Transcript: Endorses Climate Action Plan - Community Services Committee - April 28, 2026 | Summary 23

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the community services committee to order. Grimby is situated on treaty land. This land is steeped in the rich history of the first nations such as the hatawandrank, the hodnoni and the anesnab including the missagas of the credit first nation. There are many first nation matei and inuit people from across turtle island that live and work in Niagara today. The regional municipality of Niagara and Grimby stands with all indigenous people past and present in promoting the wise stewardship of the lands on which we live. Are there any disclosures of pecuniary or non-puniary interest? Okay, seeing none, uh before we approve the agenda, I'd like to propose an amendment to consider item 9.1 report DCS 2618, corporates client uh climate action plan ahead of item 7.1, report DCS 2619, Grimby Museum Information Report, April 2026. Can I get a mover and a seconder to approve the agenda as amended? Okay. And um sorry. Moved by councelor DeFlavio, seconded by um councelor How. All in favor? Okay. Oh, sorry. Resolve that the agenda for the April 28th, 2026 Community Services Committee meeting be approved as amended. All in favor? Okay. And that is carried. Can I get a mover and a seconder to receive the previous meeting minutes? Moved by member Bravant and seconded by member Leairard. Resolve that the following minutes be received. Community services committee March 24th, 2026. Grimsby Green Advisory Committee, April 9th, 2026. Art Gallery Special Purpose Advisory Committee, April 16th, 2026. And Age Friendly Advisory Committee, April 21st, 2026. All in favor? Okay. and that's carried. We have no delegations or presentations today. Uh moving on to museum business. Are you there? Yes. Sorry, it's Can I get a mover and a second to get report DCS 2618 corporate climate action plan on the floor for discussion? Okay. Moved by councelor DeFlavio, seconded by U. Member Leairard. and Jillian, please go ahead. Yes, through you chair. Um, the town has been working with Alico Consulting to develop our corporate climate change action plan. Um, this will develop a framework for the town to meet our reduction target of 30% below 2023 emissions by 2035. As all living as long as all long-term plans, this will be a living document. So it'll be implemented knowing that we'll have evolving conditions and competing priorities. And I believe Allico is online to give a presentation. Can you hear me? Okay. Uh yes, we can. Excellent. Let me just get my my camera set up here. Excellent. Good evening everyone. Um, my name is Taylor Wilson. I'm with Elato Consulting. As Jillian mentioned, we've been working together on the town's corporate climate change action plan or CCAP. And uh, pleasure to be here this evening to uh, to present that plan to you. Next slide, please. So, just to begin a little bit of a high level agenda. Um, first I'll introduce who we are at Alatico. I'll talk about what the CCAP is and why it's important. We'll talk about the 30% target that Jillian was mentioning and the development process. Uh we'll talk about the key actions and the estimated costs um that will make that uh target achievable and then we'll discuss some implementation realities and the implementation approach for the the CCAP. Uh at the end happy to answer any questions that you may have. Next slide please. So, Atlantico, we've been around for about 20 years. Uh, we're a group of energy experts and we provide a range of services to help organizations meet uh their respective energy efficiency and decarbonization goals, whatever those goals may be. Uh, we're not environmentalists. We're not here to say thou must decarbonize, you must set, you know, this this reduction target. Uh, we're here to support organizations with whatever those goals are. We do that through a range of services. you'll see on the slide here. And we also manage energy efficiency programs on behalf of utilities and regulators like the IEO in Ontario. Next slide, please. So what is the CCAP? It is milestone three of the partners for climate protection or PCP program. The first two milestones which you'll see in the graphic were creating a greenhouse gas inventory. You need to know where you are before you uh develop a plan. The second is setting a GHG reduction target and here we are at milestone three which is developing a plan to achieve that target. Uh this plan is a practical framework to reduce GHG emissions and we'll get into the the details of this uh of this plan and in addition to that it also provides key recommendations for climate adaptation initiatives. Next slide please. So why is the CC gap important? Uh, it aligns with town, regional, provincial, and federal climate policies. It supports environmental stewardship directly supporting council's vision of an innovative, vibrant community where people and the environment matter. Limits exposure to rising energy and fuel costs. This is front of mind for uh many right now. Um, with the the impact on oil uh oil prices, it protects assets and maintains reliable municipal services. And importantly, it supports access to future funding opportunities as well as oftent times these sort of uh decarbonization or energy efficiency plans are prerequisites to receive that funding. So what's not in this slide is it also complements the town's energy conservation and demand management plan. That's the CDMP. There's a ton of acronyms in this space. Um that's a 5-year mandatory reporting requirement for municipalities. and it also aligns with the