Well, good evening, everyone. Sego, Ani Boujou NDO Wachaya Cue. As the mayor of the city of Kingston, I offer these words in the spirit of this gathering. Let us bring our good minds and hearts together as one. To celebrate these traditional lands as a gathering place of the original peoples and their ancestors who were entrusted to care for Mother Earth since time immemorial. It is with deep humility that we acknowledge and offer our gratitude for the contributions to this community having respect for all as we share the space now and walk side by side into the future. We were meeting in Community of the Whole Close Beating. We did discuss several items. First, a legal opinion to Council regarding the creation of child safety zones, contract negotiations, update, as well as a facility contracts. So I will ask for a motion to rise with that reporting, please. Move by Councillor Ridge, seconded by Councillor Amos, that Council rise from the committee of the whole closed meeting without reporting. All those in favor opposed, and that's Carrie. Okay, we have already approved the addeds this evening. Are there any disclosures of Bikinary interest? Council Ramos. Thank you, Mr. Patterson, through you. IDONAMIS Councillor for the City of Kingston declare conflict of interest with respect to report. 26 - 138, El Goncolo Lakeshore Catholic School Board Surplus sites. I'm an employee of the seniors Association Kingston Region, which is interested in purchasing one or both of these skills to deliver community programming. Okay, thank you. Councillor Bohm. Thank you, your worship and through you. I, Ryan Bowen, the Council of the Corporation of the City of Kingston, declare my pecunia interests in the matter of clause, one report number 55. I declare an interest in so far as this may relate to you to Ladies Kingston, and that's Meduly submitted to the clerk. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. If there are no other disclosures of pecuniary interest, we will move on in our agenda. We have no presentations this evening, but we do have several delegations. Right now we have six listed delegations in our agenda. And then after those six, I will pause to see if there are any other delegations to add. So just a note to the six delegations that are in our named agenda that you have up to five minutes to speak, and then we will open up the floor to questions from members of Council for any added delegations after that, it will be three minutes to speak. So with that, we will start into our delegation. So first on my list. I will invite Dennis Mahoney, who will appear before Council to speak to clause one, report number 56, receive from the CAO with respect to the Indian Road Street renaming. Mr. Pony. Okay, thank you. Hello. And thank you. My name is Dennis Mahoney. And I'm here tonight representing the residents of Indian Road, who remain opposed to changing the name of our Street. And that includes my 92 - year - old mother who's resided on Indian Road since 1964. I want to start with one sentence spoken at this Council on June 17th of last year, because in my view, it is the single most important moment in this entire file. When Councillor Hassan asked Councillor Ridge how he had concluded that the people of Indian Road wanted this name changed, Councillor Ridge said this, and I'm quoting directly from the public transcript. Starting at timestamped three hours, 54 minutes. And 26 seconds. I would say that of the people I spoke to approximately 65 percent of them were in favor of the name change. That sentence carried the vote. It's the only data point this Council ever heard about what the residents of Indian Road actually wanted. And it was wrong. It's wrong in two ways. First, of the people I spoke to. Is incredibly misleading. It insinuates a level of due diligence that we know didn't happen. On April 8th, 2026, city staff held a public meeting at Lawrence South Korn to public school. 36 residents of Indian Road attended. Not one of them indicated that they had been contacted by Councillor Ridge in advance of the June 25th vote, not one single person. Second, we have actual data on the matter. We have three pieces of it. In 2017 at the request of Mr. Ship, Councillor McLaren conducted a door - to - door canvas on the street. The residents were overwhelmingly opposed to a name change. In 2021, Councillor McLaren did it again. This time with Mr. Ship accompanying him for part of the canvas. And again, the majority of the residents did not want their home address to change. And in the spring of 2026, just a few weeks ago. After the city had narrowed the choices to foreign indigenous names, Councillor McLaren went door to door again. 74 people responded across 44 households. The result. Was 85. 1 percent of people rejected all four of the shortlisted names. The majority's preference is to keep the existing name. As is. The fallback preference for those who even were open to any change said they wanted a plain language alternative that was not on the city shortlist. Three surveys over nine years, all data points in the same direction, not one of those numbers. Was ever put forward last year on June 17th. I want to add one more piece of real information, because the characterization of the word Indian on June 17th of last year was also central to the motion's rationale. That night, the word was described as outdated and derogatory. But that's not how the highest court in the country sees it. In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada decided in Daniels versus Canada. That the plaintiffs, in this case, were matin non - status Indians went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada asking the court to declare that they are Indians. Within the meaning of Section 91 subsection 24. The court granted that declaration unanimously 9 to 0. Led by members of the May TeeNation, the plaintiffs in this constitutional case sought to be identified as Indian. And the Supreme Court of Canada granted it to them. It proves that Indian is not a word that the law has discarded. It remains an act of legal use. It is the operative term in the Indian Act. And as Daniel's affirmed, a constitutional category that indigenous people have gone to court to claim for themselves. It is part of the story this council did not hear about last year on June 17. Council voted on incomplete information. I'm here tonight to put the complete information on the record. And on the strength of that information, three surveys, nine years, and the Supreme Court decision that contradicts the framing put forward before this Council last year in June 32. Resident. Sorry, 30 seconds. The residents of Indian Road are asking Council tonight to vote for option two, Direct Staff not to move forward with the renaming. Okay, thank you very much, sir. Are there any questions from Council. Council McLaren. Thank you for that. Could you talk about what you also heard giving what you've heard from the residents as well, because you also did some of that. And what you have heard from Indigenous people that you've talked to as well, and that you have heard from. Yeah, thank you, Councillor. Yes, that's an important question. I've lost my. That's gone. Am I able to get this back. Any more of the presentation? Was that over. Can we just put the presentation back up. Thank you. That's what's frustrated residents the most here. Councillor McLaren. The most affordative indigenous voice that appeared on June 17th was Brandon Miracle. He's an executive director of Kingston Native Centre in Language Nest. He came as a delegation. He spoke first on this motion. He did not say the word Indian was categorically derogatory or offensive. When Councillor Ridge asked Mr. Miracle, and I quote from the transcript again, what is the importance of the name of a street or a road or a parquet to you. Here's what Mr. Miracle said in full. Timestamped. 18 minutes, 39 seconds. To 19 minutes, 15 seconds. Like I mentioned previous, Indian is a complicated one. And when you see that on a road sign, you're met with your entire context as you go into that. That could be that it's the legal term. That could be that you're excited because you use that language. That term as a reclaimed word within community. Or, like I said, it could be a term of pain, representing a community within Kingston from the Kingston Native Centre and Language Nest. All those perspectives are seen. That is the actual position of the most authoritative indigenous voice in this chamber that night. Not derogatory. Not offensive, but complicated. There's three perspectives on this. Legal term reclaimed word term of pain. All of them are valid. All held within the indigenous community itself. The motion that this Council passed last year on June 17th, treated only one of those three perspectives as real. The other two were just simply pushed aside. I want to bring this just a little bit closer to home now. There's Linda McKinvan, and she lives on Indian Road. She's Linda, his indigenous. And Linda poses the name change. Last year at the June 17th Council meeting, Daniel Schipp himself spoke of his micmac neighbour who identifies as Indian. And I'm quoting him directly. My neighbour still uses the term. She fears the loss of the street name is yet another piece of her family's East Coast McMac identity being taken away. And in the wider indigenous consultation has been consistent for years. In 2021, Councillor McLaren consulted Indigenous leaders directly on this question. One third said, change the name. One third said, the word's not an issue for me. And the other third said, ask the people who live on the road because they're guiding principle is nothing about us without us. That principle is itself an indigenous principle. And the people who live on the street, including the indigenous residents, have answered three times now they don't want this change. There's a tendency and conversations about reconciliation to assume that the indigenous community speaks with a single voice. Mr. Miracle warned. Against exactly that last year. He used the word complicated. He said all three perspectives are present. And all three are real. Sir, I'm just going to jump in, because I know you're answering a question. Yes. So I think that that's answered the question, Councillor McLaren. I'm just trying to be reasonable here. Yeah. May I ask a second then? You may ask a second. Okay. Can you take us through your experience of what actually happened? Um, in the lead up to the June 17th, 2025 vote, please. Uh, yes, I can. 2017, Mr. Ship, as Councillor McLaren, the district councillor to look into changing the name. Councillor McLaren did the door - to - door survey. The results did not support a change. 2021, Mr. Schipp's requests again and again Councillor McLaren did a door - to - door survey. This time, Mr. Ship accompanied him on part of the canvas. He saw the responses in real time. And again, the results didn't change. After two surveys, the residents had said no twice. Mr. Ship did not come back to Councillor McLaren. He went instead to Councillor Ridge. Who represents a different district. What followed. Was presented to this Council as if it was a fresh consultation. Now we know April 8th, 2026, the staff meeting. Uh, that the residents, the people who actually live on the street cannot been spoken to. The approximately 65 percent figure that Councillor Ridge offered to council that night referred to currently is an undefined group of people whose existence on Indian Road. We can't even verify. That's troubling. But this is more troubling. This is a text message sent by Mr. Ship to a neighbour on Indian Road referring to Councillor McLaren. And the phrase and a message reads, and I'm quoting it directly, the ambush was by intent. I'm not characterizing that. I'm not interpreting it. Those are Mr. Ship's own words in writing sent to a neighbour. The intent of bringing this June 17th motion forward by the proponent's only admission was to do so in a way that would blindside the elected official Jeff McLaren who represents the people of Indian Road and the larger Strathcona community. That's what happened. Councillor McLaren brought three amendments forward that night to pass unanimously. The third, the one that would have required staff to consult the residents on whether the rename to rename the Street at all. Was defeated seven to three. Then, when the question of how staff would actually conduct the consultation came up, Commissioner Campbell told the Council, and I quote from the transcript. Staff would not be in a position to be consulting on not changing the name because the direction to Council and this intent is quite clear. The outcome was fixed. Before the consultation began. This is the exact opposite of actual consultation. After that, uh, there were more promises that were broken. The fall of 2025, there was a Zoom call with residents. And city staffers assured us of two things that night. That English names would actually be considered as an option. And that any indigenous names brought forward would be easy to pronounce. On April 8th, that Lord Strathcon of Public School residents were presented with the shortlist. Every one of those names was Ojibwe. Several were difficult to pronounce there was not one single English name had even been considered. The room was absolutely outraged, as you can imagine. The residents of Indian Road have one request of this council. I think I'm going to pause you there because I think that you've answered the question that Council McLaren pose to you about how we got to there. Okay. Are there any other questions? Councillor. Thank you Mayor Paterson through you. In our Council package, we have about a half dozen different municipalities that have changed the name of Indian Road and similar roads. Why do you think all these municipalities are changing the name of Indian Road if it's on defensive. Well, I'm not a politician. I won't pretend to be. So just a quick response of why you think that they're changing the name of the roads, please. I don't know. Coincidentally, my daughter lives on Indian Road in Toronto, which is right next to Indian Crescent and Indian Groves in the neighbourhood. And there's no discussion of that whatsoever. So again, why do you think these other municipalities though are changing the name? I'm not aware of those municipalities. I don't know. For me, Indian Road is where I was raised. My mother's lived there for 62 years. It's part of her life. It's part of her legacy. I feel like it's being erased or trying to be erased. If you talk about my mother's legacy with eight kids, 20 grandkids, you can't help but. Thank you. I think question dually asked and duly. Okay. Are there any other questions from council. Okay. Sing done. Uh, thank you very much, sir. Okay. Uh, with that, we will move to our second delegation. We will invite Olivia Elmhurst to the Director of the Alma Matter Society Orientation Roundtable. It comes university who will appear before Council to speak to clause to report number 54th in the CAO with respect to Queens orientation, noise bylaw, exemption application. Hello everyone. Thank you for having us today. I appreciate the opportunity you have provided us with to speak at today's city Council meeting about Foll Orientation at Queens University. To begin, my name's Olivia Elmhurst and I'm the orientation roundtable Director with the Obama Modern Society at Queens. I'm entering my fifth year of concurrent education and I've been involved in the planning and execution of fault orientation for the past four years. I can confidently say that it has had a profound impact on my experience as a student at Queens. Follow orientation 2026 is taking place from Saturday, September 5th to the evening of Sunday, September 13th with a short break from Tuesday, September 8th to Thursday, September 10th for academic days. This schedule aligns with previous years with residents move in, taking place on Saturday, September 5th. I am happy to share that for the third year running, all events held in city spaces remain the same as previous years with no changes. A primary goal of all key partners involved in planning and executing full orientation is to focus on refining existing events rather than starting from scratch. This goal is reflected in our events in city spaces and events that require noise by law exemptions. Using to positive feedback, we have received in the pastful orientation planning cycles, we are committed to continuing to work with the city special events and bywatt teams to ensure that all fall orientation events are facilitated safely and respectfully with community impact central to our approach. We are grateful for the opportunity to use these spaces. On behalf of orientation on table, faculty orientation planners and university key partners, we greatly appreciate the support which goes into fault orientation annually. And the efforts of Kingston and Broader communities to aid Queens University students in their transition to university life. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Are there any questions for the delegation. Sing nun, thank you very much. Okay, with that we'll move to our third delegation. We will invite Daniel Schipp to appear before Council to speak to clause one of report number 56 from the CAO respect to Indian Road Street renaming. What a start. There had my name thrown around so much before. Honourable Mayor Paterson. Honourable City Councillor staff friends and neighbours. Happy pride, happy National Indigenous History Month. My name is Daniel Schipp with my family and friends. We live on Indian Road. I like to speak to you today in support of option one. Of Report 56 to select Aki Road. As the new name for My Street. First of all, thank you to the staff and to the mayor and city Council for your relentless commitment to strengthening our community and the Democratic processes we all value and protect. Your passion leadership and trusted decision - making does not pass unnoticed. I like to first speak to the overall process of selecting a new street name. It's somewhat unique for citizens to have a vote on the name of a municipally owned asset such as a facility or a park or a street. City assets are typically named by a developers or by city departments and are ultimately approved by you. City Council are elected officials. I think that makes sense given the non - average Canadian stay in their homes about seven to 10 years. General Equate Canadians and Kingstonians, we move around quite a bit. But in the unique case of a municipal street naming, those of us that currently live on the street, uh, at the time, do you have an expectation that we'll be asked for input into both the process and hopefully the final name and acknowledging that expectation is captured in the comprehensive report. The city provide us with both an online and an in - person forum to provide our feedback. Share our memories, our stories, and even suggest to new names. And on the many streets where we all choose to live our lives, build our friendships, fix our houses, walk our dogs. We create many, many memories with our friends, neighbours, and families. And nothing can really take any of those lived experiences away from us. No street name will change our family history, the memories live on no matter where we end up. It was also made quite clear by Council and from the Community Consultations that the name selection process would also reflect the legacy of our local Indigenous families. Along with the many Indigenous Streets, references the general preservation and the general preservation of honouring First Nations in Strath Colonel Park. This is precisely what the initiative is all about. And it seems to have gotten a little lost tonight. And in the last few days of manipulated data, media drama, more manipulated data. Privacy compromises. It is a primary importance, primary importance, that the First Nations of our region be consulted and continue to be recognised and honoured appropriately. That's what we're here for. As you've seen in the report, many communities have come before us. The United Nations fears use the term about 25 years ago. The Ontario government changed the word Indigenous in the 70s. The federal government changed the department to the Aboriginal usage of the word in 2011 and then two indigenous in 2016. We have many, many sports teams and associations across the country who are changing their team names and logos. It has and will continue to take time. In 2016, and all of a sudden baseball coach of a community that was dropping the Indian reference talked about the growing awareness that the coaches and the parents were all just starting to gain. We are also on that path. Now realistically, most people have a limited knowledge and understanding of the originations of our region and indigenous languages. But what is most critical can also be found on the report. You've heard it tonight. Nothing about us without us. As a fundamental guiding principle. And as our understanding of the Council members and staff have engaged with indigenous leaders in our community as genuine allies of indigenous people in Kingston. They have asked these community leaders to reflect on their legacy in this region and to this land. And who advise and share some suggestions. To me, that is the genuine sound of with us. Action. Listening. The final proposed name Aki Road. It's a strong name with references to Mother Earth. The strength of the earth to support us. A key is the earth and source of our life, supply of water. Our backyard gardens, our roads, paths under the shade from the mature maple trees held deep in the earth alongside abundance of natural resources, spaces and wildlife. 