was about the same amount of money. Lucky for us, there are citizens of Mosen that saw value in that and they've ponyied up for that money on our behalf. So, I don't think we need to worry about the village initiative.

Thank thankfully thankfully so to these uh residents that have provided that for us. Um and then um yeah, I think this is great. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay, let's move along. You got your agendas on your tablets? Okay, that's uh the mayor's request. Um, we've got reports for action. This is the District of Mosen draft 2025 annual report. Um, and the report is on page 37 of your uh council agenda. Miss Hansen, did you want to introduce the annual report? Thank you, chair. Um, good evening. staff are pleased to present the or introduce the District of Mosen's draft annual report for 2025. Each year before June 30th, local governments are required to prepare and make publicly available an annual report and schedule um the annual meeting to receive input on the report. The annual report report is for the year ended December 31, [music] 2025 and includes the audited financial statements, a list of permissive tax exemptions, the progress report respecting previous year's objections and measures objectives and measures, declarations of

disqualifi disqualifications, if any, and a statement of municipal objectives and measures that will be used to determine progress during in the current and following [music] years. The recommendation for this evening is to um make the annual report uh available to the public, schedule the annual meeting for June 22 and um to provide the notice of the annual meeting in accordance with the community charter. And there was one proposed change that um I would like to make to council and that would be just to remove and replace the 2025 council priorities and and insert the 2026 priorities. We've um uh this term we've been um putting in the current year priorities and reporting on um the previous year's priorities. And so just to maintain consistency, um I wanted to propose that one change.

Okay. Thank you on behalf of council. This is an incredible um annual report. It gets better and better each year. So thank you for that. So council, you've got u recommendations of a motion here. Um with the annual report, I'm sure you've all read it. It's wonderful. Uh who would like to speak to this? Councelor Schuker. Oh, defer to council. Okay. Council G. I'm just going to make the motion that council direct staff to make available for public inspection the district of Machosen draft 2025 annual report with the amendment as suggested by the deputy corporate officer and schedule the annual meeting June 22nd 2026 and that notice of the annual meeting be published in accordance with community charter. Thank you. Second.

This is moved by councelor Gray, seconded by council Schukan. Uh councelor Gray. Yeah. Just a big thank you to staff. It's a tremendous amount of work goes into this. Um, and I think that it reflects the work of good work of the council, the good work of the various advisory committees, our volunteers, um, and staff, and it really comes together very well. Thank you, uh, Councelor Fuken. Um, yeah, again, just echo that. Uh it's a wonderful report and there's so much good information here and uh it does testify to how busy this council has been over the last few years. Um I love the use of photos and uh uh quite a cute um reference to our mascot, our feline mascot. I think it's on page 56 under the governance pillar, which is again I like it playful. Um but again, bravo and great work and um yeah, happy to support this motion. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Donaldson.

Yes. And I also like to um congratulate our staff are pulling this all together and um it's an it's a lovely reflection of what goes on in our community from from every every point of it. Uh the pictures are always lovely to to look at as well. Um, it's I I always look forward to it because it's not really a report card, but it does sum up everything that every one of us, not just in this in the chambers here, but every one of us in this community are a part of. And it um whether it's the information, the activities, the services that we uh fund u through the different departments and the um the extra things that identify rural machosen. So staff has done a great job in pulling this together and I look forward to hearing um responses from the community um prior to the June 22nd um meeting when we hopefully will will pass it. So thank you everybody for your part in it.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you everybody. Uh for a second time shall I speak first or or Yeah. Uh thank you actually you go ahead. I I'll speak last. The chair always speaks last. Go ahead. Thank you. I just had um um one suggestion, one question. On page um I think it's page 16, there's a photograph there of Ravi Par who's a local MLA, and I wondered if we might get a picture of the MLA who's um responsible for Machos Dana Lines. Maybe seem like a simple thing, but uh but that might be um nice to see. And the question I had through the chair to staff was does the Sophie report eventually appear in the in the annual report or does it come in a different form or different place?