town's asset management plan and the environmental commitments in the official plan. Next slide please. So what we have here is a highle summary of the milestone one the greenhouse gas inventory. So on the left side we see a breakdown of the town's corporate emissions by sector and on the right side by source. The key takeaways here are that between facilities and transportation that's 90% of corporate emissions. That's the the lion share. Of that 90% um 50% of the facilities emissions, half of that facilities piece of the pie is the Peach King Center. So it represents a very significant portion. And another key item that's that's not too clear by this slide is of the facilities emissions, 80% of that is natural gas, 20% of it is electricity. Next slide, please. So what we have here is what we call the business as usual forecasts. In other words, what what happens with no action. So this is a plot from 2023 which is the baseline year until 2040. So what you see is that emissions in orange expected to increase slightly in the near term followed by a decrease in the longer term towards 2040. The primary influencer of this is the blue line, the electricity emissions factor. So this represents how clean the province's electricity grid is. And what you this spike you see in the near term is related to the province bringing on additional natural gas generation assets to make up for some of the nuclear assets that are either going down for refurbishment or or being retired altogether. And typically what you see in these sort of forecasts is a fairly regular uh increase in emissions for municipalities due to uh simply increasing populations and and service demands. Um so one of the key takeaways from this slide is just that uh GSG emissions will not go down without intervention and that's really the um uh the primary driver of a of a CCAP like this. Next slide please. So as Jillian mentioned there is a 30% reduction target um that is below 2023 levels to be achieved by 2035. The approach to achieve this is a focus on buildings and fleet as we saw 90% of your emissions coming from buildings and fleet alignment with asset replacement cycles which I'll uh get into in in further slides here. And throughout this process, we engaged the community via public survey. Uh we received feedback from the green advisory committee and we engaged town staff as well. Next slide, please. So the key actions within the CCAP, these are the primary five key actions. Uh the first one is to update the procurement bylaw to evaluate lowcarbon options. uh this ensures that all major purchases consider lowcarbon alternatives. Uh the second is to implement a climate lens we call it or a fossil fuel transition policy in the asset management plan. The purpose of this is to integrate climate considerations into capital planning uh very similar to the uh to the first recommendation. And what's key about this one is avoiding locking in uh longerterm fossil fuel assets. So for example, if you have a natural gas heating system, a natural gas furnace at one of your facilities that's up for renewal next year, if you replace it like for like with a natural gas asset, you're locking those emissions in for another 20 years, 25 years where you could have had a a lowcarbon alternative. So doing that would make it very difficult to hit that uh reduction target. The third item here is to complete energy efficiency improvements identified in energy audits. The good news is these energy audits have already been completed. Um we have what we call energy conservation measures that have been identified and uh we're recommending prioritizing those by the fastest payback. You know very pragmatic way to to implement those measures. The fourth and the most important in driving reductions is to electrify light duty vehicles and heating systems upon replacement. And the final uh recommendation is to develop and implement a corporate waste management plan. Next slide please. So what are the costs associated with this? So what we have here is we have a list of the actions and then we have some columns for what we call the business as usual cost. In other words, it's the uh the like forlike replacements of heating systems and vehicles. Then we have the lowcarbon cost which is the the cost of a lowcarbon alternative at the end of life. And the cost premium is simply the the difference between the two. So the bottom line number here the 2.19 million figure um that is not a cost to be born today. Uh that figure is spread between today until the end of the target year 2035. It is a estimate for the total cost premium above the business as usual costs and it is a conservative estimate. It doesn't take into account potential incentives which I'll I'll speak to in just a moment. It also doesn't consider that um we have technology cost curves. So things like electric vehicles, things like heat pumps which is the uh one of the best lowcarbon solutions for heating systems. These costs are going down over time. We expect them to continue going down. Uh but for conserviveness um we are using today's prices in this uh in this calculation. Next slide please. So how do we manage that cost and and mitigate risk? So there are a few ways. Uh the first one as I mentioned earlier is to align with capital planning to consider only incremental costs. In other words, uh don't do early replacements. Um when you have a vehicle that has a remaining useful life and you have a heating system that has a remaining useful life, um you're you're not replacing them um at that point in time. Uh you are doing it when they need to be replaced anyway. So you consider