30 seconds. AccuRoad is a very good choice. It's very simple to pronounce and spell. And for my first capital city, Aki wrote is actually one of a kind for municipal street naming in Canada. Yes, it will take time for some. But I think we will all be very proud of our new street name. It appropriately honours a Digious people. Both past and present, those living on our street. My family, we are connected to the current and future residences. Thanks. I will be very proud. Thank you. I think I'm going to pause you there. Thank you Mayor Patterson. Hey, thank you. Are there any questions from Council. Councillor Son. Thank you, worship, and through you. Mr. Daniel, I see this slide and I heard that you attempt. To ask the Council, come to the Council twice before last year. And one time you company with the area councillor or district Councillor. What was the response from the people both time previously previously. Before the last year. I didn't actually ask him to go door to door to be clear. Um, I'd actually been writing letters to city councillors for a long time, all city councillors. And many instances I've written to All City Councillors at once. Over the years. Councillor McLaren is my Councillor, so I always primarily work with him. And at the beginning, I thought he was an ally. I thought he was supporting me. I've emails from him saying that we would help to help to educate the neighbours on a problematic name. But he was always very clear that his direction on this, she stemmed from what he saw as his authority coming from the people on the street. His first time thinking he went through the streets. I also accompanied him on the second time through. Generally speaking. The responses were mixed. I would have estimated the second time to be somewhere around 45 percent years ago. And it was evident that in all the incidences of when people that responded to the doors were typically these seniors and older folks who have lived in the street a very long time and time after time when it was a newer family, always supporting the decision to grow forward. I think it is actually accurate that last year we came to council that was in favor of a change. Now when you see 80th percent up there, that is talking about displeasure with the names and not with unchanged. So we've got a mixture of statistics here going back and forth. Second question is include you how many other indigenous family or Fostration people residing on that street. There's never been any survey of demographics. I even Councillor McLaren's surveys are not official. They're an adult door knocking. There's no backup to them. They're not properly done. So there is no evidence of who is, and we don't ask people to come forward and self - declare it. There are people like myself who have family connections. Um, there's two or three. But as far as I can recall, there was only one person who ever self - identified as being indigenous. We didn't check them out. You know, we just hear people describing their connections. To the indigenous families. It appeared about also at the consultations. The same person who I mentioned in my report is being from her family was a Mi'kmaq from the East Coast Mi'kmaq from the East Coast. It was very worried about the loss of references to. The indigenous populations that she was familiar with, her family. Welcome. Thank you. Okay, next is Councillor Claren. Thank you, Mr. Ship. I'm wondering if you recall some of the conversations that we had because I distinctly recall having you ask for a door - to - door survey to make sure that we would get accurate numbers. I also recall that, uh, the ones that we went to, we got real numbers. And, um, it was 42 against and 57 percent. Sorry, 42 to change the name. 57 against changing the name in 2021 when you were coming with us. Do you remember this at all? Because I have the data here. I showed it to you at the time. And we actually did this together. I thought we were doing a lot of things together. Like helping people learn about indigenous populations. I thought we were working together to help the community come around. And instead, I think I described what you were really aim was. So. Let's take a step back. This is about, and I know you've tried desperately not to talk about a derogatory term for indigenous people in Canada. You yourself have told me you would never refer to an Indigenous person as an Indian, my family, people's families on our street. I think you have something else in mind. Now, if that's the case, I very well remember our conversations. About working with indigenous communities. About your thorough understanding of indigenous communities. So let's take this away from the numbers and talk about indigenous people in Canada. And how. Communities across this country are shedding these racist words. And why. For that very reason, these are derogatory terms that no longer refer to you indigenous people. All right, you're right. I'm going to pose it. Cause again, I'm really trying to focus this on the answer to the question. So I think I've answered it. Are there any other questions. Okay. Mr. Chip, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. Uh, next we have, uh, Shannon Becksteed, who will appear before Council to speak again to clause one of report number 56, uh, from the CO with respect to the Indian Road Street renaming. I've forgiven advance my voice. Might be a little shaky. I'm incredibly nervous. This is very vulnerable. Okay. Bougeot Shana Beksaden Indigenic cause nido damak one and don't J Minicazibia on a shineabe. Meanwhile, Nina Yan and they will moak Misko Z - Bay abdounk. Din Shigu Diya Cataracway. My name is Shannon, part of what I said in my introduction is that I am a proud member of the Minnegozi Bay Anishinabe or Pine Creek First Nation as it is known in English. I've lived in Kingston for 21 of my 39 years. So Kingston is very much my home. I've been heavily invested in the renaming process from The Beginning Stages. Thanks to his commitment to advanced consultation, I was able to support Councillor Ridge by reviewing the language of the initial motion and helping connect him with other indigenous community members so that he could continue to proceed in a good way. Of the seven grandfather teachings, I personally view humility as one of the most important for allies and accomplices to reflect on when engaging an activism on our behalf. And in my view, Councillor Ridge's approach the development of the motion aligned with this. The words I might use to describe the June 2025 Council meeting where the motion was presented would include Dizzying, deeply upsetting. But also uplifting while watching the city councillors who were in favor stand up for what is right. I emailed my councillor the next day with thanks for his eloquent and well - timed contribution towards the end of that conversation. That meeting affected me in a way that only resulted in mobilization. I immediately signed up for the talking circles and when it was an option, I also applied to join the city's EDII Advisory Committee to which I was appointed. I did both of these things because I feel very strongly about equity. And this is a matter that feels like a very cut and dry example of both equity and of decolonization. Unless you are an Indigenous person, you can only hypothesize how it feels to have someone call you an Indian. At a medical appointment here in Kingston, in the last year and a half, I had a clinician call me an Indian to my face several times. That appointment was also dizzying and deeply upsetting. They were reported to their college and reprimanded formally for the use of racist language with a patient. One of the arguments against the renaming is that you use the word as demonstrated by the display of the book Indian and the cabinet during that meeting. Yes, it's on the card in some of our wallets. Because it's illegally aside term. It's not a word most of us love and it is a word that none of us chose. The only choice Indigenous folks really do have for those who even wish to is to reclaim it. I work within the indigenous community. The youth that we work with Love Frybread Friday and Indian tacos are always on the menu. But another time not word comes up at work. Um, is when we are debriefing with someone who has felt censored or discriminated against in a non - Indigenous space while advocating for ourselves or the youth that we work with. Once again, I was made to feel like the angry Indian in the room. The other indigenous people watching are in this room may relate to this. I hope it's apparent to the non - Indigenous folks how differently that lands. Because ultimately Indian is a word that is tied to racism and oppression. Some older Indigenous folks do use the word and I will never invalidate their wish to you. But as times have changed, the general view is that this word should not be used by non - indigenous people more or less ever outside of referencing specific government documents. And this is why I am grateful to those who voted in favor of the initial motion and to Amber Bryant Peller in particular for helping facilitate the very enriching and healing talking circles. I'd be remiss not to acknowledge the immense emotional labour that I expect she took on throughout this process. I look forward to seeing how the rest of this meeting will progress with a hope for respectful and productive dialogue. As a bit of final consideration for Council, before said dialogue and subsequent vote, I'd like to remind each of you of the importance of revisiting and understanding your positionality as elected officials, particularly those with additional privileges. There are times when marginalized voices need to be amplified above others and matters of racism, such as a street name with a racial slur as its name is one of those times. Shimi Gwech. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from Council. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. We will move on to delegation number five. This time I'll invite David MacDonald to appear before Council to speak to clause one, report number 55 from the CAO. Respect to the water and wastewater public municipal services corporation. Thank you. Wow. Some heavy topics tonight. It speaks to the very difficult decisions you make on our behalf. So thank you. Um, good evening Mayor and Councillors. My name is David McDonald and I'm here tonight to share my concerns with the proposed MSC for water and wastewater services. By way of background, I have spent 30 years studying public services and public financing as the Director of an International Research Consortium. I've worked with governments and public institutions and more than 50 countries on questions of infrastructure, municipal finance and service delivery. I begin with this because I want to make one thing very clear. I am not opposed to the idea of a municipal services corporation. There is nothing inherently good or bad about municipal corporations. Success depends entirely on the details. Governance, accountability, financing, transparency, and public oversight. As I have said previously, I would be open to the idea of an MSC if it demonstrably made financial sense. And it included strong mechanisms for democratic accountability. My concern is that the evidence presented in this report does not justify the conclusion being asked of Council. At its core, this decision is presented as a financial one. Yet many of the most important financial assumptions are either unexplained. Under - explained or framed in a way that favors the MSC model over the current utilities Kingston model. For example, the report repeatedly refers to a self - imposed 500 million dollar debt limit as though we're an objective benchmark. There's no explanation of where this figure came from, why it was chosen or how it compares to other municipalities. The report also warns that higher debts could reduce financial flexibility. Damage the city's reputation and potentially affect credit ratings. Kingston is currently only using 30 percent of its provincially permitted debt capacity. Even under the reports'own worst case scenarios, debt levels would remain well below the permitted level. Where is the evidence that this would create reputational problems. Have lender said this, have credit rating agency said this. Have other municipalities experienced these outcomes at comparable debt levels. If there is a credible risk, Council deserves to see the evidence. Speculation is not evidence. In reality, investors and businesses do not make decisions based on a single debt ratio. They look at the overall health of a municipality. Quality of infrastructure, fiscal capacity, governance, economic growth, and long - term planning. If Kingston were to develop a strong infrastructure plan using the current utilities model, why would that reduce confidence in the city. Assumptions around the cost of financing race similar questions. The report notes that utilities Kingston can borrow through infrastructure Ontario at 4. 8 percent. The MSC model by contrast boroughs from private lenders. At roughly 5. 25 percent. Higher. Yet we are told that this would be cheaper because an MSC would potentially have flexibility through longer amortization periods or refinedancing options. Where are the details for these potential benefits. Why we're not similar options not explored under the utilities Kingston model. We're asked to be, we are asked to compare an overly pessimistic scenario for utilities Kingston against an overly optimistic scenario for the proposed MSC. This is not objective analysis, its advocacy. Council disease deserves to see a true apples to apples comparison of the two options. Including the total cost to residents through Boast taxes and utility rates. This brings me to my final point. The MSC model is designed to move debt off the city's balance sheet. But debt does not disappear simply because it's moved elsewhere. Residents still pay for it. The question is how they pay for it. Under an MSC, the burden of cost recover would be cost recovery will be shifted to utility rates rather than property taxes, because that is how an MSC recoups its costs. That matters because utility rates are generally more regressive. With everyone paying the same regardless of income. For households already struggling with affordability challenges, that distinction is significant. I agree that Kingston needs substantial investment in water and wastewater infrastructure. But before creating a new corporate entity with less direct oversight from Council, members should be confident that the financial case is sound, transparent, and supported by clear evidence. At this point, that threshold has not been met. I would strongly encourage council to reject the proposal as it stands and request a more objective and comprehensive financial comparison of the MSC in the UK models. Only then will be know of an MSC make sense. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Are there any questions from council? Council Ridge. Thank you. Your worship and through you. And thank you very much for coming to be a delegation. I really do appreciate it. And I appreciate you providing me with the opportunity to read your letter beforehand. Um, I just wanted to ask you some questions of, you've mentioned about the gaps in finance, but I want to circle back to the governance piece. Um, can you highlight some of the issues that you see currently with the governance structure of utilities Kingston and what you, what you think may happen with the government structure for an MSN. Yeah. The proposal is quite weak on the governance side. I think intentionally so, you know, saying, look, we need to look more at governance. But what is there. Very distinctly removes decisions from Council members around borrowing and investments, major, major expenditures. The only real veto, if you will, that council would have is on water rates. Now to what extent Council Members will have the necessary information and the political will to challenge an even further arm's length removed municipal services corporation than it currently does with the utilities Kingston is genuinely of concern. So my talk tonight is really about the numbers. These numbers are just simply unfair and biased and don't, in my opinion, provide a fair assessment of the two models. But I think to the extent that there is reference to governance in the proposal, uh, it does make me concerned. And municipal corporations are inherently arms length. They're designed to give relative autonomy to management financially in terms of management decisions. Uh, and I just don't see enough council oversight with a particular way that is proposed right now. Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. And so in the creation of the shareholders agreement for an MSC of Council does decide to move forward with that. I think there's a significant opportunity in terms of the composition of the Board of Directors. Would you be in support of if an MSC were to move forward? Would you be in support of amending the composition of the Board of Directors to have additional Council oversight as well as additional transparency for like financial? I would absolutely advocate for that. Yes. If. If the numbers make sense. At this point, I just don't know if I were in your seats, I couldn't possibly vote for this thing because the numbers are not, you're not comparing apples to apples. But if you decide to move forward with it, then absolutely you need a much more robust form of governance. But I think the same thing could be done with utilities Kingston, right? We could have better community representation on that board as well. So it's not on either aura, in my opinion. You know, I look at what CDs around the world have done with their governance of water. And the really interesting dynamic models out there that we could adopt regardless of whether we go with an MSC. Okay. Thank you. Nexus Councillor Sanek. Thank you, your worship. And thank you so much, Mr. MacDonald, for speaking to us tonight. Um, I just wondered, are there any concerns that an MSC model could move us closer to privatization? That's come up so much in all the emails that we gave, um, or that we've received the fear of privatization. Yeah, I mean, I think that that was concerns. We're valid on the basis of the KPMG report, the public facing report that first came out and the way that was structured and KPMG's history and the language embedded in that report. I think that this staff report that came out subsequently, you know, made it clear that that's not the objective, which is great. The use of the 2001 municipal act rather than 2025 municipal water services act has made a big difference. Um, so I don't think that threat is imminent. I think the bigger fear here is one of financialization. That's a term that only academics could come up with, but it's increasingly in the public domain, which basically means that you see private finance having more and more control over our public services. And in fact, I would argue that this proposal is itself a reflection of financialization. We're being pressured into making a decision based on what finance thinks is the best thing for a city to do. And I think this MSC model, the way it's phrased right now, both reflects that possibility and opens the doors to a deeper, formal financialization in our water services system. And that is absolutely a real concern. Thank you. And through you, um, your worship. My second question is, we did discuss this at EITP committee. And I believe at the committee, you said that you were going to be meeting with, um, CAO Lenny Hurdle and CEO David Fell having discussions about it. I just wondered, um, uh, what concerns were raised, like how those meetings went. Yeah. And I had several meetings with, with Lanny and David, if they're here, um, and their financial staff. And I do actually, thank you for that opportunity I want to thank them for being open and, uh, and very communicative of on this front. We had multiple email exchanges, at least three face - to - face meetings. Um, I raised these concerns time and time again. And they simply aren't reflected in the final report. Um, I mean, it is a difficult report to read. You know, I mean, you try and wade through those numbers, people that I know who are intelligent people looked at it and said, I actually don't really understand what's being said here. And it's complicated, but it's not. We have to know, you know, the simple apples to apples comparison between the U. S. sorry, the MSC model in the UK model. And the implications that would have on households who are paying both taxes and water rates and how those things compare can be done in very simple ways. And those simply have not been reflected in the final report. The reasons why I don't know. Thank you, Councillor Glenn. Thank you. And through you. Um, so thank you very much, Dr. McDonald for your comments and presentation. I'm going to go back to the governance piece. Um, so could you elaborate a bit more about the concerns that you have about the proposed governance model just so that we're clear on what that means to you. Yeah. Well, Council basically, the only real decision council would have related to finance is final say on water rates. So what the increase would look like on an annual basis or however often that takes place. But decisions about where to borrow money from how much money to borrow how much money to invest. Those things would be done at arm's length by a municipal services council. And the proposal also basically says subject area expertise would sit on the board which historically has meant engineers and finance people. And so there's nobody there doing work on an affordability, on homelessness, on housing. Other things that water insanitation services are just so utterly relevant to. So I'm worried about both those things. The extent to which an arms length entity is going to be making decisions with very little council input. And the current proposed composition of what a board would look like that does not reflect the city as a whole. And like it or not, we are water. We are lake Ontario. We all have a vested interest in water and sanitation. Everybody has something to disable with that. And that's one of the most dynamic things that other cities have done in enhancing the publicness of their water services is to have a board that is representative of the citizenry that lives in a place. Well, we are indeed water as Star Trek has known for saying ugly bags, mostly water apparently. But I will move to my next question. So we have a decision before us this evening. So I want to know what your thoughts are if we stay with the current utilities Kingston model. Are there things that we could do to improve the governance there as well? Sure. Um, I mean, utilities Kingston is a remarkable entity. I often cite it in my academic work as a multi - service provider that does an excellent job efficiently safely. Which begs the question as to why Tinker with something that works. Uh, but could you make it also more robust and more democratic and more transparent and more engaging? Absolutely. And I think the other reason for doing that, and this is places that have either brought water services back in - house after a period of privateization or have resisted privatization, they've done it in part because they have had a robust and democratic