Sophie being the statement of financial information annually. Uh Mr. Creek, we we talked earlier. Did you want to take this or did you want the deputy corporate officer to take the question through the chair? I can take that question. Uh, [clears throat] so the Sophie report has been signed off by staff and mayor. That'll be posted online tomorrow and then it'll be brought to the June 22nd meeting, not part of the annual report itself. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Um, huge thank you to staff. I beg everybody to look at our u annual reports uh prior to 2022. our deputy cor corporate officer has really upped the game here with all of the uh the pictures as well as the formatting and and the associated colors which really helps with the highlights. Um and yeah, thank you very much. It is it is a wonderful um annual report and a a report card of such uh as councelor Donaldson mentioned. Okay, with that, we've got a motion on the floor and I don't see any other speakers, so I'm

going to call the question on the annual report. Okay, call the question. All in favor? Opposed? That's unanimous. Great. Thank you. Okay, moving along in the agenda, we've got uh correspondence for information. We've got um a letter from Rebecca Bishop, program officer, UBCM, 2025 CPF, emergency support services response readiness, ESS supply inventor group lodging equipment training and nest conference. So this is uh for your information uh for correspondents to receive for information. Um, does anybody wish to speak to this? It's a UBCM letter. Okay. A recent letter May 21st. Okay. Move. Move receipt by council Schuben, seconded by Councelor Gray. Thanks. Okay. And any other comments? Many thanks. Call a question. All in favor? Post.

Carried. Great. Thank you very much. Uh just go back to my agenda. Okay, everybody got their agenda on their tablets. Uh eight, other business. This is a motion for which notice has been given. Westshore RTMP building project. Uh would you like to speak to this? Councelor Gray, this was your uh notice of motion. Yes. So I will move that council request the CEO prepare a report on the status of the Westshore RCMP building project and that the report include an analysis of financial impact to the district whether as part owner or an ongoing tenant. Okay. Someone will second it then I'll motivate. Oh, thank you. Uh we've got uh a motion by councelor Gray. Could I have a seconder? Second for discussion.

Seconded. Uh go ahead. Oh, sorry. Seconded by councelor Shukin. Go ahead, councelor Gray. Yeah. So, this motion is quite straightforward. Um it's my view that council must complete its due diligence and risk management on the RCMP building and potential costs. From what we know now, the project could have a crushing impact on our taxpayers and the district. Specifically, Machosen's annual rental cost could increase from $75,000 a year to as much as $441,000 per year. This needs to be sorted out. Um um the point for me is that we have no plan to address this enormous anticipated tax burden and I think it um this kind of issue needs to be included in our financial planning. Um it's not so much it would be nice to know but I think we need to know um what we're facing financially with the RC RCMP building to fulfill our fiduciary responsibilities as a district council. Thank you, Councelor Shukin.

So, I I have a few questions, including some I'd like to throw to staff if I could. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. So um first question I have is whether um um the I I I I I'm behind doing the report on the status of the west westshore RCMP building program project in terms of its fiscal impact to Machosen because it is a significant um building um or project in the west shore estimated to be in the order of $103 million. we are going to be part of that one way or the other. Um so I think it it is important that we understand what the um the fiscal impact is. The the thing I'm a little unsure about is the question of whether we want to be part owner or an ongoing tenant. And I guess my question through you may little to uh our CEO and maybe to CFO Mr. Creek is uh does he have the time and tools to be able to dig into such a question?

Okay. So, I'm I'm going to turn this over to our CEO. CEO Payet. Would you like to comment on on whether you have the capacity and the tools and the um corporate history uh to address this in a report? Sure. Through the chair. Um to [snorts] date, um we have not been involved with the RCMP building whatsoever um in terms of any discussions um uh on the capital costs. We're we're not at the table. We're we're not invited. Um so but we do have capacity and tools to bring a report to council. Um the report would be basically getting information from from people that are at the meetings and putting that into a report. I suppose um we we are looking into the rent question.

Um, we put that out there already to Langford and I don't know how quickly we could get a response from Langford. Um, maybe the CFO has more on that from last week. Um, we're concerned as well about a potential rent increase. Um, I personally would be very surprised if it's tied to the capital finances of the new building because that has never been broached with us since I've been here. Um, but that being said, um, we're not we don't control the rent map. They how they come up with a matrix for the rent. Um, so we need to figure out how they're proposing to do that in the future. I suppose we we we kind of know how they did it in the past. Um it could change potentially. Um there's been zero discussions about this with me and I believe with the finance officer as well.