only the incremental cost or the um the lowcarbon premium as we call it. The second is to consider life cycle costing. I'll use electric vehicles as another example. Uh the upfront cost is higher than than a comparable gasoline or or diesel vehicle. However, generally they do have a return on investment uh over their life cycle especially with the current cost of cost of fuel. The third uh potentially the most important is to the extent possible leverage external grants and incentives. Uh these are changing all the time. Uh when we started developing this plan, there was no federal funding for electric vehicle um electric vehicle purchases. Uh there now is um the new electric vehicle affordability program. It's a $5,000 point of sale discount on electric vehicles just for scale. That 5,000 is roughly half of the lowcarbon premium for a um for a vehicle replacement. And then finally implement what we call a revolving energy fund. So in the graphic here, this depicts what that what that fund is all about. Essentially, you implement a energy efficiency project or decarbonization project that has uh operational savings and you use those savings to um to to go back into this fund that funds the next project. So it's sort of a self-fulfilling fund for um energy efficiency and decarbonization. Uh this has been used the town of Kaledan comes to mind. I know they've been very public on their their success with this and there are certainly certainly many others as well. Next slide please. So to to close off and and just to highlight the implementation approach of the the CCAP uh we understand that implementation of this is it's not happening on its own. It's it's not happening in a vacuum. Uh the pace of implementation and the the scope of implementation will depend on many things. uh council priorities, budgets, staffing and and service delivery needs. Um obviously climate action is one of of several priorities being balanced here. This CCAP is being brought forward for endorsement of the of the framework and not a rigid list of projects. Um it provides a very consistent framework. It's a datadriven way to evaluate options, prioritize actions over time in alignment with um other municipal caps throughout Ontario and elsewhere. There are many key factors. Um the pricing of electric vehicles and heating systems, uh utility rates, available grants. Uh these are are constantly changing. Uh and the CCAP is intentionally flexible so that the town can respond to those changes and take advantage of new opportunities as as they come up. Uh what's available now may not be available in six months and there may be other opportunities as well. Um it enables timely informed decisions as conditions evolve. Um it's really about making the best decision at the at the right time. And uh ultimately it's about integrating climate change into everyday decision-m and ensuring that the town moves forward in a way that of course balances all other priorities um but um has a path forward for decarbonization in a way that's practical and and responsible. Next slide please. That that is it for for the formal presentation, but I'm very happy to take any questions from the committee. Okay. Are there any questions from the committee? Uh councelor How? Um thank you through you, Chair. Um Taylor, I believe it is correct. Yes. Okay. Um the the numbers and and I'm not nitpicking. Uh you showed those couple pie charts early on. Um, now on the PKC, when did we do that? Did we We probably wouldn't have it up to speed when you were taking your information, unless that was just recent. I just trying to relay it. Sure. Great, great question, uh, councelor How. So, this baseline year was as of 2023. So, this would have been before any expansions to the PKC. We did consider the impact of those expansions and in conversation with um with town staff, we understand that um there will be an increase in electrical consumption at that site, but a decrease in natural gas consumption and the net impact we expect to be a benefit to you on the decarbonization front. We expect you to actually be uh lower at that site than 2023. Um so that's a a good news story as like, you know, a step a step towards that target. Okay, that sounds like a win. Okay, thank you. Um, if I can, I've got a couple other notes here. Um, light duty vehicles, um, you know, we talk about and the the work that they they need to do. Um, kind of, um, they can fry up, not fry up, but wear down a battery on the on the battery units. For instance, some of our smaller pickup trucks, for instance, are um not going to carry much weight and they can do that. But then we've got a couple of uh small garbage units that um would probably get weighed down. I'm just And they always have compactors working, etc. So, but are there are they making roads? I mean, you hear about in the states where they've got uh, you know, 48T, 53 ft trailers out there with tractor trailers and on electrics and they seem to be running, but are we there yet? I would say it's it's a great question. I would say we're not fully there yet for the uh for the heavy duty vehicles. And for this plan, we're specifically recommending the light duty passenger vehicles. um electrifying sedans, electrifying CUVs, small SUVs, these types of vehicles. That technology now is is considered very mature. It's considered commercially available. Um there's quite a few different options out there. Um the prices have come down to a point where they are making sense now. Um when you get to even like a Ford F-150 equivalent, still quite expensive. That's not part of this recommendation. Uh still quite expensive. um