I called the meeting order. First, we'll confirm that we have quorum. We do. The proposed amendments are the inclusion of small residential apartment buildings. Increasing the financing limit to the lesser of 20 percent of the current value assessment of the property as determined by the municipal property assessment corporation or 50, 000 dollars. Screening tool. This tool introduces a clear and consistent first step to help determine when a roundabout should be considered for further study. It looks at factors like available space intersection layout traffic patterns safety history and cost considerations while still allowing room for professional judgment. Importantly, this tool doesn't replace the city's existing evaluation process. It strengthens it by improving transparency and consistency, both for city - led projects and for development applications. Overall, this report fulfills council's direction by clarifying the city's approach and ensuring that future decisions about intersection design, including roundabouts are made into more structured, transparent, and informed way. Thank you, Mr. Dixon. Any questions from the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. Councillor Amos. Obese warrants in it. They're automatically assessed for traffic control conditions and whether or not a signal or an always stop would be warranted as kind of outlined in this report where those types of traffic controls have been requested or approved or we would be looking at around about or putting it through the roundabout screening feasibility tool. And if it passed in that scenario, we would move to an intersection control study and determine what the appropriate solution is there. That would go for, you know, when we do those counts as well, that's our opportunity to look at whether or not auxiliary lanes are sufficient for storage capacity and whether or not capital infrastructure improvements would need to be taken to mitigate some of those concerns. But similarly, if there's ever any issues or concerns, certainly those could be raised by council or by residents, and we're always open to doing road safety reviews in the field and ensuring that our systems are operating appropriately. So I would recommend that that'd be the approach taken if there's any really specific areas, councillor, that are of concern. We could certainly have a look at those. Questions from council. Okay. Now to the public, anyone here in the public, any questions for this item item. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone still in virtual. Thank you through you, Mr. Chair. We do have one personal online with their hand up. I'll recognise Vicky Shmolka. Miss Moka, just a reminder, you have five minutes. Yes, all your questions or comments. Thank you. Thank you very much. My question relates to Council's, I think direction to come up with this screening tool. And I'm wondering if it's going to be applicable to the quarry and highway 15. Kingston Hydro. And the last thing I would say is that one of the things that was going back in time was very prescient by the sort of people that started this is that we're very proud that the multi - utility model. So one of the things by having all of the employees in one corporation that provides those services across is you get a lot of efficiency. You don't have multiple CEOs, you don't have multiple CFOs. And when the emergency, like there is tonight, we have our crews out there and working. Cruz can work across the utility. So we believe that saves a lot of money in the multi - utility model. And nothing about that is proposed to change going forward. 128 million dollars. So all those projects that we talked about, the investments that are needed, our finance through the city. So the city has to issue debt for all of those. Because again, utilities Kingston is not set up as a public municipal service corporation, as David talked about earlier. That debt currently occupies about 40 percent of the overall cities debt capacity. I knew that would mean about 1. 4 billion dollar in debt. Now Council has endorsed a debt limit. As Michelle, the Councillors are aware. Council has endorsed that limit of 500 million dollars. That means it leaves little room for water and wastewater as well as municipal projects. I also want to point out that they're limited ways that we can finance that. Okay. Property taxes rates I'm going to say limited development charges because I'm sure that most of you are aware that the province is coming through with changes to development charges which are going to minimize the amount of dollars that we can collect through development charges. And of course there are grants but those again are quite limited in terms of provincial federal grants. I wanted to provide a bit of a no - overview of what that can look like in terms of the boring because I think there have been some questions if we're going to borrow anyways why go through with a public MSC. It doesn't make any sense. So we've heard that comment. We're going to have to pay why borough from one or the other doesn't change anything. Part of the difference is under the municipality, the term for boring is set at 30 years. So we have a 30 year usually cap on our boring terms. And I want to provide an example. I'm not suggesting we would go and borrow a hundred million dollars. But if we had to go in borrow 100 million dollars This means that over 30 years the payment would be 6. 5 million dollars per year. For water and wastewater that would need to be finance out of rates. It would not be on the property taxes, but it would be on utility rates. Three or four years, we've been presenting to Council and in late October, early November last year, we provided an update on our asset management plan. And so the 3. 