Um but it's a good question and we could bring [music] some information forward as soon as we can find out. Did you have a second question? No. I I think Mr. Payet's uh response is fair. Um we'll I think there's some financial information out there and and the question of whether you know we can look at being an equity partner or um a renter maybe we will just have to ask and get the information as it comes. So thank you. Um third go ahead. Sorry. Um, one of the things, um, thank you councelor Gray, uh, for bringing this forward because it allowed me to kind of dig into this project, which I hadn't really looked at before. But what I'm to understand is the um the project is being developed as an integrated project delivery model or under a integrated project delivery model um which is a new type of procurement and project design um involving where the um the builders and the designers and the

um also take a share of risk as well and that might be something for us to consider with the fireh hall as well as I understand it It's a fairly new model, but um um so yeah, just something to to think about. So, okay. Okay. Yeah, thank you for those comments, Councelor Donaldson. Uh thank you very much. Um I I too would like to understand better the fiscal impact that this may have on us uh whether it's as a co-owner or as a tenant. Um would we be asked maybe in the future to be a co-owner? um or would be tenant forever. I I don't really know and I think that this is the kind of information we need to have. I mean, we're I I didn't really understand actually how this worked out. I know that when you get to a certain population, you have to pay into policing, but when it comes to owning a building, this is not something that I've heard any history on. So, it would

be helpful for us to know um what we may have to invest in in the futures and and what are what do those dollars look like, especially when we're looking at investing substantial amounts of money into our emergency services on the property here. So, um, yeah, I would I would appreciate having a report and knowing if we have the ability to be a co-owner and what the pros and cons are of being a co-owner or staying as a tenant. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And I'll weigh in. Absolutely. We can have a report. There's a plethora of information that can be gleaned from both the View Royal website uh and also the city of Langford. There's so many documents there for public viewing. Um I just want to comment that and reiterate what the uh CEO Payet has said is we are renters.

I did write an article just for the community's interest in the Machos Muse a few months back uh stating that we are renters. I just can't imagine a small community of 5,067 wanting to take on ownership of another building. um because that will be 103 million albeit that it'll be in proportion to our our uh tax base or in our residents here. But as you know with the uh Westshore Parks and Recreation building, we spend the taxpayers spend about 400,000. I'm just looking to the CFO Creek for 500,000 a half a million dollars for that building and we are co-owners of that. Um I I um I Is that about right? Yeah. So he's shaking his head. Yes. Four or 500,000 for that building. And I just want to ask uh Councelor Gray uh since this was your motion, where did you come up with the figure of 441,000?

Um as I described at our um um during the previous meeting um the CFO took the figures the CR CRD loan amount was $103 million and taking the amortization that they've planned for 25 million you can plug the numbers in for Langford College View Royal Highlands and Machos we current our proportion of officers at the moment is 4.7% of the total complement and that's the figure that was used the um now the point is it could be that amount not that it will be but having a sharper look at this should let us know kind of the confidence intervals around that number there's two possibilities um one is that the actual cost of the building will be more than 103 million so that would lift the number up but then the other factor that's that um plays in here if we're 4.7% of the police force at the moment or we're we're on the hook for that. As Langford grows and Colewood grows, that percentage should decline. So that would mean the 441 figure would drop. But

where is it to me? It it it one or the other. Let's get a look at it. And I I feel that um I'm not advocating ownership, by the way. I'm not thinking that's what we should do or not do, but I think without seeing the numbers. Um, and as um, our CEO said a moment ago, we've got had zero discussion on this, it seems to me that it's worth exploring because one way or the other, the residents of the chosen will be paying for that building as renters or as owners. Um, the other thing I would note is that once we set things up with the RCMP, we'll we'll be contracted uh to provide money to pay for the accommodation. So that's a little bit different than the fireh hall project where we're thinking we need to do this job. But the uh the RCMP one, the bill will be coming to us one way or the other. So I would like to have a good look at it, do our due diligence, and then um see if there's any new decisions

that should happen. Of course, however it ends up, I think it's worth exploring what I might call guard rails. um you know what could we do from a chosen's point of view to say hey there's a limit how much we we want to ban this building I'm thinking here about cost overruns but anyway that's a discussion for future maybe once we get a sense of what the situation is in front of us thank you okay that was my first question and I just want to admit that it's very difficult to uh project or extrapolate into the future what our rents will be um I I guess the um CFO could look back on the history of what other people have paid for rent. We've only got a very short time what we have paid for rent and also I'm unclear who sets those rents. I was of the opinion that it's the province that sets the rates but the bill comes from Langford. So it's

erroneously assumed that Langford sets the rents. Um what I've heard is that uh the province actually sets that and I can't imagine that the province would try and bankrupt uh Mitchosen on that but I agree that uh more information is uh uh always really good look to those websites. Uh you talk about guard rails uh councelor Gray as you remember the city of Cwood wanted to have a little bit of a pause which was great. I mentioned this in my article. The consultant that they they hired to review uh the uh I've forgotten the name of it. It's a real estate firm in in Victoria to review their report and he came back and said the figures of 103 million were uh about what would be. So he had no concerns about the financial part of it, but what he talked about was the guardrails and what he would suggest going forward and and certainly all of the mayors were in the room that night