the the carrying capacity as you mentioned will be impacted um because you'll you'll have a a lower range. So um I think there's a little bit more work to be done on those fronts and we would consider that sort of the next phase of climate action to get beyond that 30%. Um which can be considered when technology matures. That's that's the idea. Okay. Uh Taylor, you mentioned the heat pumps um and the way to go, but are are they capable of getting up on to I'm going to say induster commercial type requirements yet on the heat pumps? Absolutely. Yes. The answer is is yes. Um there are uh what we what we have now is called hybrid heat pumps and for a commercial building that has a package rooftop unit currently that has like a natural gas uh heating and then a typical compressor cooling there is sort of like a drop in replacement for that which is fairly straightforward. Um, it's a hybrid heat pump that, um, typically operates fully off of the heat pump, but when you have those super cold days in the year, um, it would supplement the heating with either natural gas, so you could retain some natural gas, or with electric resistance. Okay? So the idea is that you want to select a heat pump because we're in in Canada. Uh you want to select a heat pump that's has a pretty good performance at lower temperatures whereas you know in some other jurisdictions um even in even in BC um that's that's not a major consideration. It doesn't get quite as cold in some areas. But the answer is yes. It it's feasible today. Okay. Um I've just got a couple more questions if anybody else wants to jump in. Um, and maybe this is for Jillian, but waste management plan, does that mean like recycling? I think um I think Taylor could speak to this pretty well, but I think as I kind of understand it, we work with the region a lot on this. So, it would be kind of looking more at some of our internal facilities. So like what we do here at town hall to kind of reduce some of our consumption. So for example, before the office renovation, we had like a garbage bin at every desk. So reducing that to just a centralized area to kind of prevent the the waste that we're producing just by changing garbage bags, by having one piece of garbage in those bags and things like that. I think Taylor could probably speak to the more the high level and the larger scale adjustments we could make. that yeah I think the idea here is there there is a contribution when we looked at that pie chart there is a contribution to your emissions profile that comes from waste it's not a sizable contribution but it is a contribution nonetheless and uh the idea is to uh reduce reduce solid waste reduce garbage to the extent possible and that will directly influence the emissions associated with that um the calculation of emissions for um for corporate waste is um it's it's it's all relative. So for every one unit of of garbage reduced, I mean you get a corresponding decrease in emissions. So the idea here is um reduce single-use plastics um recycle as much as possible. Um just a very you know pragmatic pragmatic way to uh to approach emissions from waste. Um sorry councelor how just one second. U director Sweeney wanted to just chime in a few questions ago. So just to catch up if she just had something to add. Sarah, if you're online, go ahead. Sorry, chair. It was just at the end. It's okay if the questions continue. I just wanted to make a comment at the very end. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Go ahead, councelor H. um till as I listen and if I told you that I read every word on the in the whole report not but what came across on as I speed read it is there is a management function uh that's going to be critical as to recordkeeping and and how we're doing it. Um do you have software for that? We don't necessarily have software for that. But in terms of the recordkeeping of emissions, um it's not um it's it's not very very challenging, I would say, um to to do this in something as simple as as an Excel spreadsheet. Um we'll be providing our analysis spreadsheet to uh to the town. And that will include all of our emissions calculations. You can essentially use it as a tool to track your progress moving forward. Um, you know, we're we support many organizations with doing this on an annual basis. Um, but almost I would say the majority of organizations are using something as simple as Microsoft Excel to do this as um but when I'm looking at that it it seems that there's a whole lot of small working parts that you know take a certain amount of time. You got to eyeball it or or record that information. I'm just trying to think of, you know, uh preventive maintenance and which what in kind of a form uh that people or somebody would be walking around and I'm going to say with a tablet in their hand and um entering information. Did do you foresee that or is it not that convoluted? Not that um I I would say more straightforward than that. uh for the purpose of of tracking emissions. Um when we talk about the the main components of your profile being your your fleet vehicles and your buildings, it's really just annual energy consumption that you need. So it's actually quite straightforward on an annual basis. If you have all of your account numbers, it's you send a data request to to Grimby Power, you send a data request to Nbridge, you say I need annual consumption for these for these facilities, they'll likely be able to produce it for you in table format. And then you're already tracking your your fleet consumption for other purposes. So the data is sort of readily available. It's just putting it into this sort