governance structure. One where citizens say, Hey, this is our utility. This is public. This is meaningful to us. And so, you know, the danger of removing it from that kind of democratic engagement and oversight in the way that's proposed in this, uh, report is that you lose the potential of doing that. So I think UK is in a much better position to have that kind of public engagement to enhance its publicness and make that more robust. Okay, thank you. Next is Councillor Sun. Thank you, your worship. And through you, Dr. MacDonald, my question is instead not voting for these option we have today. What you suggest beside that if we adopt this proposal and move forward, how we can make it transparent viable process, just like you mentioned UK. If UK is also private, uh, entity, I think it's owned by CD. And then MSC going to be owned by city as well. So what was make you think we cannot make workable and transparent if we have the UK's more according to you is this transparent and working well. No, I'm not suggesting it's impossible. I'm simply saying it might be harder. Because of the further sort of, uh, arm's length nature of the MSC relative to utilities Kingston. Utilities Kingston is a de facto municipal corporation. It's arm's length from the city. It's owned holy by the city. It's just legally, it's not a municipal corporation under the 2001 municipal corporations act. But it's, it's de facto, you know, municipal corporation, which is why I said there's nothing inherently good or bad about municipal corporations. My worry is the, the governance structure that's outlined there gives too much authority to the board, sort of to the MSC structure. And that it's going to be more and more, it's going to be extremely difficult to contain the costs and the impacts alone come households in particular. The way that it seems to me to be financed. So what I'm saying is the governance issue is something that we can think about later. Right now, this MSC proposal makes no sense on financial terms. And if the whole purpose of an MSC is to save the city money and try and reduce the impact of the investments we need to make, there's nothing in that report that convinces me, it makes sense. Thank you, Scheding, for all the concerns. Um, have you shared these all concern with the city staff and send the suggestion to them how to change those concern and make the change in into the current report? And what they and how they reply to you. Yes. Well, as I mentioned, I've had several meetings with the CAO, the CEO and their financial staff. Um, and made multiple requests for particularly this kind of apples to apples comparison. And the response I got was it's complicated. Okay. Next is cancer Toso. Thank you Mayor Patterson through you. Thank you for your presentation. That was great. Um, I do know financialization too because I with my background research, but I actually I want to just circle back to governance for a second because that's more or less my specialization. Um, I want to just touch on something because you, you, you speak highly of utilities kinks. And I mean this with all due respect to staff members in the room. From a governance perspective, I actually think utilities Kingston has some, uh, some issues. It's a self - appointed board. We shareholders as Council. We have the mayor and CAO as board members. But we don't actually get involved in day - to - day board meetings. Do you think that with an MSC, we could perhaps enhance the oversight that Council. And like, I agree that there are some borrowing sides. For me, with the amount of financial power an organisation has wheels left to have appropriate governance oversight. Do you think that there is an opportunity with a new organisation to revamp its governance and revamp its oversight and accountability by starting it from zero? Because trust me, I've dealt with organisations that are already entrenched. It's very hard to change governance once they're in place. You fight tooth and nail against that organisation. So like, do you think that there actually is an opportunity with an MSC? Because we don't know that's not in this report to create a better governance structure than what currently exists at utilities Kingston. Well, the silver lining here may be, this is an opportunity to restructure Tilly's Kingston. And, you know, perhaps raising awareness, I think the average Kingstonian, for better or for worse, turns on their taps flushes the toilets. Don't know anything about it. And we just don't know how lucky we are, right? I've spent half my working life in communities. There is no water. There are no toilets. We are remarkably privileged to have these resources to have them publicly owned and to have them well - run. Can utilities kinks and be governed better. Absolutely. Do we want to take a risk based on numbers that really don't show meaningful comparisons on the hope that we might be able to create a better governance structure with a whole new corporation that is inherently further removed from council. I don't know. I just find that too big of a risk. If the numbers made sense, I would be saying yes, absolutely. Let's, let's run with it and let's figure out a way to make an MSC even more accountable and more transparent than utilities Kingston. To me, that's the follow - up question. The first question is the finance. Okay, if the other questions, thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Okay. Our next delegation this evening will invite Brandon Miracle to peer before council to speak to clause one report number 56 from the CAO respect to the Indian Road Street renaming. Good evening, Mayor Council. Thank you for the opportunity to share tonight and to speak on the matter of Indian Road. Uh, for those who don't know me, Segel, say what Guagle. Unsky Yowa, Yahuck. Guyari Niwasa, digging in the wasa, Yayac, Jada Nuwasa Asa, Natana Asa. You can get down OE, Go Nicohaga. I've had the privilege of living, learning actually even under Professor MacDonald. And Des 100 playing and living here in Kingston for Last 11 years. Uh, and I've gotten the chance to know some of you. Uh, and so you might be surprised to hear my introduction this evening. I wasn't Saigo Brandon Nungets. Hello, my name is Brandon. It wasn't Sego, girl Hiddajiunettes, which is, hello, my name is Long This Guy. The name which my great - grandfather gave me. Uh, tonight I don't introduce myself as husband, father, brother, friend, or even the executive director of Kingston Inter and Languished. This evening, I introduced myself as 1640, 267303. And that's my Indian registration number. The number that the Feds give Indians. I didn't memorize this number. The expedite the tax exemption process at the Cash Register. Noi member is this number in high school. My bullies would try to remind me that I was too white to be Indian. There were, it's not mine. And I thought that sharing my Indian number would prove to them that maybe I was. It didn't work. Council, I share tonight. That I feel the shame for that moment even here. And that's what Indian means to me. I realise now after a long journey of self - education, of self - discovery, that an Indian registration number makes me no more Mohawk than drinking water makes me a fish. I won't take the liberties of sharing every community members story in relation to the term Indian. But I asked you to trust me to say that I'm not alone in this finding this term both harmful and derogatory. Before I yield my time, I want to leave you with the truth. Changing the name of Indian Road, one undo this history. We know that. But keeping Indian, Indian Road, asks indigenous people in Kingston to continue seeing this history. Reflected on a public street name. In an official capacity. Within the city of Kingston. And so the harm attached to this word Indian. Is less important than the inconvenience of change. Council has the opportunity this evening to choose language the better reflects the community that I know and that I believe they can't see monster be Yawa. I yield my time. I thank you. Are there any questions. Councillor Son. Through you, Mr. Yorship and thank you, Brandon, for coming again today. Um, would you be able to. Describe the difference between the word Indian and indigenous. Certainly. So I think as alluded to earlier, Indian is a complicated term. It captures a lot of different things. It's primarily the legal term. And I think in cases like Daniels, uh, although we ought not delve into jurisprudence in this space, is they fight for the legal term in that, not the name. Indian is a term that is used by the feds. And like Shannon pointed out earlier, it's used by some folks as well and reclaimed way. And when we reclaim that term, it's not used on street signs. The word indigenous is something that captures all indigenous people, not only on in Canada, but across turtle island. It reflects the Mohawk, the Anishnabe includes the Inuit, the MAT, the Mi'kma, and it captures all people of an Indigenous life. Thank you. Okay. See, another questions. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, we do have, um. Several emotions to add, uh, additional delegations. So first, uh, first step, I have moved by Councillor, seconded by Councillor Glenn to waive our procedural bylaw to allow, uh, Janine Ryan, uh, to appear before Council. We'll call the vote. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Uh, next we have a motion moved by Councillor Bohm, seconded by Councillor Ridge that we waive our procedural bylaw in order to allow Christine Sibnovich to peer before Council also to speak as of the previous, uh, with respect to the water and wastewater public municipal services corporation. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Next, uh, move by Councillor Glenn. Seconded by Councillor Ridge. Waive our procedural bylaw to allow Janice English to speak to Council regarding new motion number three, our livable solution cabin's timeline extension. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Uh, and then finally moved by Councillo second by Councillor Shenani to waive our procedural bylaw. To allow Stephen Cuthbertson to speak to Council again, regarding the water and wastewater, uh, municipal services corporation. Although in favor. Oppose, uh, and that's carried. Are there any other delegations that I missed. Okay. So for the, uh, the next four. Uh, just a reminder per our procedural bylaw. You have three minutes up to three minutes to speak. And then again, we will open up the floor to questions from Council. Uh, so at this point, I will first in vote, invite Gene Ryan to speak to Council regarding report number 55 from the CAO regarding the water and wastewater public municipal services corporation. This. Is my clicker. Okay. Okay. This is the floor. Okay, great. Thank you. So much. Good evening everyone. Thank you for letting me come up and share some thoughts with you. I'm here to ask Council to hold off and endorsing any kind of water and wastewater municipal services corporation at this time. I'd like Council to hopefully encourage a more robust public input opportunity that includes real response to the public input. That's provided. The public import survey over the winter saw overwhelming opposition for any number of reasons, including transparency accountability and risks. Those that dovetail with what we heard from Dr. McDonald and also those that are articulated by the organisation of Ontario Municipalities. We've heard really thoughtful and helpful expert input. I would urge Council to take advantage of the resource we have here on the part of Dr. McDonald and really take the opportunity to flesh out this possibility. Unfortunately, we have seen the fact that without clear and complete information, there's been, um, kind of scare that's been sewed through the community. We saw an email sent out this past Friday to downtown King Symbi a member saying that without the MSC, there would be a huge rate increase. There's nothing to substantiate that. And actually rates could be better if we do city barring. We've heard from the Association of Municipalities on, um, of our Ontario, um, they do not by any means issue a blanket endorsement of the MSC model. And they do issue serious warnings to municipalities related to the complex intergenerational issues that may ensue this specifically relates to development charges. And if we look at the February 25th, 2025 business case, page 19, we see that the MSC model relies on those charges. We have puzzle pieces that today's recommendation asks Council to Director Fill in. I would suggest that any household probably before agreeing to a major financial decision would want to make sure that those pieces were fully understood. 30 seconds. We all depend on water. I can't say it more eloquently than Dr. McDonald already dead. There's lots of missing pieces. There's no rush. We don't have to endorse anything right now. Let's take the time to get this right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from council. Councillor Song. Thank you, worship and through you. Um, may I ask you when you came to know about this MSC proposal the first time last year when we announced that. That's a great question. Councillor Hassan. It was at some point after the December 4th release. I'm a subscriber to get involved Kingston. So it may have entered my email via that's end. Um, I, I, uh, yeah, I'm not, I can't quite remember. So everyone asking for more, more time. And everyone is suggesting that this report is rushing and or in a rush. It's not given enough time. So hypothetically speaking, if I say that we give everyone one more year. And then what all of you guys are going to find different with the same stuff with the same mindset. What is going to be different? How this report going to be different after one year. I'll echo what's been stated previously. I've been over and through and under and above, um, a lot of different documentations and reports for related to water and wastewater in the city. Um, the financial aspect that's outlined in this current report. Doesn't make any sense. Um, in particular, related to model one option one, which is not fleshed out in any detail whatsoever and which actually appears to offer the same exact rates as the quote unquote MSC model. And there's real concern there, right? That the MSC model actually is optimistically presented, which brings us back to why aren't we getting more information about Model 1 option one? So in terms of your question to me, Councillor Hasan, as a member of the public for me to in any way understand a huge decision involving 3. 2 billion dollars in core infrastructure that city residents depend on and have paid into. I'm extremely concerned that such a decision would be made without a real clear understanding of the finances. And then secondly, as a member of the public, what would I like to see related to public engagement. In person, public engagement from get involved Kingston, where the results matter. We've seen 70 percent of the public that was involved during the limited window available say that they do not want an MSC for reasons outside of privatization, big reasons, reasons that our seconded by the AOM or AMO. Okay. I think seeing no other questions. Thank you very much, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. Next we will invite Christine Szynovich to PP Four Council again to speak to clause one report number 55 from the CAO with regarding water and wastewater public municipal services corporation. Um, Sitovich, you're on the screen and I will pass the floor over to you. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. As you know, I'm Christine Scipinovich, chair of the coalition of Kingston communities. With the municipal election only months away, democracy is top of mind. Many are thinking about who can best serve the interests of the people of Kingston. But democracy is not just a matter of choosing representatives and periodic elections. Democracy also concerns how we are represented. Transparent and accountable processes are key. The plan to establish a municipal services corporation to take charge of Kingston's water and wastewater is a disturbing case of lack of transparency and accountability. In both process and substance. In short, it contravenes the principles of democracy. First, the process, which was shrouded in secrecy. Utilities Kingston and city staff decided to pursue the MSC more than two years ago in March, 2024. It wasn't until December, 2025 that the city issued a public release nearly four months after KPMG's business case in two years after UK and city staff hatched the plan. The only opportunity for public input was a survey held over the holiday season, which showed seven percent were against the plan. The city held no public meetings, no town halls. A freedom of information request shows that senior staff's disparaged the public's involvement, saying in private emails that residents lacked understanding. In contrast, so - called key developers were invited to a private in - person meeting and thanked for their partnership. Why is this important issue? The stewardship of clean drinking water in the disposal of wastewater being rushed. The current council is an office for only a few more months. The city postponed the decision on the new official plan until the next council. The same reasoning should apply here. Give Kingstonians a chance to engage properly with this important matter. As for the plan itself, its rife with problems of transparency and accountability. Even though the city would be the sole shareholder, the MSC separate non - elected board would make key decisions. For the operational budget and the budget for capital projects. The embassy board would control borrowing, able to leverage the transferred 3. 2 billion dollars of water wastewater assets. It's unclear if council would have any input on rate increases. A problem flagged by the association of municipalities of Ontario. Not only that, but as a separate corporation, the MSC would not be governed by the municipal acts open meeting requirements. The association of municipalities, warns of transparency issues with MSCs. 30 seconds. Thank you. Corporate Financial Priorities, including return on investment, could be placed above the city's needs. The path of the MSC planted tonight's agenda is plagued with problems of transparency and accountability. Again, democracy is more than periodical elections. That said, with an election coming up, we can expect the Kingstonians will vote for candidates who stood up for the principles of democracy, not just by running for office, but also by honouring principles of accountability and transparency. In other words, respecting the people who voter for them, please reject the MSC proposal. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any questions for the delegation. Okay, sing. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Council Ridge, go ahead. Thank you, and through you. Thank you so much for your delegation. Uh, I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked Dr. McDonald earlier. I'm not sure if you had heard it or not. Um, basically the question is that if we were to move forward with an MSC, that there is an opportunity in the crafting of the shareholders agreement to have a governing body, a board of directors that are more open and transparent than what currently exists with utilities, Kingston. Um, would that be something that you would be in favor of. Uh, yes. Um, I mean, David McDonald is a colleague at Queensland. I'm a professor of political philosophy and I'm interested in issues of democracy and accountability in general in my work as well as, uh, as, as a resident of Kingston, um, yeah, so certainly it could be improved by making it a more accountable board, but I think the issues that, uh, surround the transparency of the, this particular version of the MSC go further than just, um, improving representation on the board. But yes, certainly that would be an improvement. I agree. Thank you very much for your answer. And just as a follow - up question, this is the same that I asked Dr. McDonald. So if we were also to require the MSC to have quarterly financial and operation reporting to public, something that we're not doing with utilities Kingston right now, uh, it would be similar to what I did with The police where they have to come and present, uh, to us and we're able to ask them questions. Would that be something that would improve the transparency and accountability of an MSC or any corporation that's managing water and wastewater. Yeah. Certainly. Yes. I agree, but I guess I'm a little puzzled why the rush to a decision here. Given the, the real concerns and confusion and anxiety that so many members of the public have on this and the feeling that they've been shut out of the, uh, decision making process that they haven't been included in, um, in the information that's being shared on this, um, they haven't had a chance to express their views or learn more, ask questions. Why does this decision have to happen this evening? This is unclear to me. And I think the other delegations have made such excellent points about questions of the financing of this and how it's been run and lack of clarity. Let's, let's, let's do this right. Let's, uh, let's delay this decision. There's no need to make it tonight. Okay. Thank you. Cancer Toso. Thank you Mayor Patterson through. Thank you for your delegation. I really appreciate it. Um, we had, uh, this GoDeP and it was, I think charitably speaking, we had about 10 people there who delegated to EITP. Is that not some degree of sufficient, you know, people can come and talk a bit. How much more committees do you think that we should be sending this to before Council makes a decision to move forward or not? I guess I think there ought to be a town hall type engagement with the public. Um, I can look at what happened with the official plan, right? The official plan that was a lot of concern about it being rushed. And to the credit of city council and city staff, it was decided that it should be held off the decision to be held off until after the next council's elected. Why not do that this time too. Okay. Uh, if there are no other questions, uh, Ms. Sitovich, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks very much for your time. Okay. Thank you. With that, we'll move to our next delegation. We'll invite Janice English to speak to Council regarding new motion number three. Our livable solution cabin's timeline extension. Good evening, your worship. Council