when this was was read. Uh I saw nodding uh from all of the Cwood counselors. There were some additional questions as well. Um certainly the city of Lanford, city of U Royal, the co-owners were listening and so look to their websites uh because there's more information there. Okay, great. Uh where are we? So I will call the question then. Okay, I'll call the question. It's up on the screen for everybody to see the motion. Perhaps you can read it in again. Uh councelor Gray. Certainly. I move that council request the CAO prepare a report on the status of the Westshore RCMP building project and that the report include an analysis of financial impacts to the district whether as a part owner or as an ongoing tenant.

Thank you. Okay, I'll call the question. All in favor? Councelor Donaldson, do you want to I'm in favor. Yes, in favor. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. Moving along in the agenda. Okay. In your uh tablets, uh we have on page 145 a motion for which notice has been given. The fireh hall project consultant at the 2025 regular council meeting. bear little notice. Gave notice of no motion for the following motion that council direct staff to bring back a report on hiring a lead consultant to steer the fireh hall project and to re-engage the fireh hall steering committee uh to discuss the concept of a project lead consultant. Since it was my notice of motion, I'll motivate on that.

Um, so this was simply um this is not meant to I think you need a seconder. Oh, that's right. Uh, thank you for that. So that is a motion. Do I have a seconder? Second for discussion. Yep. Uh, so that's moved by Mayor Little, seconded by Councelor Schukan. I'll motivate motivate on that now. Um the motivation behind this wasn't to circumvent the engineers who politely came forward and suggested that we take them up on their offer of of their expertise. So they will be working with with um our CEO uh to give some some of their wisdom and and um and their knowledge. This wasn't meant to circumvent that. This is meant to augment it. We've got an existing fireh hall steering committee. Um, and I don't want them to feel disrespected uh by this whole process of now uh consultants that are working with the CEO. We have an established process for the fireh hall steering committee and certainly many of them have reached out to me to

say we really want to get back into this and and we we have uh felt like it's it's it has been uh stalled by council. And so um I I wanted uh staff I was suggesting that staff bring back a report on hiring this lead consultant. And to me a lead consultant is different than a project manager. A lead consultant has more of an umbrella approach whereas a project matter man a project manager in my mind is specific to the building. And so uh that that is uh my um motivation. I've got some other points, but I I want to hear from other council members as well as our our RCO.

Okay. Does anybody wish to speak on this? Council Schukan. Oh, Council Schukan. Uh, you mo you seconded the motion, so go ahead. Thank you. Um, well, thank you. Thank you, Mayor Little. I I have some misgivings about moving ahead with this. Um, first of all, the fireh hall steering committee has not met for seven months, and I feel like when we last left them, there was a there was a momentum drop. And to pick it up at this point, I I I I wonder and I worry whether we will actually get like be able to move ahead, you know, with that body with the questions that we have right now.

um the technical team and and I will say uh no disrespect to the members of the fire hall steering committee. I've talked to the chair a number of times and he's very much opened my eyes to some of the technical um issues around the fireh hall itself. So I I very much appreciate him opening my eyes and educating me on the road ahead here. Um the technical team has I believe momentum. There's a group good group of minds and um we are also looking at cutting some time um in terms of coming up with an assessment of the options and also a scenario planning if you will. Um and I I think this small group will be able to work effectively at least I'm I'm hoping there's there's a great deal of trust that we're placing on those four individuals to provide us with something in the next few months. So, I'm I'm going to stick with that and um we will see how things unfold over the

next two months and maybe we can revise this as we go, but I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what the technical team can provide us. So, okay. Thank you, Council Gray. Then, Councelor Donaldson. Yeah, my count comments are similar to Councelor Schukans. I think we've got kind of a clean process set up uh from our unanimous decision to have the CEO engage with the proono technical team. I think the motion confuses the situation and I'm concerned about cost. So, at the moment, I won't be supporting the motion. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Donaldson. Uh, thank you very much. [clears throat] I um appreciate what my colleagues have to say and I I agree with um the content of their comments. Um I too look forward to um seeing what the technical team will do in the next approximately 60 days I think was the timeline that they gave. Not to say that's adamant but approximate. Um they'll be collating some information and working with maybe some options. Um but they'll also be working directly with the CEO and um

it's the CIO who actually will be overseeing this work. As far as the fireh hall steering committee, um they haven't gone anywhere. They're waiting for direction from council. So, when we're ready to move on to the next step, I'm sure they're prepared to meet again at the table and um go forth with whatever council's direction will be. Um so, as far as this this um this motion, um I feel like it's just a little bit premature. I don't think we're quite ready to go to a consultant yet. I'd rather us wait for um what this technical team will be doing with the work that they um will do with the guidance of the CIO. And this is something that we had discussed at the last meeting. I think that was May 25th.