of spreadsheet format with a few different uh uh what we call emissions factors which converts like an energy to an equivalent emission. Um that's what the the Excel spreadsheet that we'll be providing to the town can do. So um the the recordeping not not too not too difficult. Hey, do we have any other questions or comments from the committee? No. Sarah, if you want to uh chime in. Thank you, chair. And I think I just want to thank Jill for doing some great work with this as well as many of our other departments, particularly public works who contributed quite a bit to this as well. Um, and thank Taylor and his team because they've been really great to work with. I think we've learned a lot um doing this process with them. So, thank you uh to them. I just want to emphasize again that this particular plan uh does not make any specific commitments uh by endorsing it, but what it does is really give us a really helpful tool to use as we plan asset replacement. Um and and somewhat to councelor how's uh comment in in one sense in terms of how we will use some of this data is when we look at our 10-year capital plans or whatever um replacements if something um happens to it is being aware of you know those decisions we might be making when we're replacing those things in terms of how it might affect um this this climate action plan and how we start to reduce our our energy. So there's no budget commitment tonight from this, but the plan is that we start to use this and we're putting forward future capital projects for consideration so that we understand that decision that we're making at that time. That's all. All right. Any last questions? No. Okay. Thank you very much, Taylor. Um All right. resolved that report DCS 2618, corporate climate action plan, dated April 28th, 2026, be received and that the community services committee recommend that council approve the corporate climate action plan attached as appendix A and the recommendations contained within. Um, can I get Can I get a mover and a seconder, please? Um moved by member Lair, seconded by councelor Corani. All in favor? Okay. And that's carried. Okay. Sorry, there's just an a little uh hiccup here on the agenda. Can I get a mover and a seconder to put D uh to put report DCS 2619 Grimsby Museum Information Report April 2026 on the floor for discussion? Okay. Okay. Moved by uh councelor Hal, seconded by member rivant. All right, Janet, can you please go ahead? Thank you through you, chair. Um, so the museum has some amazing events coming up in the next little while. Uh, we have a crossstitch workshop, um, a multi-week calligraphy workshop, um, canvas pouch printing workshop. Um, our museum talk series is continuing to move forward with uh a new talk about my tulip journey journey from Maria Tran von Bulo. Um, she's an amazing artist and she also is an amazing gardener. So, she's going to talk about that. And we also have our vintage creative market on June 20th. So, it'll be held outside in the park um hopefully as long as the construction allows that to go ahead. Um, we've had some amazing events in the past and just in the recent past since the last meeting. Um, we had Alan Cross come back uh to another soldout crowd. Uh, Jodie Campbell also to a soldout crowd. How to get away with murder twice. It was phenomenal. Um, we had our Easter drop in crafts and we did a curator talk for the National Association of Federal Retirees. Um and we also are participating in the uh dis the Niagara District School Board's heritage fair tomorrow. Um so that will be great as well. Um Cipher Decipher is still on at the museum and uh if you would like to come see a great interactive exhibit and see a real Enigma machine, I suggest you come out and have a look. And the uh Grimby Photography Club um will be opening a an exhibit in June. Um it'll open June 8th. There'll be an opening reception. and you will all get invites if you would like to come to that as well. Um, coming up at the end of the week, it starts May is museum month. Um, and this month for May is museum month, we are launching a youth volunteer program um, for students aged 9 to 17. Um, this program is intended to get kids volunteering early and often. Um, the focus on the program is for kids to be ambassadors to the museum. They will be involved in communitya engagement, uh, awareness and fundraising. um our collections uh is moving forward as well. Uh in 2025, the museum was tasked by our operating grant to create a digitization strategy. Um we are continuing to put this forward. As of the time of this report, we had 14 just over 1400 records in 21 different collections online for everybody to uh peruse. Our goal is to continue to grow that number monthly and to uh eventually have our entire collection online for public use. Um we are also continuing our lunch programs in the schools. Uh we go in once a week for six weeks and the uh the members of the club learn about artifacts, archives, object handling and collecting. Um this has come at great success. It's always sold out at every school we've been to so far. um foundation repairs. Uh they have under they have started. Um if you've been by the museum, you'll see all of our construction fence up. Um the hole is quite spectacular. If you'd like to come by and take a look at that, um they are uh working diligently, so hopefully um it is scheduled to be done by the end of June in time for Canada Day. Um the collection cleaning project is also going forward. Uh we have the fume hood. It has been installed and the kitchen space has been renovated. Um so we're ready to start the cleaning process. This will be a many