members. I'm here tonight. To ask for an extension on the June 30th deadline for the cabin community, uh, to be placed at Crossroads Church. We're all here tonight. Because OS has helped us in so many ways. But it's not just an organisation. It's something that brings your life back. When I came to stay at the Covent community, I had been on the mode for four years roughly. And I was at the end of my rope. It brought back my life. They respect the people that comes through the door each and every one of us has different backgrounds. We all have different issues. They didn't treat us like we were all in one basket. They listened to what we had to say. They worked with our strengths, our weaknesses. And we became a family. It runs on many different aspects that makes it work. I can't say strongly enough that each and every one of us here has benefited hugely. From that organisation. When you're out there, you lose your dignity, your self - respect. Everything. You become broken. It builds us back up. It moves a family. These aren't just people that I lived with in the cabin community. They're my family now. It's very important service. And as far as I'm concerned, it's the only one out there that works. Um, anything you want to better yourself, they'll help you get it. They don't just work with you until you leave the community. They still help me now. And I'm housed. They still gave me support. They're there if I call. If I have a question, something I need to have information on. There's still very much part of my life. It's a very important organisation. And I can't say how strongly I feel about this. We can ask, is that you please extend the deadline so it can continue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from Council. Okay. Seeing none, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, we'll now move to our 10th and final delegation at this point. I will invite Stephen Cuthbertson to speak to Council regarding Clause 1 over Fort Number 55 from the CAO. Again, regarding the watered wastewater public municipal services corporation. Thank you, your worship. I wish to address the abundance of negative public opinion that surrounds these recommendations. It was unfortunate just how widespread the mistrust and confusion about this issue has become. But today when trying to investigate this topic online, you are effectively limited to the public facing business case, which is known to be lacking and concerning big picture details. On top of that, a Google search will first lead you to the city's main webpage about municipal service corporation, which contains a copy of the outdated business case. And what makes this so unfortunate is that this plan is actually a sound financial decision. It can provide the city access to strong investment tools, not only for these indicated infrastructure projects. But improve our access to funding for recreation, transportation, and even housing. But after two years of consultation and planning, the city has been unable to effectively communicate the intent, the benefits, or the risks associated with these recommendations to the residents of Kingston. Report 26148 assures us that costs related to urban boundary expansion are excluded from the modelling. While the city's public messaging leans on Kingston's growth as the reason this is needed in the first place. At face value, citing the expansion bound growth projections while setting aside its costs, reads is contradictory. And even if the technical explanation for this residents shouldn't have to reverse engineer it to feel like they're getting a straight answer. It should come as no surprise that residents are confused. It is, as we all know, 2026 and technology has improved global access to information at a scale that's almost unbelievable. We all use these little glass bricks to access the collective sum of all human knowledge and can communicate with people on the other side of the planet. But the city still lacks a direct source publicly accessible and up - to - date official information. Councillors should have an official channel to propose amendments and address concerns, weeks to months, ahead of vital decisions like this. Let the public know their voices are being heard. And that those voices are being translated into action. Improved transparency and accessibility to information. Will reveal the true intent of policy to Kingstonians and reduce our concerns about why changes our required for our vital infrastructure. It will turn our log jam of municipal policy into an effective stream of information, improving outcomes. For all of our endeavours. In seconds. It is your job, your worship to guide us to these outcomes. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Are there any questions from Council. Thank you, Nune. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, that takes us to the end of our delegations. Okay. At this point we will move on to petitions. Are there any petitions to present. Councillor Ball. Go ahead. Thank you. You're worshiping through you. We the 483 persons underside are concerned for the safety of elementary school students who must cross highway 15 in order to attend St. Martha Catholic school in Acol Maple Elementary School in Kingston's E send. Hunter Current School Transportation Policies. Many students living within a designated distance from their school are not eligible for bus transportation and are therefore expected to walk. As a result of significant number of young children must cross Highway 15 daily in order to travel safely to and from school. Parents, residents and community members have repeatedly observed dangerous conditions at this intersection, including vehicles accelerating through yellow and red lights, speeding through the area and making turns well pedestrians are still well within the designated Crossing areas. Well, traffic signals and existing road safety measures are in place. Many residents observe these measures have not been effective enough to ensure the safety of children travelling to and from school. Concerns continue to be raised regarding driver behaviour and the wrist - faced data by young pedestrians crossing highway 15, despite the significant number of students using this crossing each day. There is currently no crossing guard station at highway 15 Rosabi Drive and Water Sideway. While nearby intersections are staff with Crossing Guards. We respectfully request that the city of Kingston and the appropriate school authorities take immediate action to install a Crossing Guard at Highway 15 and Rosabi Drive to improve student safety and provide greater peace of mind for families in the community. The safety of a young children walking to school and Crossing a highway must be a top priority. Thank you and this will be submitted to the clerk. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other petitions to present. Okay. Uh, if not, we have no deferred motions. We have no special motions. And so with that we will move to reports. First up we have report number 54 from the CAO. Moved by Councillor Amos, seconded by Councillor Bohm that report 54 from the Chief Administrative Officer consent be received and adopted. Okay. Uh, there are only two clauses in the report. Would anyone like to do with them separately? Uh, if not, we will vote on them as a whole. Uh, so we have, first of all, clause one, limiting distance agreement for 166 West Street. Number two, Queens orientation noise bylaw exemption application. Okay, we will, uh. Sorry, I thought there was a question. Okay, we will call the vote, please. And that carries. Okay. Uh, next we have report number 54 from the CAO. Moved by Councillor Tchanani, seconded by Councillor Glenn. That report. Excuse me. Sorry. The report 55 from the CAO recommend be received and adopted clause by clause. Okay. Our first clause water and wastewater public municipal services corporation. And a discussion. Thank you Mayor Patterson through you. I guess I'll get the ball rolling on this one. Um, I'm going to start with an amendment if we could play it up on the screen. I'll have a few things to say if this passes or fails. So we've received a lot of emails, a lot of feedback. I want to make sure from a point of principle, I know this in the report, we're not looking staff or not looking to privatize it. Can get my amendment on the screen. Right now we have CO David fell on the screen. Just wondering if we could first. That's not my amendment. My amendment is not first bring up the, uh, is not to bring Mr. Felon the screen. Thank you. I think we're working on it. Just going to give us one second here. Okay. Although I like Mr. Val, but. So we have an amendment moved by Councillor Tozo, seconded by Council Cineni. The report number 55 clause one received from the CAO be amended by adding the following clause as the final operative clause. The Council reject any form of privatization of the city - owned water and wastewater assets and services and reaffirm its unwavering commitment to the 100 percent public ownership of said assets and services. Councillor, your amendment has been duly moved and secuded. And so I will restart your time. You can speak to it now. Thank you Mayor Payerson through you. Um, this has been out in the public section. I know we've gotten a lot of emails about the fear of privatization and the report. I know the type of, uh, what we're doing under the Minis flag does not allow us to privatize it. That is always going to be a looming threat from the province. But I want it to be crystal clear to the public and the community, the governing body of the corporation of the city of Kingston uniformly rejects privatization of our water and wastewater services. However, this goes forward, if it passes or fails, we are not going to privatize your water and wastewater. What this is, uh, something that we hold very valuable. We know what happens. What we remember would happen with Walkerton and we will not, under this council, uh, privatize your water and wastewater and hopefully under no council moving forward either. Um, so I'm asking Council to support this amendment. And then hopefully we can get to the substance of the debate because there is a really good substantive debate to have over this. But let's get our principles out there, uh, firsthand. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on the amendment. Councillor. Thank you, your worship. Um, I don't want the private vitalization of our water either, but I also, I want to ask our, you know, city solicitor, um, like, like if in the future, um, something changes, you know, like then this is meaningless. So I don't want the public to think that if we vote for this tonight, that's it forever and ever in the future. I think we heard at EITP that we can't predict, you know, what the provincial government might do. And, um, I just like to hear from staff, if we can actually make this statement for the future that it will forever not be privatized. Miss Morley. Thank you. And through your worship, I'll clarify that under current Ontary of law of a municipal service corporation provides water or wastewater services. It cannot be privately owned or controlled. I can't speak to what will happen in the future, but I would suspect the province would not be in a position to mandate that these types of corporations be privately owned or controlled. So I don't anticipate any issue with the motion that has put forward. Thank you. Council Staff. Thank you, Mayor Paterson. Just to build on that question from my colleague, because that was my question as well. Thank you. But, um, and I appreciate the response, but I, and I'm learning as well as all of us about all the intricacies. It's complicated, but I understood that because the funding could come from private sources, that that's a complication that could override this declaration. So, um, can I ask our legal for, um, that angle? Is that a. Well, I mean, I think the amendment is speaking to ownership. So if, if you want to introduce further amendments to speak to the financing, mayor Pyrrhas, not what I'm saying is that since we, since the MSC is accessing private funds, it will drive, uh, the potential if we have a problem financially down the road. So if the problem, then it's because it's private funds, not government funds ever. So anyways, you're not seeing that. So Miss Morley, do you want to wait in on that? Thank you. And through your worship. I'll clarify the corporation cannot sell or grant voting rights to private individuals or companies. It cannot sell or transfer parts of the water or wastewater system to a private party. At least I asked it. Thank you. Council Glad. Thank you and through you. So I understand where my colleague is going with the question on privatization. So the question then with regards to this amendment. Seeing as the intent is not to have private ownership. If in the event of there being private funding and there's a delinquency on the part of the MSC, could their potentially be, um, I guess a takeover for lack of a better way to put it. Ms. Morley. Thank you. And through your worship, all I can do is continue to reiterate with the Law says that if a municipal service corporation provides water or wastewater services, it cannot in any circumstance be privately owned or controlled. Councillor McLaren. Thank you. I'll give it a try now. It's not so much what the Corporation can do. We understand that it cannot do that. But if it goes into receivership, bankruptcy, do can I judge force it to be sold to a private person? That's the question that's important here. I know that the corporation itself cannot do that. Can a judicial official at some level force the corporation to do that. Ms. Morley. Do your worship? No, it can't. Okay. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak to the amendment. Councillor Rich. Thank you, your worship and through you. Can I also ask legal about whether or not this can be privatized? I'm joking. I do. This is going to be a long discussion. So I'm trying to start a little light your worship. Um, no, I'm in support of this. And I think that we'll be seeing several other amendments moving forward in a similar spirit. So yes, I'm supporting tons of our council toes as motion. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Toso, any final words on your amendment? I think I want to clarify. We need to just have a statement of principles of where Kingston City Council lies. We can't control what the province does, but we can control what we do. And let's just start this conversation here with what we believe in. And that's what this amendment is about. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So we will call the vote on the amendment. And that cures. Cancer to, so you still have four minutes and 40 seconds on the clock. Oh, thank you. That I'll use all of that. Um. This is a tough decision. And I think we all feel it. We all weigh it because we're making decisions about something very vital to our community. And that is our water. Uh, you can't get more vital and important than that. Um, the few factors here. And I really appreciate all the delegations. That was really respectful, intelligent, thoughtful delegation. So that was really informative. Council is always about weighing risks. Uh, Dire Cochet did a podcast years ago about what's the bigger thing of Council and how we govern it. We have to weigh risks. We have to wait probabilities. And this is what I'm really dealing with tonight. I'm weighing several different probabilities of how we deal with our water and wastewater and our infrastructure debt. Uh, we have an asset management debt of 1. 3 billion dollars. That's a lot of money require a hundred million dollars and we have to make sure that that infrastructure is up to code. We have to balance affordability. We have to balance debt. We have to balance user fees and we have to balance taxes. Yes, we can get grants from the provincial and federal government, but we don't control that. We control debt. User fees and property taxes. This is a very difficult thing to juggle between these three different areas. And how do we do it? How do we ensure that our infrastructure is up to code? How do we ensure that we can help a growing city and help prepare the things that are in the municipal, uh, within the municipal way and ensuring that water stays public. And that also we can provide fresh wire to people and build that critical infrastructure. I have to weigh the probabilities. I respectfully read the staff report. And I don't know if I, I would not characterize that painted a cherry picture. I don't think staff are trying to influence us. I just think that's the data. I've read staff reports now for four years. I have to believe the information that's in front of me that's provided by our public service. We rely on them for the best information possible. Is an MSC an ideal way to build infrastructure and defiance it over a longer term period. I hate debt. The answer is I would wish not. I wish we had more revenue streams from the province of Ontario. We don't control that. What we control again is, um, use user fees debt and taxes. And dead has to play a picture on how we fund our infrastructure. It simply has to. I think councils going on in this is not just here. This is a Cross Municipalities in Ontario have a major infrastructure debt and we're all having conversations at AMO of how to funded. MSCs are going to enter the picture because it makes sense that we're investing in critical infrastructure that people over a longer term period of time do have to pay for it. The piece of this that is missing for me is the governance and shareholder agreement. That will come down the road, but where I'm at right now with the information that's available for me with the best wing of options and probabilities as I'm a soft yes on this. I reserve the right after we get the governance and service level agreement to say no. That could, I want to make sure that we have appropriate measures in place with this amount of debt going to, uh, arms length organisation. But this already does exist with utilities Kingston. We're not creating this. This is already in an entity. We're just moving it to a different way to service it and find ways to, uh, have asset management. On the weight of probabilities, I'm going to see this through to the next step. I will look forward to that piece of governance and shareholder agreements. That will be the thing that will be the deal breaker for me. If that doesn't work out for me, we still council still has a right to say no. But where is right now? I think that this is worth exploring. And that's really where we are. We're exploring this. So that's where I stand on this, your worship. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Rich. Thank you. Your worship and through you. I also have an amendment. Okay. Can I see that on the screen, please? Okay. Moved by Councillor Ridge, seconded by Councillor. Amos, the report number 55, clause one, received from the CAO be amended by adding the following clause is the final operative clause. So that final. After the previous final operative class that we just added, uh, that Council Direct staff to ensure that the following requirements are included in the future shareholder declaration, which will require Council Endorsement. That the composition of the Board of Directors for the MSC must contain the mayor, a member councillor, a minimum of four members from the public has determined through an open public and transparent process. That public reports on operations and financial information in a form determined by the city's chief financial officer be prepared in public queue presented to Council on a quarterly basis. Councillor Ridge, your amendment is on the floor and you may now speak to it. Thank you, your worship and through you. Um, so based on the conversation questions that I've been asking delegations and been receiving feedback from constituents. I felt that this was one of the best ways to at the very least address what I feel very valid concerns about the governance structure of utilities, Kingston. And as I said earlier, I do believe that the creation of an MSC with the development of a new sharehold disagreement will provide us an excellent opportunity to make that change. Um, so that's, that's why this amendment is here. This creates additional transparency to improve or creates public representation on the board of directors as well as an accountability measure in which, like I, like I had done with the police, uh, quite a while ago where they have to come and present and answer questions. So, um, I just want to put that out there and I hope people support it. Thank you to the amendment Councillor Amos. Thank you, Mayor Paterson, through you. Um, thank you for Councillor Ridge for reaching out to me and allowing me input and with this amendment. I'm happy to support it. Uh, I want to talk a little bit about, uh, briefly, what Mr. McDonald had brought forward. And he indicated that stronger guardrails need to be put in place for an MSC. And I think this is a foundational piece. This is a piece that, uh, will assist in building those guardrails to ensure that there is transparency and accountability for council to have oversight in a stronger way. So I'm happy to support this. Um. Thank you. Anybody else in the amendment? Councillor Straf. Yeah. I, I can understand this. And that's, that's a probably a good thing. I'm just thinking about the minimum of four members of the public and why that number was chosen. And that doesn't make up the whole board of directors. But whatever the Board of Directors is, it would have this composition you're saying. Just be clear. Your worship. Yes. That's correct. So it's not the entirety of the board, but it's, it's to ensure that those positions exist within the board. So four, is there other committee examples of kind of asking the question Mayor Patterson. Um, yes, I'm just, I'm a little bit concerned about going too far down the rabbit hole at this point, but I think since the amendment does speak to those details, I think they're, it's in play. Well, from a governance perspective, I'm wondering about four members from the public is that what's wrong with two? Like I've been on many provincial boards. That's, I've never seen that. I've never seen four members of a public too would make, uh, from different areas of the community and of the industry, whatever. So I'm just wondering if that makes sense. I'll pitch that to staff. See you, Hurdle. Thank you. And through Mr. Mayor. So, um, part of the work we would be doing through the shareholder declaration would be to lay out what the governance model would be including board composition for council to endorse. Um, to your question Councillor Usteroff, I would say that currently utilities, Kingston has, um, has that many members of the public. So they do have members of the public sitting on their board. So they would have that many members. And I believe that Kings and Niger as well has a minimum of four now on their board. That's good. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else on the amendment? Councillor McLaren. Okay. Cancer shapes. Just to clarify the previous answer, um, about IDRO1 utilities. They're not actually, they're certified public members. They're not just public members. And if I want to go to the CalStar, I think he's referring to regular public members not certified members. So I just want to put that for clarification as to where we're sort of standing here. Um, if staff and maybe Council Ridge could answer that, thank you. Seah Hurdle. Thank you, Anne, through you. And I would invite my colleagues from utilities, Kingston, that are also in attendance, uh, they are members of the public. They are members that, um, do have other functions or other jobs. But they serve as volunteers, um, on these boards. So they are members of the public, yes. Okay. Council Ridge, any final comments on your amendment. No, you're worship. Okay. So we will call the vote, please. Okay. And that carries. So now we're back to the, uh, clause one as amended. Councillor Ridge, you have four minutes and 52 seconds on the clock. Thank you, George. I have a lot of questions. So I'll try to be very quick. Um, through your worship, I just have a couple of questions for staff. The first one is that there's been a proposal in the public as to utilities Kingston being like absorbed into King, uh, the city of Kingston. What difficulties there are obstacles might there be in terms of doing such a thing. Who would like to take that? Mr. Murphy. Through you your worship. If utilities, Kingston absorbed, um, it back into the city of Kingston, it would effectively dismantle the multi - utility model. Um, you would have to look at, uh, what would happen with the utilities Kingston employees, for one, both non - union and union. So there would be, um, negative stuff to consider there. Um, and the other, the other thing that we would need to do is utilities Kingston does currently own and operate a telecom business. Something would have to be done with that business as well. Um, and the other thing is, um, Kingston Hydro Corporation, which is your electric utility. Currently has no employees. Um, it has a Board of Directors accountable to the shareholder every year at the shareholder meeting. And Kingston Hydra, uh, regulated by the interior energy board would have to, uh, basically staff up. It would have to hire, um, a whole bunch of people. Um, in order to continue to operate, maintain and manage the electric utility on behalf of the city of Kingston. So absorbing utilities, Kingston into back into the city of Kingston. Would be a no small endeavour. Thank you. And through you, your worship. Dr. MacDonald had a point about Apple's to apples. Uh, which I think is a really good point in the report, uh, question about, uh, the rate of borrowing for utilities, gangsten would be five points, How do we get to that number and how long would this debt be, you know, like amortized? How long would it take to be paid down. Mr. Murphy. Through a year, your worship. Um, the 5. 25 percent was arrived at through some discussions with, with lenders. Um, that aren't infrastructure, Ontario, um, it is a very conservative number. Um, I believe that, um, that number, uh, basically 20 basis points was added to that number in the financial modelling that I did to be conservative, um, that's how I model things. And, um, just to give some background on the debt, um, Kingston Hydro Corporation has a very similar structure. Um, where it holds the assets liabilities, et cetera. And, um, Kingston Hydro's current average debt rate for third party lenders at the end of 2025 was 3. 82 percent. And the loans taken out in 2025 were for 4. 25 percent. The loan's taken out in that corporation, our staggered with maturity dates. So to mitigate, uh, interest rate renewal risk when they come do. Um, did I answer both questions? I think it may have just answered. All right. Three year your worship. The other question was about the length of the borrowing. Yes. The, the length of the borrowing could be longer than the 30 years under the city model. It could be potentially up to 40 years. And, um. So there would be a probably a mix of 40 year, 20 year, 30 year debt in that, uh, in the MSC corporation. Depending on the assets that are being built and how long those assets are going to last. Thank you. And, uh, with the assets that are being looked for or that are to be renewed or to be replaced, are those the ones that were in the November 2025 asset management plan for utilities, Kingston. Through you, uh, yes, they are. Thank you. Thank you. And three of your worship. So, okay. So I've got a bit more of an idea of what's going on now. Um, and unfortunately your worship, I have slides. If the clerk can please put those up, that would be greatly appreciated. So three of your worship, I think we've already covered over this part, but this is the Ontario regulation that, uh, well, regulates, uh, municipal service corporation. So we can, uh, move forward from this one, please. And this was the table that I had just referenced for assets for replacement from utilities Kingston. As you can see, the total of the two linear and non - linear assets is 1. 091 billion dollars as per the estimate that was approved by utilities Kingston. And I believe by Council at the end of 2025. Next slide, please. Here's the water and wastewater rates. So this is where my next question comes in. Is how do we get this estimation for what the MSC like rate rates will be the projected rate increases? Can someone please break that down for me. Mr. Murphy. Yes, through you. Uh, the difference between the MSC rates and the non - MSC rates have to do with the ability to borrow. Um, so the seven percent down to four percent on the left side of the screen is the ability for pay as you go. Uh, so we're funding the asset management renewal with, uh, with debt as opposed to all up front. And then the, uh, rate increases on the other side where if we do not borrow to do that work. So those are the differences. Thank you very much. So then if we could, uh, move on to the next slide, please. Yes. I unfortunately have done some math, your worship. So when, when it, when it comes down to really for me in the consideration of moving forward with this MSC or not, is looking at the impacts that these effects have as per the report and now with the information that's been supplemented. Thank you very much. So if we go with, you know, option one, we have a 4. 2 percent property tax increase that will be added year over year. For 10 years. That's in addition to the 2. 5 percent property tax that is projected. Is that correct? From staff, please. Miss Foltz. Through you your worship. Um, the 4. 2 is illustrative if the, um, Council decided to keep the water rates, water and wastewater rates at the six percent average versus the nine percent averages. Thank you. So through your worship and that would mean that this is, this is if the city takes on the entirety of, of the debt, uh, without raising rates. Is that correct? Miss Fold. Through your worship. That's correct. Thank you. And finally then, um, through your worship, there would be a corresponding property tax increase for the other option. But it would not be as dramatic as 4. 2 percent year every year, Is that correct? Miss Folt. Through your worship, the other option would not have a property tax impact. Okay, good to know. Thank you. So I'm still going to talk about this though, because I just said it. I'm just going to let's see hurdle. Oh ja hurdle. Sorry. My apologies. Thank you and through you. I apologise. So I just want to be clear that, um, because I you ask a question about the rates. I want to be clear that ultimately no matter which model the city decides to implement, there would be a rate to increase. Because in order to bridge the financial gap for asset management, we can't do that with four percent. So either way, there's going to have to be a rate increase. Your property tax increase that you're referring to of 4. 2 percent assumes a rate, a utility rate increase of 6 percent. If you are looking at a 9 percent utility rate increase to finance the asset management, then the property taxes would be 2. 5 percent. So that's the difference. I just want to make sure we're not painting a picture where there is no utility rate increase in the MSC model. Thank you very much. Uh, and through your worship, I think that it's important that we understand the costs of all the different options that are in front of us. I wanted to highlight this one in particular because it's not just a question of your taxes, you know, the cost of 4. 2 percent being a singular charge every year, which would be 2400 dollars, but it's in fact raising your entire base tax rate. And that difference is 13, 216 dollars or 15, 000 and some in total afterwards. Um, all of these options, frankly, your worship are terrible. Like let's, let's be honest here, right? This is, this is the result of asset management or a lack thereof that has been within this municipality and represented in other municipalities. Um, but it's, it's also unfair to just say that it's a lack of asset management. It's also the assets are expensive. Incredibly expensive. And they're getting more expensive. And so, you know, we've been set with these requirements by the provincial government to develop and approve an asset management plan that's being sent for, for them. And so there is an expectation that the municipality has to move forward with some action at some point. People are asking about timeliness. So I don't think that absorbing, you know, the entirety of the debt or moving forward with a rate increase that is significantly higher. Options within option one, A and B are great. And when I talk to constituents about this and we talk about cost of living, uh, pressures, uh, people, people are, people are terrified. I reached out to the landlords association to ask them if this cost increased would trigger their ability to file an L5 and they sent us correspondent saying yes. Um, so for these cost of, uh, cost of living pressures, three seconds. And what we can do here, I think that we need to at the very least move forward with exploring the creation of an MSC. To keep the model and to keep those rates at a certain level is like, I just can't justify that to people at the door. And I don't want to talk. Like I've, I have elderly constituents who are terrified about this. And so I think it's really important that at the very least we take the next step and we try to be thoughtful about it. Um, but we still have the ability to say no. So thank you. Thank you. Next is Councillor Schnetti. Living through you and I also have an amendment. Okay. If we can get that one up on the script, please. Okay. So you have an amendment move by Castorini. Second by Councillor Toso. The report number 55 clause one from the CAO be amended by adding the following clause. The Council Direct staff to bring a report to administrative policy's committee in Q2 2027 with the proposed draft of the water and wastewater municipal services corporation, shareholder declaration for public consultation. Council Denny, your amendment is on the floor and you can speak to it now. Um, yeah. And through, thank you. It's pretty straightforward. Um, it's just that, you know, we keep hearing that, you know, we want people to be able to give feedback on this. And, um, it's important to, for me to be so that we're transparent and have like, uh, every possible eyes to look at this to see if there is anything that can be changed once the draft comes. Um, if this were to pass here tonight. So I just want to make sure that there is like enough public consultation and openness to what this actually is going to look like if it were to pass here. Um, when it comes back to Council, uh, again, so that's just basically just make sure the public has an opportunity to review everything. Okay. Thank you. Is there any discussion on the amendment. Okay. We will call the. And that's carried. Castertaini, your amendment is passed. You still have four minutes and 53 seconds on the clock. Oh, and thank you. Um, yeah, so I've listened to a lot of, uh, members of the public receive so many emails. And responded to, I think most of them, all the ones I could. And I understand all the fears and. But I also understand that there's a big deficit. Like there's a huge cost to this. So like at this moment, I'm on the fence either way. Um, I'm going to see what else comes out of this to see if something I'm comfortable with or not. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think, I think this is, it's a really big decision. And we have to really think about it. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Straw. Thank you Mayor Patterson. So I understand what my colleague just said. And I kind of feel that way as well, but, um, really, really appreciate, um, all the public input and the letters. And Dr. McDonald, well, great work. And thank you for working on behalf of so many Kingstonians. I'm working so closely with our staff and, uh, UK. I mean, pastor, I have a lot of areas I'm a little bit confused in as well. And I was wondering at different times if we could like explain it to like a 10 year old sometime. What I want to understand is, um, when we heard the comment about, uh, debt versus pay as you go. Uh, and then what about the debt just being increased in this present model that we have. So what don't I do, I think. But what don't I understand Mayor Paterson about. The need or the pressure? Is it are we limited by the debt? What's limiting? What's causing us to go to MSC option? Is it rules and regulations and enforced, we can't have any more debt. What's driving this. Miss Kendi. Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. So, um, a couple things councillorhoff that are driving it. First of all, so we do have a debt limit that the province sets, which basically says that we can't use more than 25 percent of our revenue for debt charges. That is a fairly high number. It puts us in a debt range of somewhere around 1. 2, 1. 3 billion dollars, but that is the limit that the province sets. So that's the first thing that we look at. Um, but then, um, to your point, we also have a strategy that we've had for probably the last 20 years that we work towards here at the city, um, that we would use pay as you go, which basically means cash for our asset management costs as opposed to issuing debt. So save the money, replace the bus with cash. Um, and that we would use debt for either growth related, so brand new assets, as well as potentially larger asset management. And we do still use some, some debt for some of what I would call asset management for our roads, some of the large projects. So that's the other piece that we build in around the pay as you go. Um, and so it's about balancing, having the money in the Capitol Reserve funds through things like our capital levy. Um, to do the pay as you go. So have the cash in the bank for that piece. But then we also use those reserve funds for the debt. So the other piece that we look at is, um, the percentage of those capital costs that's going towards debt, not unlike you would do with your house. How much is going towards a mortgage versus how much do you pay in cash? Um, so that's the other piece that we look at. And we have tried as a financing strategy to keep that that we're not using more than, say, 20 to maybe 25 percent of our, of our capital money towards debt charges so that we still have those other amounts for pay as you go. Okay. Um, thank you for that. Sorry. Oh, see you, Hurdle. Go ahead. Thank you. And through Mr. Mayor. So I just want to add Councillor Woosteroff to the comments made by, um, CFO Kennedy. The city could choose to take on all of the debt. This would bring our debt level to 1. 1 billion dollar by 2036. The provincial ceiling by Den would be around 1. 5 billion. So we would be getting, we're not there, but we're getting closer, definitely. Um, this would also potentially impact our ability to respond to anything that might be on foreseen. Uh, that we have an accounted for. And keep in mind that this amount would get us to a level approved by Council for asset management, but nothing above and beyond that. And we're still in a deficit for municipal asset management. Yes. Thank you for that. And, um. So the question was asked by a presenter about the urgency for this now. And, uh, as much as I was the only one to vote against the official plan pausing it, I might see a little bit different here, but what can you explain to us, is there a particular rush to do this? Or, um, can we, um, with the clock ticking is that causing, um, instability. And what, what's the concern. Mr. Through you, Mr. Mayor, with respect to the water wastewater asset management plans, um. The, um, with the formation of the MSC, there is the potential then to immediately start borrowing and immediately bridge the water asset management gap. Which is approximately 20 million dollars per year. And there's also the ability then to start to reduce the wastewater asset management gap. So from, from utilities, Kingston's perspective, who's operating and managing and maintaining the assets on the city's behalf, um, the sooner we can have the ability for more financing, the sooner we can start to tackle that deficit. Thank you. So I'm just going to pause. I have, I have, um, Mr. Fell and CAO hurdle that also went away in. This fell, I'll go to you next. Thank you very much through you, your worship. And Councillor Ustraha, thank you for the question. Um, I would say it's not so much a matter of urgency, but to ask Council to reflect back, you know, as far back as 2017, when the previous CEO brought a report to Council talking about the, um, importance of sewer separation and investing in asset management in our water wastewater infrastructure. Um, we've been bringing asset management reports to council every year. Uh, you know, for the last 10 years and two years ago when staff, uh, working in combination with the city started to look at the aging infrastructure, we started to look at alternative models and ways to finance asset management and bring it up to speed. So, um, contrary to some of the public dialogue, we, we did some investigation. We brought it to Council. We asked Council if, um, it was worthwhile exploring this model. And this has been, um, developing over two years. It's really about the age of our city, the age of our assets and the timeliness of getting ahead of this. Um, I didn't encourage Council to take a look at some of the auditor generals reports in some of the failures in the city of Calgary and the failure of political decisions to be made about water, waste, water investment. We're not behind the ball. We're trying to get ahead of things here and make sure that we're providing timely and important information to council so that we can make those decisions before we start to see those kind of failures. See you, Hurdle. Thank you. And through Mr. Mayor, the only comment that I will add is that even if council was to, to generally endorse the model tonight, this is not complete. There's still lots of work to do for implementation. So to the point of trying to make sure that we can continue to move this along so that we can start to make the significant investments that need to be made in our water and wastewater. This is why, um, you know, we're, we're proposing to bring the first step, recognising that there will be a minimum of two additional decision points for council. Thank you. That does help. Oh, this thing has really done. I appreciate those answers. And that was one of my questions. Is there an off ramp if we proceed with it tonight? And there is, there's lots of work to be done. So that, um, that, that helps me as well. And so I had one more question. Bear with me for a second. I might have just asked it. So. I guess that's it for now. Thank you Mayor Paterson. Okay. Thank you. Next has council McClure. Thank you. I have some problems with this proposal. And I don't think I can support this as it is. First of all, it strikes me as utilities Kingston is a corporation that is too big to fail. We have 3. 