Thank you. Thank you for that and thank you for all your comments. I really do appreciate that. Um just to reiterate and remind you the fireh hall steering committee also has uh an engineer on the on the team and he has provided excellent uh guidance for the fireh hall steering committee. Um the uh fire stall fireh hall steering committee also meets and is guided with the CAO. Um I'm trying to give direction to that committee to re-engage them to be respectful. They're a long-standing committee that was set up uh actually uh before this uh this council. It is not meant to circumvent or take away or negate the uh expertise of the engineers that have uh brought forward uh a proposal. Um as as councelor Gray said, a proono, which is lovely. It won't cost us any money. Um but um I I think it is uh still really important um still motivating on on the motion as one of our residents Eric White keeps coming to the microphone and

saying every day we delay it's going to cost the taxpayers money and as uh the CEO has said and as Eric has said at the microphone we may uh spend some money on a project lead to really get a handle on this but we will probably save uh hundreds of thousands of dollars. So that was my motivation was no disrespect to the engineers that brought forward the proposal. We've we u really truly admire and appreciate the volunteers in this community. It's meant to augment to that. I'm just wondering if the CEO did you want to comment on this? Thanks for the chair. Um, great discussion. Of course, um, I think, um, the, um, what I'm hearing is, um, community involvement, community input at this point. Um, which is, great, fair enough. Um, we don't have any knowledge of our funding envelope, um, other than speculation.

So um until that kind of gets solidified um we're in the initiation initial phase of project management of the five phases um you know let's not kid ourselves we are project managing now I am in that sense the project manager um in this first sort of initial phases um to kind of understand what the project is what the community needs are, uh what the funding is, all of that is in the initial portion. Um we're we're right into it. We're embroiled in that um initial phase. So um it's it's manageable. Um the there's other elements that I'm working on that um the team and I can talk about. um procurement processes um it's complicated area it was brought up already by counselor tonight so I could talk about it IDP process it's complicated um design build you know whatever however we go um it all has to be understood not just by council but the community really needs to understand how we're going to do this um so we can get the most certainty uh on our funding

and it's going to take time to get this kind of information to council. And um these are these are the things I'm thinking about now. They're all project management related. Um the team can help me prioritize some of these items. Um the proposal, I believe their proposal is fullome. there may be more in their proposal than can get done in the next couple of months. So, we can uh work on maybe prioritizing some of the tasks that they're offering that we get the most value of for before September and um I would look forward to that. Um it does take up like pretty much all my time right now. Well, I spread out a lot, but I mean, this one is the biggest consumer of my time.

Um, you know, would a consultant need help? There's no doubt about it. Um, my concern is that I start to kind of lose track and drop the ball in something and it starts and that could cost money. So, so let's have I'll have my engagement with the team. Um, it would be nice to get the steering committee back online at a certain point. um to get more community input because that is a public forum um where we get uh people coming out and listening and learning. That's pretty much all I have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So, council um I will call the question on the motion and I'll just reiterate what that this is u a motion uh that that there was former uh notice that council direct staff to bring back a report on hiring a lead consultant to steer the fireh hall project and to re-engage the fireh hall steering committee to discuss the concept of a project lead consult consultant. I'll call the question. All in favor?

Council Donaldson but opposed. Okay. And all those opposed? Uh that's uh Council Donaldson, Council Schukan, Council Gray opposed. Mayor Little in the affirmative. That motion fails. Thank you for the discussion. Okay. Next, we have a question period. It is prior to 9:30. Uh it's only 8:35. So, we have 20 minutes maximum for questions. Does anybody wish to ask council or the CEO uh staff questions? You're welcome. Okay. So, I'm going to take a motion to adjourn. Moved by councilin, seconded by council gray. All in favor? Oppose. Carried. Thank you very much, everybody. Thanks, Councelor Donaldson. Thank you. Good night.