year progress. So we will continue to update you on our progress with that. And finally, um we have applied for two grants so far this year. Celebrate Canada and Young Canada Works. We were successful in both grants. Uh Celebrate Canada, we received $8,000, which is the most we've ever received for a Canada Day celebration. So this year should be fantastic. and Young Canada Works. We received $12,600 towards two students. Um, and we also received, great news from Young Canada Works. We received uh $2,000 more for last year. So that on top of the 12,000 we received last year, we've already received another 2,000 on top of that as well. And that is everything. Right. Are there any questions or comments from the committee? No. All right. Uh, thank you, Janet. Resolve that report DCS 2619 Grimsby Museum Information Report April 2026 dated April 28th, 2026 be received for information. All in favor? And that's carried. There are no consent reports. Uh can I get a mover and a second to get report DCS 2620 community services department information report April 26 2026 on the floor for discussion? Moved by member Brabbant, seconded by member Leairard. Uh Sarah, please go ahead. Thank you, chair. So, I'll just walk through the report and happy to answer any questions at the end. We have several park improvement uh plans occurring this uh spring and summer beginning early May through July. We have five different uh parks that will be receiving playground renewals as well as some enhancements to the park as a whole. um they're listed there showing you what that playground space will look like, but also what some of the improvements are planned uh for that park area as well. So that includes Golfwood Parks, uh Park, sorry, Leewood Park, Lakewood Gardens Park, Dorchester Park, and Morocco Park. Uh we'll just note they're nicely spread out right across um all of Grimby. So many different neighborhoods will be receiving an upgrade. We are also putting signs up in the neighborhood parks to notify residents of these changes. We also send letters to the immediate neighbors just letting them know as well and putting that content on our website in terms of uh what the improvements are going to look like. So we do communicate it out in that respect as well. And with that just uh noting we do look at uh now something we didn't used to do but we are doing is is looking at the tree canopy that exists where there may make sense to add some trees. Also looking at some signage which will be more to come once we complete our branding project and also looking at pathways and different uses for that park. So looking at it a little bit more uh as a whole um park which I think is is a great addition. The Grand Old Oak uh partnership continues. It's been a great uh project for a number of years now where we have a a volunteer group that is taking care of those gardens which are growing very well. I do encourage you to stop by and see them if you haven't uh from when they were first plants plant planted. They've really established quite nicely. We did just want to also mention that we have a Grimby Garden Club partnership. This is not a new partnership. It's been in existence for quite some time, but it's nice just to share what some of these other arrangements are that you may or may not be aware of. This particular garden is the one that is over by the LCBO. There are some gardens there that is on municipal property and for many years the garden club has maintained those. we have developed a little bit more of a formal partnership with them just to make sure there's clear uh roles and responsibilities and understanding among and it's it's a great partnership that they provide for us. The Niagara River Lions Mesh Refresh program is going on. So there was a night hosted on April the 20th last week um where they are installing uh basketball nets and some of the the basketballs uh structures that we have in our parks. And then there is a second event that will take place in June where they'll be doing a community open practice and engaging the community in that way. We have a tree giveaway project occurring which was an initiative uh organized with Grimby Green Committee. Uh this was posted as an opportunity for the community to uh express interest in a tree and it uh sold out alarmingly fast. I think Jill had to had to take it down almost as fast as she put it up. It went really, really quickly in terms of the interests of the tree, which is great feedback for us for future consideration, and we look forward to heading those trees out as well as some smaller stock trees on May the 9th, which is with our town's uh community safety day up at South Park. We've worked on a new street banner design uh with public works and also the Grimsey Public Art Gallery and the Art Gallery Advisory Committee. So, we've shown you the two designs that we'll be proceeding with there. One is more for the downtown area. The other one will be more for Grimsby on the Lake. Uh the art gallery advisory committee was very uh pleased with what we're seeing. So, we're going to get those installed hopefully within the next month. And then the plan is to keep building on the program and eventually have different versions that could come forward. A variety of different ways that we could do that, but it's it's a great way to start that program and then see how we can grow it. I know some of you were aware we had some issues with sound on the west pad that came from uh following the construction that we did and just wanted to share with the committee that we have worked with a sound engineer to to do some things to help manage that