2 billion that Lainey's talking about as a replacement value and the gap that was all presented to Council. The ownership is concerned. The main changes really are with the operating in the Capitol budget. So those would be actually approved by the municipal services corporation. Maybe put it in context. When KPMG started to do their work and their financial models, it did not include all of the projects that were part of the asset management plan that was presented to Council late in 2025. So that's what Randy is referring to that those projects have now been accounted for, in addition to what was already in the KPMG business plan. That makes sense. Yeah. Many hats we wear. Business enterprise. So the debt is not included on the city's financial statements and it's not included in our annual debt repayment limit with the province. But my background. But at some point will the taxpayer end up paying for some of this in both components. MSC and city issuing tax debt, or not text at, but debt to pay for a facilities. And I'm just wondering if either one of these could comment on that. Thank you. I'll get started and I'll probably ask either Des or Lana to add to this. So the report, and I think the presentation also indicated by transferring the MSC or the, sorry, the water and wastewater debt component to an MSC. It would free up some capacity. So municipal capacity, currently without increasing taxes or fees, which is, I think, a benefit from a city perspective in trying to support other initiatives that we have. De intent of the debt financing through the MSC would be that it would be done through rates and through collection of development charges understanding, of course, city collects those, and then would transfer them. But the intent is not to have property taxes cover water and wastewater infrastructure on their DNSC. Would, if the city increase its issuance of debt for various municipal projects with the property taxpayers have to pay more, possibly, but that would be the case no matter what. You're expecting. Or immediate privatization or privatization in the future. Much they use it. Boring capacity, it's getting close to the limit that council has imposed on it. This was a good way to try to mitigate the impact of those rate increases over time. One last question, where it says part A and part B. I didn't say the last before Mr. Chair. And I didn't say multipower. I just want to continue that. So I heard multiple time borrowing the money capacity. So if I may ask just a clarification, for many people like me who probably don't understand, where we borrow this money from. Mr. Murphy, would you like to answer that question. Sure. So we've been, we've had preliminary talks with lending agencies, particularly the lending agency that we borrow money for Kingston Hydro Corporation, and all indications are that lending institution is more than willing to do the same sort of deal, not exactly, but the same sort of structure that we haven't already in place for Kingston Hydra with the electricity company. So just, yes or no. So what I'm understanding right now is if we don't create MSC in the past, we have been borrowing money together in a bulk for utilities or the hydroking stener or the waste water along with the city DAD. That's where N1, we create MSE, this will be separated. So the MSE will have their own lender. So our scoring or the lending, the barrowing capacity will automatically increase because we have lesser liability under the city of the corporation of the city of Kingston. So I'm going to say it's pretty close, Councillor Assan, except that Kingston Hydra was already separated. So Kingston Hydro already does its own boring. So what we're talking about actually tonight is not much different than Kingston Nydro. And I think we've done quite well with that model, but they already do their own boring. What we would do is have water and wastewater separated from the city borrowing, and it would reduce the proof of. Sorry, I just mixed the wastewater same under the same flag, the utility kings, or whatever. So that's why I mixed up that question. So I understand the base war is a separate entity now. But we would separate the water and wastewater from the city borrowing. So it would alleviate some of the pressure, not just the existing pressure, but the future pressures is also what we're concerned with. Because if you look at the numbers, you know, the water and wastewater utility could take up quite easily the remaining boring capacity that we have. Services. The worst case scenario. If we don't approve the MSC established as a council, what is the consequences as a city and as the public we have to face. What is the next step. I'll start with the answer to that. Worst case scenario, one way or another, I'm coming back to Council with Randy in January 2027 or February to present a new two - year capital and operating budget. We'll present all the evidence to you about current asset management plans, future asset management plans, and rates are going to need to go up. In order to support sewer separation and all the other things. We will need to borrow money to cover those projects and rates will go up higher than they would. That's our current assessment. If we don't create the MSE. Thank you very much for the detailed questions. I understand. I hope my fellow king's tuning also see the scenario and understand better now. Thank you for your last question. Councillor Stephen. Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. Thank you for all of this extra information, and I've been finding it very well explained this evening. Thank you for that into the questions as well. Very thoughtful. Um, I just want to touch one more time on the privatization piece, just to make sure the one thing that I can clarify or make sure that I understand. So you've mentioned in the presentation and through answering other Councillor's questions that if we have an MSC Council cannot sell it off, we cannot privatize it. That's been made very clear. If we have an MSC, while Council cannot do it, the province could change the legislation, which would enable privatization. So that's true, just looking for, do you want to add anything to that? And then I have another statement. Um, I will add something to that. So yes, the province can always change the legislation to make that possible. But I'm assuming it would still require accounts all direction to actually move ahead with privatization. Okay. My follow - up question to that then is that's the MSC situation. If we were to forego an MSN stay with the status quo, it's the same thing. Is it not if the province wanted to privatize, we would just be in the exact same situation. It's just either we have an MSC or we don't. Thank you, Councillor Stephen, for that question. Yes, the province could choose to privatize services anytime it wants. I would argue that eventually the province is going to look broader than the region of Peel for the water and wastewater act. Um, they're starting with peel. But I think eventually they'll want to expand and they'll probably want to look to communities municipalities that don't have, um, spool services corporation to manage their water and wastewater. That would be my guess. Thank you, three, Mr. Chair. That kind of connects to what we've seen through Kingston Hydro. As well. Where, yeah, I can see the parallels. I won't get into it. It's been a long meeting. Um, I'll leave it to the public. Thank you. I'd like to thank the presenters for answering all the last last questions. And so we'll just move on to our next item of a business. Not during the briefing. Uh, so we'll move on to our third item of business. Uh, which is the water, waste water municipal services corporation business plan. Uh, do staff have anything to add to the briefing that was provided. Seeing none. Do the committee have any further questions to ask of the presenters. No final last questions. Okay. Um, so this will take us to the public portion. Is there anyone in the audience in the gallery that would like to ask any questions. If you do, we have some seats right there with the mics. If you want to step up, I'll remind everyone you have five minutes to answer all your questions or comments. Uh, we'll do a round of them. And then the staff will answer your questions. So please state your name and you have five minutes. Great. Yeah. Thanks. My name is David MacDonald. I'm partly here just as a follow - up to an open letter that I had written to Mayor and Council on this topic, um, I've since had two very productive meetings with David and Lanny. And I wanted to, uh, make a few comments on that. Um, I'll just by way of introduction, say I'm an academic at Queens. I've been working on this topic of water corporatization in particular for over 30 years around the world. So it's something I actually know a lot about. And this is a big decision. It is a big decision. So it not one to be taken lightly. My first comment is about the KPMG report, which is the source of a lot of confusion and anger and frustration. And I've read dozens of these kinds of reports. This in terms of its quality was one of the worst ones I've ever written. But it was just lacking in so much clarity. And the debate about privatization in particular stems from the way that the report was written. I'm very happy to say that in the staff report, that has been clearly dealt with. This is the, uh, municipal act of 2001. This is not the water, wastewater corporatization act of 2025, which three independent legal opinions have now said does open the door to privatization. So I think we're a much more solid footing on that front. Uh, but again, I think KPMG really deserves to be taken to task on that. The other thing they did a very poor job of a KPMG, which has been entirely exercised from, from the staff report is the language about commercialization, running a wastewater corporation like a business, entrepreneurial generating revenue. And this is really KPMG's modus operandi. They go around the world telling cities that they need to create these business - like corporate entities that will generate revenue. And the publican name, but they're often incredibly private in operation. And it has all kinds of various degrees of commercialization. But this was the language for me that I found the most troubling in the KPMG report. And I'm very happy to say that that has been entirely removed. But we need to be very careful because there is pressure from all kinds of interest bodies to create corporatized commercialized rather corporate entities. And so creating an arms length utility like this is the inherently commercial about it. It's about the kind of ideology and ethos you imbue in that corporate entity. And so I'm really, you know, be very curious to see the kinds of language that finally comes to council about what it is we're trying to achieve with this. What is the public ethos here? What are the goals of this organisation beyond the very obvious financial aims of what's trying to be done here. And clearly we need money. We need to invest in water and sanitation. This is one of the most underfunded areas in cities across Canada. We're either going to pay for it now. We're going to pay for it later. So we need to figure out how we're going to invest in water and sanitation, particularly sanitation. This is not a very sexy thing for people to spend money on. But we're going to need to do it. And whether that's through debt or taxes or rates, uh, is unclear, but it has to happen. So I'm much more supportive of this than I was, uh, when the KPMG report came out and I look forward to conversations on this. I just want to finish with two comments of areas that I think we need to think carefully about, um, and the one area, I think, that still needs a lot of expansion on in a final report, which it sounds like is coming, is a lot more data on the finance. Um, you know, there really isn't much there. I want to see what kinds of interest rates are we talking about? What is the impact on the credit rating of the city? If we took it above the 500 million dollar limits, we've got 1. 