noise a little bit better that's coming from the west pad. So that will be installed in the coming months. Building demolitions. The Gamry building at Elizabeth Street is now down as well as the soccer clubhouse that was on Smith Road. Uh there is some cleanup still to be done at that site and for now they'll basically just be restored as as like stone or green space and we'll be doing some more work coming uh coming along in terms of how we might manage the parking lot a little bit differently given those changes. The tennis clubhouse demolition is still progressing. The building is done as was shared last meeting. There is a little bit of a delay getting it installed just with some weather and other factors. Uh, but that is moving along fairly quickly and we will share that with everybody as soon as we know an actual date for that to be installed. For now, they're continuing to use the old clubhouse until we can get the new one uh installed. Um, but that should hopefully within the next month, we'll be able to have that completed. Fire station one is getting a new storage garage, so that has been procured and is underway. So, that will be coming as well very shortly. There was a budget amendment that we had to do through the finance committee that was approved. So, that's now progressing. the library washroom renovation, which is a project that was has taken a little longer than we had hoped to do some challenges with our procurement, but I'm happy to say it has now been signed off and is uh moving forward and we will be working to get that done as quickly as we can. There are a number of trees that were removed at the pump house. Just wanted to flag it to the committee that came out of some of the condition assessments we did where they just they really needed some trimming or some uh in some cases removal. And then we will be replanting uh in those areas where that's appropriate. In terms of events, just wanted to mention the Niagara Older Adult Alliance Spring Forum that was held. A little shout out to Christa who did a tremendous job organizing this. They had over 75 attendees come from all Niagara municipalities, quite a variety of community organizations, and it was a really great day sharing a whole bunch of different topics, which you can see listed in that um in the bullets in the report. It was just a wonderful way again to showcase our new facility and what we can host there. Community Safety Day is coming up uh May the 9th. Always a very popular event. Uh so encourage you to stop by if you're able to for that. Then finally, the Smith Public School Memorandum of Understanding has been renewed for another 5 years. So that is for the three uh soccer fields that we have. The two that are lit primarily are the ones that we use the most. And basically the partnership is it is their their land, their property. We do the maintenance of it and we uh work with mostly with the soccer club to program those fields out. Happy to take any questions. Do we have any questions or comments from the committee? Uh I'm just going to say thank you. I think this is great. Any anytime I see the um the parks getting renewed, I I know that the playgrounds are it just makes everybody very happy. So, um, thank you for that. Uh, Lori, did you have anything? No. Okay. Okay. Yes. All right. Uh, councelor Christie, go ahead. Thank you. Three, chair. Uh just a comment on the parks and I know that you're probably expecting this one, but the Ridge Road Park um I've had residents uh upset that the timeline has been pushed back because they've been waiting a few years now and so now if if it's forecasted for next year, uh they're waiting another year. So I don't know if there's anything we can do to sort of speed some of that up or do part of that work so at least they can use that park because I don't think it's been done for a while. Uh yeah, through the chair and councelor I did get your note on that. I can definitely take a look at that. Again, one of the delays for us is we are also looking at what the actual use of that park and that field is going to be and there are a few other conversations going on. So I'm happy to certainly see if there's anything we can do to speed it up. It is quite a small playground that's there. Um so it's also going to be looking at whether it's like for like or something different as maybe those neighborhoods are changing up there. So, I can get uh I can get back to you with some more details as to what we can do for timing, but I do want to make sure we really are considering not just replacing that playground equipment there, but really looking at the site as a whole as well and how we want to use it in the long term. So, I do want to make sure we put that planning into that as well. Sorry, just a last minute question. Um it was great about the trees and how so many people wanted them. Do we have any like extra that we can potentially give out um at all? I know that you said that it sold out really quickly. Like do we have any uh any more that we can possibly get for the community? Cuz I was under the impression that we still had quite a bit in the budget for trees that we hadn't necessarily um used. So I don't know Jillian or or Sarah if one of you want to take that. Sarah, I can. Yeah, through the chair. Um that was sort of the budget we had set for that. There is more money in the budget for trees, but that's for trees as a whole um you know for for anything else that comes up over the course of the year. So I'm a little hesitant to use too much out of that more. I I think what we can do is I think it's a great first start and it's great to have such a strong response. So now that we know one of the thoughts we had was if we look to do it again next year, which I think we'd like to, is also look at some community partners because I think there might be some possibility that there's some other partners that would help support some of the the costs for that that we can extend out to the community even further. Yeah, I think that'd be a great idea. And uh yeah, anytime we can do we can get on the partnership the sponsorships for a lot of these. I think that would be key. Um, that was that's definitely one of our plans is is to go that route because I think it would be a great sponsorship opportunity. So, thanks. Okay, that's great. Uh, Jillian, go ahead. Yeah, through your chair, I can just add on a bit. Um, so we did sell out our larger stock and that's great because we'd love to see a high level of interest to kind of keep moving this forward, but there is also 150 smaller trees that will be ready at the event for like a first come first- serve basis. So people that haven't kind of made the list for a larger stock have been encouraged to come out to the event to get those. Okay, that's perfect. All right. Resolve that report DCS 2620 community services department information update for April 2026 dated April 28th, 2026 be received for information. All in favor? Okay. And that's carried. Uh is there any other business pertaining to the committee? No. All right. Okay. Um, Noah has a few comments about the end of term presentation. Great. Thank you, chair. So, uh, we talked about this at the last meeting, but to provide some more clarity to everyone and what's, uh, expected and what the whole thing is going to look like. Uh, so, as we know, the end of the term is coming up quickly. Um, for committees, the last meetings are in June, so we have two more for community services. Uh and so what we would like to do is then once the committees have ended uh we're going to have the chairs so in our case councelor Shara will uh give an end of term presentation and presentation's a little bit strong cuz it's verbal only um but she'll give that to council in July and so what we want from committee members as a whole is to uh participate in draft drafting up a list in your opinion of some of these this committee's accomplishments from this term of council and uh future opportunities we're calling it. But essentially ideas of what you think the next term of a community services committee should look like, what the priority should be, things like that. Um, so we're asking that everyone comes up with their own individual list of or two lists of those things, sends them in to the clerk's department. So to myself or to Victoria or to Katie and then we will combine all of those notes, all of those lists together into a um a couple minutes of a of a written script or speech, whatever you want to call it, uh for councelor Charwata to give at July council. So, the deadline for that I had the Where's my mouse? There we go. So, the deadline for getting your list of accomplishments and future opportunities into the clerk's department is Monday, June 15th. Okay? So, we have lots of time. I'm happy to answer questions now. happy to answer them over email. Uh I'm going to send this as well. We've provided this to the other standing committees uh just to give you kind of a a framework. You don't have to just come up with three. If you have more, that's great. They're all going to kind of get combined and condensed uh into one singular list for uh councelor Charwata to use at at the uh July council meeting. So yeah, as I said, happy to answer any questions. Oh, councelor. How do you have a question? Yep. That list that was uh up there. Um are you going to send those out like to committee members? Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you. I just want to request and then uh chair I've got can I do another another business that just had a brain cramp there. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. May I? Um and just got some play last night. uh you know the uh the Gibson Street path uh that the conservation authority um four phone calls today and people saying they really hope that they're not going to overengineer that path up there. It's it's been a trail for as long as anybody's been on it and we've lived down there at the foot of it for about 33 years. Um it hasn't changed much. Um but as long as it's not overthought that people don't want to see like and this is a stretch, you know, escalators and and that sort of stuff. Um you know, we don't need it overthought. It's a trail and and to treat it as such. But hopefully they don't. But um yeah, so this is a question to Noah. I would be happy if if anybody wants like I don't know if we're allowed to do this, but I if if there's any committee members that would like to come up and help present with that with the I I'll I'll put it to the CEO and see if that's allowed. But um if there's something that you want to touch on that you you feel uh you know um you'd like to put your own little touch on it, I'm I'm open to that. So just let me know if that's something that you're interested and I'll propose it. Sorry, Noah. No comment on that myself. Everyone is definitely free to attend in person and live stream and I'll leave that to you if you want to ask the the clerk or CEO about that. I will ask CEO. Thank you, Noah. All right. So, the next meeting at the community services committee is scheduled for Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. And that is all. Thank you everyone. The meeting is adjourned.

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