5 billion dollar limit. You know, what happens to the credit reading in the city? How does that affect our interest rates there? We need to see those comparators. What happens if we use increased taxes to raise the revenue? What happens if we increase the water and sewage rates to raise those, uh, those revenues. We need a lot more comparison there to make such a huge decision. Uh, and if I were a councillor, I would, I would absolutely want to see that, uh, that information. I would flag as well, um, offloading revenue generation onto a separate water corporation company like this. Water rates are effectively a regressive form of taxation. Everybody pays. I'm sorry. You have 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Okay. I'll leave that aside. I'll just say we need to be very careful about offloading costs revenue raising on to terrifs. My last point is just about governance. And I think we need to think very, very carefully about the government's models that we use. And there are a lot of really interesting ones around the world, city of Paris as being very interesting one around the citizen observatory model that they use. And so I think the good examples that we could draw on to, uh, to create a really good solid public governance model. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the public that would like to speak to this topic. We'd like to come over here, please. And I'm going to state right now, is there anyone in our virtual gallery that would like to speak? If you would like to put up your hand up virtually, um, good to you in a minute. So as I mentioned before, please state your name and you have five minutes. Oh, thank you. Good evening. My name is Gene Ryan. I'd like to echo the comments that were just shared. My concerns related to this are just how fundamentally, um, big a decision this is. Uh, I'd like to have more clarity about what the timeline is at this point. I know that we've seen in the KPMG report in 18 month timeline that is shared, starting with a six month public engagement process. We've heard a little bit this evening related to some aspects of that public engagement process and the fact that it's actually begun already. I'd like to have real clarity about what we're seeing in terms of when this process would potentially end. I. e. have we begun the 18 month process that would end with the formal establishment of the MSC. And I would certainly say, I hope not. Secondly, I have real concerns over governance. In reviewing the various materials and going into the information sessions. Thank you very much for those. It seems that the major differences related to an MSC model versus the current model are financial. I. Council would no longer have oversight over operational or critically capital budgets. This concerns me in particular the latter. I'm worried about major capital infrastructure decisions being made without Council oversight. Thirdly, related to that. I would like to have an understanding of what happens in the intrinsic tension that exists. When the MSC has sole decision - making capacity over budget. But nominally council is approving rate setting. What happens if Council decides not to approve a rate recommendation and how is budget then covered? Because unless I have a real understanding about that, it kind of sounds like a nominal situation or council is going to be placed in a situation of having to approve rates. And if they don't, how will the budget being covered. Curious about the format and the form of the board. There's been a lot of comparison with hydro. From Ted Sue's blog, he references Kingston Hydros current. Makeup as being the mayor. The CAO of the city, the CEO of Utilities Kingston and two quote unquote independent directors. Are we looking at a similar makeup related to the MSC. I don't know where my seconds are at. I'm going to quickly review my notes. You have a better minute and a half. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the room. That would like to speak. Okay, I'm gonna go virtually right now. To Miss Smoka. Over 30 years. Theoretically, or we've been told have an excellent corporation. Okay, that is your five minutes. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I will go now go to staff to answer the questions. I'm sure that transists between our various staff here. Very good question. What happens if essentially budgets are established and then rights come to council, council doesn't approve the rates. So the way that we're anticipating, this would proceed with approval of budgets, conditional two rates being approved by council. If rates were not obviously approved by council, the budget would need to be amended accordingly, which is not, I think is probably in line with some of the other current processes that we have. There were a few other questions that I'm not sure we would have Aldi information today or I might turn it over to Lana and Despos. Possibly they want to speak to the impact. Are going to be included in the meetings. And I was surprised to have answers without actual graphs and financial projections. So I hope to have a follow - up and that the Council gets a follow up on my questions with actual numbers and graphs. So that's one. The other thing is a comment in regards to that. I find it disturbing that we're talking about. Or to go in this path. Maybe someone could formally respond to her and stating that they're no graphs in the email. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm the one who responded this afternoon. And I will happily do that.