8 billion dollars in assets. And what we're being asked to do now is split it in two. These assets are going to put into another organisation that is also going to be too big to fail. Right now, we are ultimately responsible for all of this. That's what means to have public ownership. By splitting them up, there will be additional costs that we will be responsible for in some way or another, especially if things go bad. And things can go bad. Just recently, you may recall, we had a problem with the taxi commission. There's an example of something that went wrong, even though we had council representation on it. We are increasing the amount of risk by doubling or separating two into two corporations. Amendments that were brought were very good to support. In part, when we're talking about not privatizing, that's great. But the issue is not privatization. We heard from staff that it's impossible even for a judge. The risk and the problem that's been identified by people is financialization. The changing of the values from helping people, from building infrastructure for the community to maximizing revenue so that you can get more debt. That is a problem that hasn't been addressed here yet. The second amendment. That brought in, uh, The Mayor and several councillors in public figures. That's great. That's important. But I recall when I first got elected in 12 years ago that Ketco had this similar structure and they were in trouble. They had governance issues too. It's not enough. It's a good start, which is why I supported it, but it's not going to be enough. The way I see this, it looks like to me, we're asking for a second credit card. Without increasing our revenue. If we're already tight and you get a second credit card, it's party time. Let's cover the pools. That's not exactly the best financial plan for anybody, let alone a corporation. If we were to get in the unlucky happenstance that one of these two big to fail corporations gets bad fiscal management despite the fact of our, our, um, our safeguards and guardrails, we are still ultimately responsible. And it will be a bigger bill. We need more income to justify more debt. Taking on dead without the income is poor fiscal responsibility in my mind. One other thing that I think we're missing here is alternative strategies. Certainly this is one and it might be possible to do it properly. I don't see it in this version. But there are, there is another strategy. It's well known to a lot of people. Increase intensification per unit of land. Simple arithmetic. If you have an acre of land and you put six houses on it, you get tens of thousands of dollars in income tax, or sorry, in property tax. You increase that by two orders of magnitude, 250 units on that same acre of land. You get millions of dollars. In tax revenue, property tax revenue. Build 10 like that. You've got your hundred million in 10 years. That's an alternative strategy that's not being presented here. That we should be comparing to. We're deciding on a strategy, but we only have one choice. Do or not do. I submit that. We should have an option of different strategies. And that's what I'm going to suggest we do. I'm sure that this will come back to us, but the honest thing is we need to intensify greatly and deeply. I know that the Sydney District Association has suggested high intensity student housing on the very edges of Queens. This is one way to do it through private partnerships, private public partnerships, because then we get the tax revenue from it. I offered this Council at 250 unit apartment building that would generate millions of dollars in perpetuity in taxes and a hundred million dollar investment It was turned down. So I think that must not be turned down. We need something else because this strikes me as bad fiscal management. If you are going to come back, if this passes and you come back with, uh, better shareholder agreement, I hope that you will also come back with. A plan to prevent financialization. And to increase income. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Next is Council Ramos. Thank you, Mr. Patterson. Through you, uh, I have a number of questions for staff as well. Can Steph, please reiterate what our current debt load is and where we are at in the self - imposed cap that we have. Miss Kendi. Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so currently we have about, uh, with all of our approved debt, including what's not yet issued about 475 million dollars. So we're fairly close to our 500 million dollar cap at this point. Okay. So 25 million is what we have left. We have an asset management issue. If you look at centre 70, if you look at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, if you look at the Memorial Centre, all of those are severely aging infrastructure issues that we are now dealing with. And 25 million dollars is not going to do it. Recently, we've had InVista. Uh, breakdown on us. And that's a newer facility. And we're still struggling to fix that obviously, but, uh, full credit to the staff, they, they scrambled and moved forward to get it done. We have recently bought the Lemoine Point farm. How much debt did we issue for that. Miss Four. Through your worship. Just over 12 million dollars. And that went towards the 475 million that we are currently at correct. Through your worship, that's correct. Okay. So we're hitting a severe gap here of, uh, of what we're trying to do in regards to asset management. Another example. When was slush puppy plays built and do we still have a loan for the and how much is left on the loan and when will the loan be repaid. Miss Kennedy. I'll try that just based on memory. So we would have taken out the loan on slush puppyplace probably around 2008, 2009. Um, it would have been a 30 year loan. So can do the math in my head. But 23, yep. Okay. Um, and the total that we took out, you recall that. One I don't have right off the top of my head. Fair enough. Sufficient to say we don't have a paid off. And we still have a waste to go. This is my concern is that we have all of these aging assets. And it takes a long time to pay these facilities off. What is our current asset allocation deficit. Towards our infrastructure? And what is our current asset allocation deficit for water wastewater. Miss Kennedy. Thank you through Mr. Mayor. So for the municipal assets, um, based on the Council Endor Service Level for our asset management plan, um, was 128 million dollars that we would need annually We have just under a hundred million in our plans now. So we have a deficit of about 28 million dollars on the municipal. On the water and wastewater, it's about a hundred million dollars a year gap. And we have 25 million dollars left. So I'm looking at my economics professor and he's shaking his head the same way I am. It's not working. So 40 percent of our 475 million is in water wastewater debt. Is that correct? Through you, Mr. Mayor, yes, that's correct. Okay. So the numbers are the numbers are not good either way. And I reiterate what Councillor Ridge has said. This is no, I'll just pause for a minute. I think CO Herd wanted to just add one thing. It'll come right back to you. I apologise and thank you and through you, Mr. Mayor. So I just want to add that, um, it is accurate that Council is approved an investment of about 120 million dollars per year in asset management. And we currently have a bet 100 million. But that doesn't maintain the current level of service. So I want to be clear about that. That means a reduction in level of service in order to maintain the existing level of service. We are looking at about 282 million dollars per year investment required. And we're at 100 million right now. That's a major gap. Thank you CORDEL. I was a more good news. Question for CFO Kennedy. What is the city's current debt to revenue ratio with the existing model. Miss Kendi. Through you, Mr. Mayor, so our current debt to revenue is about 7. 3 percent. Okay. If we move to an MSC model. Would be the cities debt to revenue ratio then. Through you, Mr. Mayor, would we down to about 5. 6 percent? So roughly a 1. 7 percent point drop. Which is approximately 23 percent. Of the city debt to revenue ratio. That's a huge drop. That gives the city maneuverability. It gives the city the ability to handle unforeseen circumstantist and plan items out. Right now we are, we are locked. In a debt spiral. With lack of income coming in. And we need to ensure that we have the right mechanisms in place. The MSC model fully agree. I am a soft yes, because I've been a staff as well aware of this. And my fellow colleagues have heard me ask a number of hard questions of staff. I see no other avenues right now. So if we're going down the MSC model, which is why I reiterated earlier, we need strong guardrails in place. We need something that keeps everything accountable. And a hundred percent transparent for us as counsel and for public to be aware of it. And to move forward so that one, the 28 million dollar deficit per year of infrastructure in yes CAR hurdle. I recognise that we're not even close to what we should be managing there. And the hundred million dollar debt of what is needed for water and wastewater. We are so far behind as a city. It is crushing us in many ways. And we need to further explore what this MSN can do to assist in both avenues. So moving tentatively forward, I'm okay to support this. Knowing, as Councillor Ustraroff has said, knowing that we still have two self - imposed guardrail votes that we can hit the off - ramp. But this is a crushing mechanism. For us as a city and as current capacity. We're just, we can't keep up. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Councillor Shapes. Thank you. Received a lot of correspondence. I think we all did on this. And some of them which was concerning because the information seemed to be incorrect. So I want to ask some of them here today. We're being told or accused of, we're privatizing our water wastewater under bill 60. So would someone be able to confirm if that's the avenue we're taking and that's our intent. Ms. Morley. Thank you. And through your worship that proposed municipal services corporation would be established under the municipal act, which as I stated earlier expressly prohibits, uh, water, waste water forces from being privately owned or controlled. Are there other examples of other municipalities using the municipal act great MSCs and do we know if they're actually working. COP. Thank you. And through Mr. Mayor, there are definitely a couple that I can think of and I know some of them are currently, um, reviewing this as an option. Um, in Israel is one that has had an MSC actually for quite some time for their water and wastewater. And to my knowledge and my conversation with their CAO that seems to be working, um, quite well. The other one that recently implemented an MSC is just our neighbours, the county of Frontknack, just north of us. Okay. Thank you. So Pierce, it is working in other municipalities. So those are the models we can work on. Um. The other issue is, is it not my understanding that regional appeal, I'm not sure the full reason. If the work moving forward or worked, the water wastewater wasn't working properly. But what happened to their water wastewater. So you heard it. Thank you. And through Mr. Mayor, so I can't comment on the details of their operation. What I can say is that, um, they were operated under a municipal model. So, uh, unlike the city of Kingston, they didn't have a separate organisation operating overseeing water and wastewater on their behalf. So that was a municipal service. And the province did make a decision to actually create a municipal corporation for the water and wastewater and for the region of peel. But I do not have more details in that. Okay. So there is the possibility of province stepping in, but under the municipal act less likely. So the PEAL region basically has no control over their water wastewater at the current time. It was brought up, um, we have utilities Kingston. Why can't they do the same things as an MSN. Are there restrictions that utilities Kingston have that they can't do what we're trying to accomplish through an MSN. Mr. Murphy. Through you your worship. Yes. So, uh, under the most, if not all borrowing, um, financing agreements borrowings need to be attached to asset ownership and revenue streams. And utilities Kingston operates, manages, and maintains the assets currently on behalf of the Corporation of the city of Kingston who owns the assets and has the debt on its books. So utilities Kingston is unable to borrow for another corporations assets. Okay. So that answers that question. Um, it was brought up of, maybe we should intensify, uh, have apartment buildings. And I've been planning for four years and we've been approving them. Um, but I believe that are we relying on developers to give us a tax base when we need money sorted now. Um, I believe that there's been a bit of a slowdown as well. So would someone be able to confirm that is building is actually decreased. So you're hurdle. Thank you. And through Mr Mayor. So, um, first of all, the additional property taxes that, that we get from, um, new development, uh, the majority of it will be funneled through our operating budget. Um, even if we decided to redirect all of those funds to try to bridge the asset management gap, um, unless we got an additional hundred million dollars per year in, in property taxes, we wouldn't be able to tackle that through development only. The other thing that I would add is of course, of course, wit growth as council's very well aware, um, typically it will require additional investment in infrastructure to ensure that the infrastructure can handle the growth as well. So what we're talking about right now is strictly asset and management and replacement. Um, to your point, yes, there have been, you know, there have been still construction happening in the city, but we have notice a slowdown in new start of construction. Like everywhere else in Ontario and Canada right now. Okay. Thank you. So from what I'm hearing is a testification will not allow us to collect a number of revenue that we need. There's also been some changes to development charges. Uh, recently by the province, which I wouldn't be able to explain those to us, please. Um, Miss Kennedy. Thank you to you, Mr. Mayor. So yes, we have had a number of recent changes to the development charges regime. First of all, there's been some deferral, which has hit has been a large impact to us. Um, so exemption payments, deferral of payments, um, as we reported to Council on our, for the 2025 development charge reserve fund, um, we had exemption payments that the taxpayer had to pay back into the fund of about just over four million dollars. And then we had, uh, deferral payments of about 13 million dollars. So eventually going to get those money, um, but they are deferred from the majority of them are deferred from building permit stage to occupancy permit stage. Jay, thank you. And within the correspondence, we've received two. There's fear out there that if we go proceed with this MSE that somehow we're also going to be privatizing or selling off assets from Kingston Hydro. Is that a risk in this. Mr. Murphy. No, there's, uh, no risk in that whatsoever. I've also heard the risk if we do move forward with this sort of privatization that there's going to be another Walkerton because we won't have the oversight in how the operations are and the quality of water. Could you address that as well. Mr. Murphy. Through you, Mr. Mayor. The operating agreement, uh, with utilities Kingston, um, is currently in place with the Corporation of the city of Kingston. It is anticipated that the operating agreement would then be, uh, in place with the MSC. And utilities Kingston would be as the operating authority and the licensed operator. Um, through accreditation annual reaffirmation of accreditation would continue to do exactly what it does today. Thank you. So our water is safe. Um, and have I heard correctly earlier, um, we are not making the final decision tonight. We are just deciding if we're moving forward with this and getting more information to see if we will make a vital decision. And if I may ask, will it be further public consultation in this process? See you, Hurdle. Thank you. And through you, Mr. Mayor. So, um, you're correct. Um, Councillor Shaves that there would be other decision point. One would be the shareholder declaration that we need to come back to Council and then Council ultimately would also need to make a decision in terms of transfer of assets. Um, so I think, you know, what we heard tonight and definitely would be part of the next steps would be to bring back information to committee and for dialogue around the shareholder declaration. So we would expect that there would be public input into that process. Thank you. And on that note, I'm going to say considering we are not making a final decision tonight. We are moving forward. There's still several steps we have to make. And there's going to be public engagement. Further. I will support this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. It is 934. Ordinarily I try to take a break in between files, but I still think we've got a bit of a ways to go on this one. So, uh, I'm going to call a 10 minute break and we will reconvene at 944. See you in 10 minutes. Okay folks, it is 945, so I'm going to call to order. I'm going to ask if councillors can please grab their seats. Okay, so we are still on clause 1 of report number 55. The next person the Speaker's List is Councillor Glenn. Councillor Glenn, go ahead. Thank you and through you. So without a doubt, we know the issue here is that we are going to have to take on more debt. And the question is, how, what form does this look like. So I do have a few comments that I will make in questions that I'm going to ask. But I have an amendment. Surprise. So if we can put that up, please. Okay. Move it by Councillor Glenn, seconded by Canceric that report number 55, Clause 1 from the CAO recommend be amended in clause 1 by striking the word endorse and replacing with explore. Okay. So that amendment has been moved in secuted, Councillor Glenn. You have the floor. So thank you for that. What I've heard this evening from my colleagues and even from CEO fell is that we're interested in exploring. So I've heard Councillor Ridge used the word. I've heard Councillor Amos used the word. But what concerns constituents is that we endorse this tonight or not. Endorsed means that we accept it. And we haven't got to that phase yet. The other portion of this recommendation, as well as the amendments, will provide us with the information to, I think, move forward and make a better decision. We've already got an amendment to delay this. We've already got amendments to make sure that this is not a privatization. So what I'm asking is to replace this word so that we're very clear that what we're doing right now is exploring and that we will not endorse until we come back with that other information and give time for the public to actually have a look at that. There are some significant questions that remain to be answered in their minds. And I think it's critically important that we give the time for that. And I'll leave it there. Okay. Deputy Mayor, would you take the chair? I have the chair. I recognise you. Okay. My concern with this amendment. Is that it basically is exactly the direction that we gave to staff previously. To explore. Go to the research. Report back to Council. So what I don't understand is, are we asking staff to go and do that research over again? Um, I'm just, I guess I'm just not sure. What we're trying to do here. And so maybe what I'll do is, um, through you, Deputy Mayor, if I could ask staff, how would staff interpret if we were to change endorse to explore? How does that change the path forward vis - a - vis what we have in front of us right now? CORDEL. Thank you through Deputy Mayor. Um, so council did provide us with a direction in 2025. We have been working on exploring this model, which is why we have the report in front of you tonight. Um, if we're asked to explore again, I'm not sure how different. I quite frankly, I think from a staff perspective, unless Council was very specific on what other information they are seeking, Count City staff would just bring most likely the same information at a later time. Um, because we're, we're unsure at this point. The reason why we structured this project in different phases was to give Council the ability to make decisions at different points in time. To have off ramps as, I think, Councillor Workster off referred to. If the intent is to ask staff to do all the detail work around shareholder agreement around an asset transfer, then there will be one decision point with no other off ramp. Um, which we can do, but that, that does change the scope of the work. Mayor Paterson. Thank you. Okay. So, so here's the way I see it. What we have tonight is a decision point based on the information that is in front of us. Council has asked some very good questions. We've gotten a lot of information. And in good faith, we make a decision tonight. We've already heard that that is the new one to be subject to further information that's going to come down later on. That's where you get those different decision points. So in my view, I would encourage counsel not to support this amendment. Let's, let's make a decision tonight. Based on what's in front of us to take that next step, make it clear that this is the direction we're moving understanding, as it's been said, that there's always a chance that we may for future council. They change their mind if different information comes forward. Thank you very much. I return the chair. Anybody else on the amendment. Councillor, you have the last word. So I'm going to beg to differ on this because the second clause actually gives direction to staff. And that's to come back with the stakeholder declaration, which will contain a significant amount of information and be able to provide that. To us and to the members of the public. But endorsement right now tonight means that we are saying, yes, we're okay with a municipal services corporation. Sure. There's an off ramp, but we're also putting our faith in the fact that we might have a, you know, Council that's going to be able to wrap their heads around this, when they come back in. We don't know who's going to be around the table. So again, we're putting this decision onto a new council. You know, with members who may not be able to, uh, wrap their heads around. This is quickly as we'd like. I hope they would be. But the reality is we're, we're accepting this. And they won't have been privy necessarily to this discussion. Think about when we first walked into these roles and the things that came out of the blue at us. So I think that the word change makes perfect sense. You're still going to get back the same kinds of information. Um, but right now what we're saying is we're okay with it. Go ahead. Instead of saying we're still exploring and every, the multiple people around this table that said explore. Well, then let's explore. If that's what we're really doing. But if you're endorsing, then be honest and say that what you're doing is endorsing this and you're okay with it. Because that's what has come out in conversation. So, um, I hope that you'll give consideration to changing the wording. I think it would make all the difference in terms of how we move forward and to the comfort of the constituents who have raised their concerns with us. Okay. Thank you. So with that, we will call the vote on the amendment. And that loses by a vote of five to seven. Councillor Ridge McLaren in the minority. Councillor Glenn, you still have the floor, uh, for four minutes and 55 seconds. Ooh, it was quick. Okay. So I'm going to ask a couple of questions that relate to the finance piece. So this is already been said, um, my apologies, but the confusion, all this over this. So can someone please explain how the municipal services corporation can borrow at a higher rate. And then still end up saving money? Cause I think that's one of the questions fundamentally people would like to understand. Mr. Murphy. Through you, your worship. So the borrowing rate combined with the ability to extend the repayment terms. Um, allows for, at the end of the 10 year period in the model, um, an additional, uh, 10 million dollars available. So it all has to do with not just the rate, but the entire terms of the financing. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, another question that was brought up was how was the 500 million dollar debt cap decided. Miss Kennedy. Thank you through you, Mr. Bayer. Um, so the few things that went into that back when we set that up a few years ago, um, certainly we looked at, um, The Capitol Reserve funds and our ability to grow those so that we had the funds needed for the pay as you go. Um, and as I mentioned earlier, we were looking at trying to cap the capital reserve fund expenditures for debt around that 20 to maybe 22, 23 percent mark. So that was the first piece as well as, as well as that strategy for, for using pay as you go for the asset management, we also looked at having some built - in capacity for some of our unexpected, unforeseen pressures. We looked at interest rate risk. So we didn't want to be tied up with too much debt or planned debt where potentially interest rates would go up. So there was some of those pieces. One of the other things that we looked at, um, that we haven't talked about tonight is, um, our credit rating, uh, and some of the indicators that standard impors uses, um, and one of the things that they do look at is our total debt as a percentage of our total revenues. And the adjustments they make, uh, with respect to those revenues. Um, but it is one of the critical indicators that we discuss with them every year. Um, and that 500 aligns with sort of their, their acceptable range, um, for that particular one. Um, and then I think the discussion around that as well, just, uh, if they didn't like what we had done in our credit rating went down, what would the impact of that be? And I don't think that would be an impact necessarily on the rates because we are boring through infrastructure, Ontario. Um, but certainly the other reputational risk around that. If it's on the front page of the paper that our credit rating has gone down, that starts to ask questions and certainly with respect to business and investor confidence, vendor confidence, contractor confidence, um, any kind of private sector investment. Um, so those are all things that we're sort of built into to come up with what that number was. Um, it was around a range at one point. And then as we, we increase it by, I think it's two and a half percent each year. And so we sort of hit up to that 500 million within that range. Okay. So following up on what you said though. How do they base their criteria? So you've talked about standards and pores. We've talked about our lenders. How do they make these determinations on what the criteria are? And you'll have to forgive me. I work in a world where when we assess physical risk, we know that there's a tipping point. We know that there's an integrity break in what we're doing. So where is this sort of research behind the criteria that standards and poor and the lenders set, you know, in terms of determining risk so that we understand that better. Because I think that's one of the crucial things that, that I keep hearing is who says and why. So could you explain that a little more fully. Thank you, three, you, Mr. Mayor. So the standard impuras process is a comprehensive process. I believe they have something like 11 different categories that they evaluate us on. Um, and one of those categories actually is, uh, the municipal environment as a whole, not just the city of Kingston. So, um, and Council Rall, our credit rating went up partway through the year about four or five years ago now. That was when they actually increased the rating around municipal government as a whole, um, I think it was actually during the pandemic that that happened. So there's a number of different things that they use. But I would say probably, um, the most significant ones when we're talking about debt levels, um, they do look at our ability to repay the debt. So they do look at our, um, uh, strategies around our capital reserve funds. And so they'll look at the total debt as a percentage of revenue. They'll look at our, uh, debt charges as a percentage of our revenue, similar to what the province sets. Um, they also look at a lot of our, um, economy, the local economy and some of what's happening with that as well. So, um, a number of things councillor that go into it. There's a lot of, I would say judgment as well within it. Um, they interview staff. They look at a lot of, uh, our documentation, um, they look at all of our budget process. They look at how council approves budgets and what the input is from Council. They ask a lot about our staffing and our skill sets. So, um, just a broad, broad variety of input into what that rating is. Okay. Thank you. Um, I guess it leaves me concerned again, because what we're talking about is assessing risk and what I heard was there's a lot of judgment in this. There's not a clear distinct research base behind this, which is what I'm looking for when I consider how do we evaluate risk? How do we know when something is, is at a level that's unacceptable. So I struggle with, with that piece, um, anyways, I'm going to leave the questions there for the time being, uh, but I think it's important that as we move forward, we're clearer with that, that it's not some mystery how the risk has been evaluated because that's one of the things that, uh, I think we heard this evening that it is something of a mystery, how, uh, how our reputational risk is actually assessed. What does that mean. Okay. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak? Councillor Sank. Thank you, your worship through you. I have two questions to staff. And one of it is, um, how much will it cost, um, sultant, to continue on, right? To write the surface level agreement. And we saw in the report that the consultant would actually have to, you know, do the entire implementation. If the MSC model is selected tonight. See you, Hurdle. Thank you. And through, I also encourage my colleagues from utilities Kingston to jump in. But the intent would be to cover cost of any external support to help draft these shareholder declaration through the existing utilities Kingston budget. Okay. Thank you. And that would affect the water rates, would it? So you hurdle. Thank you. And through you, Noah would not councilk. Council has already approved the rates. Those rates would not change. Uh, it would be a matter of utilising existing funds. Um, that are within the budget. Okay. Thank you. And, um, the last question is, um, the governance costs, like, he'll cost money with an MSC, you know, to set up this model. We're going to be paying the new MSC board and probably some legal costs in there. And also, um, you know, for the governance model, there's going to like with the committee, you have to have staff to do the minutes action items. That sort of administration thing. I just wondered how much governness costs would be. Mr. Burrfi. Through your worship. The governance costs additional governance costs, including audit fees for the separate corporation on an annual basis. We're estimated at 116, 000 per year. Okay. Thank you. Um, I know that councillor saves was talking about comparators. And, um, yeah, the comparators of other cities, well, not really cities. If we're the largest city going forward, like peel region, Brampton, Mississauga, we can't really compare ourselves to that. They're doing their MSC through a different act, right? Enact that was, um, 2025 act. We're looking at the municipal act. But for the MSCs that are here right now, like Innisville, they have a population of 43, 000. They became, um, in a services MSC back in 2016, which was a very different environment than what we're setting up our MFC for Kingston is three times larger, um, front and that county, like they're a county or a Midonte's accounte and Lemington Kingsville Essex, um, population 70, 000 with all of them. And so I would feel a lot better if we had one of our true comparators like Guelph Sudbury, Peterborough, you know, London, Hamilton. If they were doing it, um, I don't know if everyone saw it, but Chadham Kent, they have a population of 113, 000. It's a municipality like Kingston. And they also went through the KPMG study having the report, you know, having the consultants there. But they determined that, um, it was too risky and that there were too many unknowns and no other significant Ontario municipality has gone through this route. And so it really makes me unsure. Um, on CBC radio this morning, they were talking about AI, but they gave a quote that was similar to what we're going through. People move at the pace of trust and someone sent us an email this morning about trust, saying that they think that the trust right now in Kingston is at a low point and that this is, this is really fast for everybody to understand, um, what we're being asked to do with this MSC looking at this huge report that we all just, the public, I'll just God on Thursday and the options involved. And here we are tonight doing something that, um, staff we're seeing is not risky, but the public is saying to us, this could be very risky. And it just makes me, uh, worried, uneasy, um, I know when we originally talked about this MSC, we talked about not just for water, but also for housing perhaps, like affordable housing. And also an airport. And prior to Thursday, getting this report, I was hoping to support an MSC for housing to, as a test to see how this would go through, right? Like to see, you know, what we can learn from, but that's not what's before us. It's water or nothing. And again, this just makes me, um, uneasy, uh, I don't know. I just don't have a good feeling. I want to thank the public for all of their correspondence during this very short period of time. And what our delegations we're saying tonight I can find my notes is that going forward with this MSC, you know, Council and MSC is that much further removed from Council. Council will be losing control of how much money is being borrowed from who, like what private lenders perhaps. And for what the money is going to be used for. And, um, yeah, I just, I just think, it's just uneasy plus the 70 percent of people from a couple of months ago with the public consultation we did, that are also uneasy because they didn't support this. Thank you. Thank you Councillor. Uh, next is Deputy Murray Stephen. Thank you Mayor Paterson. Um, I just want to confirm something because I just heard Councillor OSanic say something about, um, losing control of the Borrowing, but my understanding was that with the shareholders agreement, that would later come back to Council. We would be able to set a borrowing limit. Can staff confirm that. So you hurdle. Thank you. And through you, Mr. Mayor. Yes. Uh, that's correct. Deputy Mayor is that through the shareholder declaration council would have the ability to set limits for the boring of the MSC. Okay. Thank you. Um, three, Mr. Mayor, uh, Councillor Oesterhoff hours ago, it seems, um, commented that he wished someone could explain it like you would talk to a 10 year old. And as the elementary teacher around the horseshoe, I was thinking, you know, if anyone can do it, it's me. And I don't think I can. Because it is so complicated. The context, the nuance, the finances, the things that are just theoretical because they're actually happening on paper and it's not actually going to affect the end user necessarily. We'll talk about user rates and taxes and all that. But the best I could come up with is city assets are aging. We have to fix them. It's expensive to fix them. We don't have enough money. So we have to borrow money. And MSC is a tool we can use to borrow money. And then we pay it back over time. Those of us using the resource. And I know CFO Kennedy has talked to us countless times about how when the city uses debt, it is to pay for things that future residents will be using. We can't use it for operations. We use it for infrastructure, right? Capital assets. So, um, I have no more questions to ask. I think Council's done an incredible job of being curious and looking, you know, really carefully at this. And I could not explain this clearly to a 10 year old. So, you know, if people are feeling confused, I've got it in my head now. I understand it, but I can't necessarily explain it. And as a teacher, you know you deeply understand something when you can explain it well. So to staff who've been able to explain this, so again, well, it's still confusing even when you get it. Um, so I just want to say, you know, this has been an interesting discussion. Really appreciate the thought from everyone around the horseshoe. Thank you. Thank you. I think everyone has spoken to this. I think. So Deputy, would you take the chair. I would love to. I'll start your timer. Thank you. I will be, I will be very quick because I think there's been a lot of good comments, uh, around the table on this. Lots of good questions, lots of good feedback from the public. I think I just like to say a couple of things. Number one, the association of municipalities in Ontario is not against MSCs. I know this because I have served on the board of this organisation for a number of years. They are actively encouraging municipalities to look at this model with caveats. Many of the caveats that we're talking about tonight. And you know why? Because guess what? Kingston is not the only city in the province that is trying to figure out how to deal with the financial challenges in front of us. So there are lots of other cities that are actually exploring this right now. Now some cities are in different situations, especially cities that are often comparators, but might be like in a regional two - tier environment. Obviously things get complicated for them. So certainly in my conversations with my counterparts in The BIC City Mayors Caucus, the lots of discussion, lots of interest. And everybody is doing what we're doing right now. I think that this is the brighter approach. We are cautiously endorsing based on the information that we have. If the information changes, we can absolutely change direction here. The other piece I just want to say. Is that as mayor, one of my other roles is I am the chair of Kingston Hydro Corporation. Do you know the Kingston Hydro Corporation has pretty much exactly the same setup as an MSC? Burrow's money from private lenders. Invests in capital. Make sure that our electricity distribution works in the city. You know what? Electricity distribution is really important. Just like water distribution and wastewater is really, really important. And you know what? The system works well. It's been in place for years. It works well. There's governance. There's accountability to Council. So we are not talking about something that is so completely without precedent here. It can work. Obviously we need to get the details right. I completely agree with that. And that's exactly why we're taking a measured step by taking a step forward to say, you know what? Cost of living is the number one concern we're hearing from people. This is about addressing that and trying to take some of that cost burden off of taxpayers. That alone is enough reason to move forward with this. So thank you. I appreciate the debate. Look forward to seeing what the next steps are. Thank you. I returned the chair. Thank you. Okay. So with that, we will call the vote on clause one as amendment. That carries by a vote of eight to four Councillor Osanic Glenn McLaren and shenani opposed. Okay. So we are going to continue on in our agenda. It is 10 12. We still have a lot of ground to cover. Um, I'm a firm believer that Council Meeting should start and end in the same day. Uh, so if I do not think that we are going to be able to get this done by midnight, um, I'm going to give until about 11 o'clock at that point. If we're not going to be able to beat on my midnight, I'm going to recess and reconvene it 5 p. m. tomorrow. Okay. So just throwing that up there. Okay. So with that, um, clause two. Integrated care hub 2026, 27 funding and updates on Council's May 5th, 2026 motion on consumption treatment services sites. Any discussion Councillor McLaren. Thank you. Earlier today I circulated some concerns I had with Direction 4. Everything else here seems okay. But Direction 4, which came out of committee back on May 4th. Was intended to address. Intractable problems that we have with homelessness and addiction services in Kingston. We've been throwing money at this for many years. And the situation has gotten worse. This to me is a signal that the current Institutions that we have serving this population are not able to solve the problems that we have here. And so we need a new plan. And you suggestion. And that I believe is why this particular clause in that committee report came out. As you know, recently I went to Finland and saw how they did things. Their homelessness rate. They're a mental health. Problems rate. Their addictions rates are going down. From a very high position. The way they did it was by listening to people who are on the front lines doing things of their own free will based on their community mindedness, volunteers. They would take them. They would help them. And scale them up when they were working. Duplicated if they needed to. And this process has worked in Finland. Direction four. I believe has missed. The opportunity here. It's proposing, among other things, the big one that really struck me is that they're going to disperse the initial amount of money two weeks before the Integrated, before the, um, CTS closes. Two weeks to set up a new program. By the required. Technology and the required gear train people. On board them. Is almost impossible even for a small nimble organisation. But it's that nimbleness that we are trying to get and benefit from. The city is a big corporation with many departments. They work on a model that is commonly called plan and execute. It works very well for known problems. Such as HR, such as snow ploughing, such as parks and recreation. But with intractable problems, new problems that are shown not to be working or not to be improving with more money thrown at them. We need alternatives. And that's why in the finished model, we look to people who are doing good work, who have identified gaps. And try to fix them. And then we help them. There were some principles that helped they make this possible. And it's critically important that minds, mental maps, mental. Ideas have to change. In the corporate mindset, in the bureaucratic mindset, it's plan and execute. In the entrepreneurial mindset in the social entrepreneurial mindset. It's prototype and pivot. Learn as you go. That is the source of Finland's ability to find unique solutions that work. And the intent, when we, when I voted in favor of in that motion on May 3rd, which is now described as Direction 4 was too enable that entrepreneurial spirit and have the city work with them. Work with them to find new ways of doing things. Find things that we can't imagine today based on what we have been doing in the past. Because what we have been doing in the past may have worked to a certain degree, but the problems are getting bigger. And it's there. In that, in that recognition that the problems are getting worse. Despite the fact that we're sending more money. Like this happens. So I'd like to move an amendment, please. And, uh, staff could put it up there. Okay. And if I may have a second, or please. Okay. So this is moved by Councillor McLaren. The report number 55, clause two from the CAO be amended to add the following as the final operative clause. That with respect to Direction Four, Pilot Project Funding, a report 26 - 100 Councillor Direct Statute administer, the pilot project funding on the following principles and to report the revised framework accordingly. Number one, servant not gatekeeper staff act as facilitators and supports to participate in community groups, helping them come into compliance over time rather than barrett rearing, requiring full compliance as a precondition of funding. Number two, benefit of the Dit Group's already working on these issues are presumed to have identified real gaps to their frontline experience that are not required to justify the existence of those gaps or to accept gaps defined for them by other institutions. Prototype and pivot, not plan and execute. No detailed service level agreement is required in advance pilots or evaluated during and after delivery on whether they helped people and reduced cost with adaptation and even unsuccessful attempts accepted as part of the learning. Number four, Direct Engagement in place of pre - awarded adjudication staff engaged directly and immediately with groups already developing proposals rather than rooting Selection through a third party's arms length award committee that reproduces the plan and execute model this direction was meant to move beyond. Number five, speed and enabling support, stuff act with urgency to funded enable groups, including funding required training such as first aid and arranging registration before early September and structuring disbursement, advancements or milestones with clearing, time accounted for so that funds are usable and groups are operational before thee. Can I just see the end. Is there anything after that? Okay, just one second. Mr. Mayor, I can see it on my screen if you want me to tell you the last three words. Oh, sure. Whatever operational before the September 30th closure? Fantastic. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, so first, is there a seconder. Second of my Councillor Sanek. Okay, Councillor McLaren, I will restart your time. You can speak to the amendment. Thank you. I deliberately put the word principles here. Because as a principal, it's not meant to be operational, prescriptive. It is meant to be descriptive. The idea here and all the extra words there with in addition to these principles are meant to be helpful in changing the mental models. That are required to evaluate this, to make it happen. If you stay with the plan and execute mindset on this, it's not going to work. That mindset is the type of mindset that made it so that two weeks is enough to set up a pilot project. That's nearly impossible for anybody. I've put here examples of what it means. These are principles that I'm hoping staff will take as principles, not as cold and hard direction. Take the principle. As the guideline. The point is that we want to consider new ways of finding new solutions. It's been done before in Finland. And I'm suggesting that it can be done here. And I believe we will be pleasantly surprised if we work with these groups that are currently doing work. So servant, not gatekeeper, one of the things I've heard a lot of is that there seems to be an adversarial relationship between the city and many of these groups. We need to change the mental model from gatekeeper to servant. Another thing that I've heard is that they are not trusted. And that when you're not trusted, it tends to return back on you. So I'm trying to change and break that system and suggest that let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Prototype and pivot. This is the entrepreneurial mindset. Embrace it just for these pilot projects. We may be very surprised about the benefits that come out of it. And it's important that you engage with them now. Do not cut them out. The original motion had consult with them from, and I probably should have put in the extra word from the very beginning. Because the idea of working with entrepreneurs, and especially social entrepreneurs, is that you both together walk this parallel path. And learn together, discover together. There are expertise on both sides. But if they work together on this as opposed to, um, distrusting each other, you will get much better results. Speed and enabling process, we have. Only two weeks in this proposed way to get everything up and running. If you start now working with these groups, you have a lot more time. And you will get a lot more clarity. I'm speaking to staff here. You'll get a lot more clarity on what they see that you may not. And that's all I'm asking here is to a small change in the mindset. From a bureaucratic plan and execute to a more entrepreneurial test and pivot. And I hope that you will consider that this is a pilot project that we are setting up pilot projects here that could generate great ideas that we can then scale up or duplicate. But if we don't try, we will still be doing the same thing over again. And the problems will get worse. This is an attempt to get out of the service record that we're in. And I hope you will consider giving it a try. Okay. Thank you. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak to the amendment? Uh, Denver Stephen. Thank you Mayor Patterson. We just had a very lengthy discussion about fiscal accountability and transparency. And when I look at this, what I'm seeing is giving money, public money. To groups with no strings attached. That's what I'm hearing. And if that's private money, great. Go for it. Um, I'm not okay using public money in that way. So I can't support this amendment. Thank you. Anybody else on the amendment. Councillor Street. Yeah. Thanks Mayor Paterson. Um, I don't see what my colleague just said there. I think we still, um, I want to thank Councillor McLaren for this. Um, he's sharing something that's really important that he's learned. Um, and, um, I've gone through it a couple of times. We had a phone call today at Lenks and listening to it. I think that this is just, um, not just, but is an important document of reflection and of, um. Looking at it through a different lens kind of. And I will say that I don't think, um, we aren't doing some of these. I think we actually do a lot of things really, really well. But, um, I think it's refreshing to, um, to present, um, a bit of a new vision of how we can enhance the work of our partner organisations. This is what I see with it, uh, Councillor McLaren. And so when we go through it slow enough, where we could use the word servant, um, that which means that we can perhaps as a city come alongside is what I wrote here as Jeff was talking. And that maybe we can ask more of how we, um, can be as a city, uh, more supportive. I guess what I heard was there was a concern that, um, are the partner organisations becoming weary or tired or feeling squeezed for always complying at the right time and how we've done it for the doctors, you know, when we, when we, uh, we decided to come alongside them by helping with administrative set up or, you know, how can we help them better to be successful? Because we, we have a lot of, our success is a lot because we have excellent partner organisations. So I just want to say that I think this can make sense if we give it an opportunity. And I also want to make it clear and to throw our staff that we do a lot of things really, really well. And, uh, but the finished model does give us a cause for pause to say, can we come closer and be a greater support without, because sometimes regulatory controls are cramping. You know, we demand this and that. And we don't want to smother, um, the, um, the good work that can be done. And maybe we need to look at new ideas. So I wrote down listen better, ask how we can help, uh, provide administrative support come alongside is what I'm reading from this. And I think that, uh, I don't think it's asking to be irresponsible with funds. That's not it at all. Um, I think it's just, maybe we need to have a fresh look so that we allow others to be the very best that they can be at what they're really good at. Thank you. Okay. Is there anybody else Councillor Glenn. Okay. Thank you. I just want to get a point of clarification from staff after reading through this. So hearing, you know, the concern expressed about, um, making sure that we're accountable financially. So because this is phrased as principles, does this hold you to doing things exactly the way it's prescripted here? Or is this seen as a bit of guidance to be, provide more flexibility, uh, with who you work with and how you work with them. Commissioner Campbell. Uh, thank you and through you. And thank you for the question, Councillor Glenn. Um, I think a set of principles or guidelines was also what council provided in the initial motion. There was Direction there to develop a program to achieve an impact to community benefit or good, uh, to provide supports to those who are most vulnerable to do that with consultation with expertise. And the process that staff have presented in this report was an update only, uh, to provide those updates and guidelines. So, um, certainly, I think the presented principles, and I thank the Councillor shall allow me a little, um, opportunity here just to comment on how staff may find this direction actually quite conflicting for our ability to decide which principles or guidelines to prioritize in any decision making process. Um, so what we had presented to Council was actually modelled after the fines for foods program, um, where third party experts in individuals weighed in with support through the United Way to bring forward recommendations to Council. That was not intent to limit. It was allowing innovation. And to bring those ideas forward and invited other community partners who have experience in those areas to weigh in. Um, I think one of the challenges that we would have in trying to understand these guidelines councillor, um, is that the scale and scope of their application is unclear. And if I may just very quickly, um, the servant not gatekeeper, uh, asks us to set aside issues of compliance. But it is nonspecific in what areas we're compliance would be set aside. Is this compliance on safety? Is it compliance on medical training? Is it compliance on park permits? Um, it is tremendously unclear to staff. And staff would be in a hard position to understand the limits of that guideline benefit of the doubt, opens questions of how would we evaluate any applications if we are to provide benefit of the doubt to anyone in their presentation. Prototype pivot plan execute, um, really asks questions about, um, liability and financial exposure. Um, I know this could be small dollar amounts, but there is 350, 000 dollars and depending on who applies. We've set no limit. An individual organisation could receive over 100, 000 dollars in financial support. And we would have no guidelines around that. And then direct engagement in place in pre - award judication, um, again, council's initial motion asked us to consult with experts and expert those with expertise in these areas. And I think that this would again be another guideliner parameter that would be challenging for staff to understand the speed of enabling supports. I certainly do want to comment to the Counselor's motion intent at latest September is an at latest guideline to be able to implement the distribution of that funding. That is not a commitment of staff to only provide that funding two weeks prior to the closure of CTS. Um, all of that being said, I would suggest that if this is the direction or motion that Council would like to move forward, I believe the way that staff would best be able to implement this would be to create an open call for proposals to receive those proposals to seek experts to review them and offer comment. We would then bring those proposals as a package to Council with no recommendations from staff understanding that the guidelines here are in conflict. And then we would present to council the totality of that package for Council's decision on award. Another alternate strategy. As Councillor McLaren has referenced the groups with whom he's in conversation, an easier strategy for staff to implement these principles as the Councillor McLaren has a group that he would like to see funded, perhaps an amendment or emotion that would suggest direct line funding to those agencies or organisations would allow us to facilitate this funding most quickly. Okay. So thank you for that. I understand the concerns and I understand the conflicts, but I also, do you understand Councillor McLaren's frustration. Um. If we are going to try and innovate and bring new solutions forward, we are going to have to find some way to be more flexible in how we look at things and to give consideration for new ways of doing things. Sometimes when we use the term expert, it almost gets in our way. You know, coming out of the business world, what happens is, and I understand, you know, this is a different sector, but the same sort of principles need to be considered. When there's a problem, what a business does is they try something. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But that's how we get new things. And where does state. With the issues in front of us where we have to start looking for greater innovation. And whether this passes or not, I guess my question to staff is, does this sort of move you in the direction? Do you understand, I think, what the intent is here. And that is to provide that extra flexibility so that we're not going back to the same agencies. Because I think the intent of the original motion was to open the door to new groups, not just the same groups. Um, so that potentially we could make some greater headway with the challenges in front of us. So I'm going to put that question out there and please respond. Commissioner Campbell. Thank you for you and thank you Councillor Glenn. Staff have always understood that direction. The original motion was clear that this was for new groups bringing new and Innovative ideas. The use of expertise was only as directed by Council in the motion to seek support in the review of those submissions and the development of those criteria for consideration. So yes, staff have always understood and would continue to understand the intent of council here to support new and innovative opportunities. And again, the program is currently being structured is set up to mirror the fines for foods process, which also was trying to draw a new groups forward to be able to support food security and sustainable food systems within Kingston. So a very similar model, but understood Councillor in context today as it was when originally issued by Council. Okay. Well, I'm comforted because I know that the fines for food program, uh, went ahead so well. And I think it was very flexibly done. So if that's the way you proceed, um, I think we, we could get some positive outcomes. Okay. So thank you for answering my questions. Thank you. Anybody else on the amendment. Councillor McLaren, you have the last word. Thank you. I'm hoping that you take a chance. I also hope that counts that, um, staff listened to my colleague who thought that this is, um, giving money away with oversight. We do need oversight. Part of what I'm envisioning here and what happens in Finland is it is difficult at the beginning. But if you work with these groups, you will start to see how these processes can become. More understood and beneficial to all of us. What I'm asking counsel to do is to take a chance. They heard your concerns about giving money away without, um, without oversight. We're not going to do that. If you have any other concerns, please share it with staff. But what's important here is that we try something different because what we've been trying so far. Seems to be making the situation worse. If we don't try, there will be nothing. We're supposed to be a city where history and innovation thrive. This is a time to try something new. There are models out there that we're trying to mimic here from Finland, which has been successful. And it is a growing opportunity for both the city. And community groups. Why not try this. This. Your objections can be accommodated. If you have any. We just need to talk to staff about it. But the plan that was described in the report under Direction Four, I believe has pivoted away in a detrimental direction to the original intent and the actual help that these groups are providing to people in the city right now. And so what I'm asking is, please open your minds to a new way of doing things that has worked in other places. And take it as an adventure. We're going to try something new. And it may be life - changing for a lot of people. We may be the first thing Ontario or in Canada or North America to discover what the finish have already discovered. New ways of fighting these intractable problems. Let's give it a try. That's all I'm asking. Okay. Uh, so we will call the vote on the amendment. And that loses by a vote of four to nine. Cancer ocanic McLaren Osterhofen Hasan in the minority. Okay. Uh. We're still on clause two. Um, is there any further discussion. Okay. If not, we will call the vote, please. And that carries. Okay. Clause three. Elgon Quinn and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board Surplus sites. We'll call the vote. And that carries. Four. Municipal Bio Ontario Legislated Requirements. Call the vote. That carries. Uh, and then clause five. April, financial results. Call the vote. Okay. Uh, and that carries. Um, okay. Before we get into the next report, Madam Clerk, can I see you for a moment. Oh, I'm sorry, class six. Is on the edits. Q. Thank you. Clause six. Canada Ontario Development Charge, reduction program, application and financial analysis. Okay. Call the vote. And that carries. Okay. Thanks folks. Madam Clerk, can I see from. So here's what we'll do. We were, we were going to start into the next item. Uh, and then depending on how that goes, um, before 11 o'clock, I will either call for a motion to, uh, extend the meeting to finish the agenda or I will recess until five o'clock. Okay. So, um, we'll start into it. So first I'll ask for report 56 from the CAO. Moved by Councillor Schaef, seconded by Councillor Hassan that report 56 from the CAO considered be received and considered. Uh, okay. So we had one clause Indian Road Street renaming. It is a considered report. So I need a Councillor to move one of the two options. Council McLaren. I saw your hand first. Thank you. May I move option two, please. Is there a second or four option two. Second of my cancer is drop. Okay. Option two is on the floor. Council McLaren. Thank you. I want you guys to consider for a moment what could be lost. With this name change. If you've ever had a sentimental value to something that is in your past, then you can feel what people are about to lose. If you've ever gone to a high school and then your high school gets demolished. If you've ever been to a town and an old school or an old building that you spent time in gets demolished. It hurts. This is something that can't be bought with money. And this is in fact what is happening here. There are a lot of people on the street who have built their lives at this on the street. And we are thinking of taking that away from them. People do have a right to change their names. With their consent. The question was asked earlier, why were other names changed. Because the people on the street gave their consent. Other places that Indian Road has not been changed were that people did not give their consent. There's a reason why we ask people for their consent, before we do something. It's the right thing to do. There are two indigenous residents that self - identified on the street. One of them couldn't be here, but she gave me this lanyard to wear today. As I express her views on this, she does not want the name changed. There's another resident. In the back there. Also of indigenous ancestry. Who lives on the street and does not want the name changed. Their voice should count too. When you force somebody to change their name, against their will, it is paternalistic. It's a little bit of abuse and it mirrors, inform and action. What abusers have done in other similar situations? If you are doing that, if you're siding on that side. Think about exactly what you are doing. The very same thing that people who thought they knew better forced upon others throughout history and in our recent Canadian history as well. If you force somebody to change their name, their street name, something, take something away from them. It builds resentment. And resentment can be carried across generations. One of the indigenous principles is to think seven generations down. What is this going to do? The street was close to 55, 45. In 2021. As a result of doing this the wrong way, the numbers of switched in the opposite direction. Because it was done the wrong way. They were at 85 against the name change now or any other suggested names. That's an indication that things are going the wrong way. That is not reconciliation. So I'm asking you. To break that cycle. Break that cycle of forcing people of using paternalism and colonialism. Again and again. You can do that now. One of the things that I did talk to a lot of the people about. Where are the names of the parks. There was no opposition if we were to change the names of the park. So I'd like to move an amendment. Check, leave the clerks have there. Okay. So we have an amendment move by Councillor McLaren that report 56 Clause 2. Option two from the CIOP amended by deleting Indian Road Parkt A in Indian Road Park at B. And I'm the following additional clause. The Council approved the renaming of Indian Road Park at A to Dimino Park, Indian Road Parquet B to Accupark. And Direct Staff to bring forward to a future council meeting any bylaw amendments are administrative approvals needed to affirm these new park names. So our seconder. Second of my Councillo Glenn. Okay. The amendment is on the floor. Council. After consulting with the people there. Indian Road has way too much sentimental value. And administrative burden. And resentment increasing qualities about it. But in speaking to the people, that is not true for the parquets. And so to make. Um, a gesture in the same direction with hopefully the same intent. I'm asking that and the people that are asking, take the two most popular names. And rename the parks. This is important because it doesn't change the history that is already there. As I recall saying last time, this neighbourhood was designed and named to honour indigenous peoples before the truth and reconciliation commission came out. It is from the street Indian that flows Mohawk, El Gonquin, Champlain. Arrowhead. The Elgonquins and the Mohawk used to fight each other. Now they're living next to each other in peace. That's part of the honour that they wanted to convey. Champlain fought on one side. With then adopted them all. Arrowhead has a double meaning. It's a medicinal plant. And the name of a flower class Corvette that fought in the war with indigenous people on it. All flowing from the term that was appropriate at that time. Since then, those terms of changed. We now, we had for a while, used the term Aboriginal. The current term is indigenous. We hear that it applies to almost everybody. But there is a small group of people out there who believe that indigenous is also an imposed name. It's entirely Indian. Or sorry, it's entirely English. Nothing to do with indigenous people. And may not be the appropriate term in the near future. But it is now. And that is a part of our history. It probably shouldn't be changed either. Indian was the road. The name in the 1950s. And it was there to honour them. That should not change. But the people of the street, whom I talked to, one of them is here. Some of the, I'm just going to ask you to focus on the amendment right now, Council McLaren. I know you're kind of going back to the street, but okay. I have also indicated that they are supportive of this. And would like this to be the end of it. Don't change the name of the street, change the name of the parquets. Okay. So right now there is an amendment to add this paragraph to option two. Is there any discussion. Okay. Call the vote, please. Okay. That carries by vote of nine to four. Councillor Toso Ridge, Nanny, and his shaves in the minority. Okay. Um, so. Councillor McLaren, you only have about 15 seconds on the clock, back on the main clause as a minted. Okay. Thank you for that. I just ask you to remember that the La survey that we did, do not want this name change of the street. I ask you to respect the will of the majority of the people on the street, please. Okay. Uh, anybody else an option too? Council Glad. So I'm going to speak in favor of option two. And I think people need to understand clearly why. Um, my concern with what we've done here. We talk a lot about good process. We talk a lot about good governance. We did not demonstrate that. We talk about evidence. And what we got were individual members of Council, uh, no offence going out and doing this. This was not a process that was set in motion and done in a way that we would do most processes. So making a change of this significance with this much sensitivity in the community without preceding through a proper process gives me a lot of pause. I've heard both sides of this. We've heard that some people are upset. We've heard some people, uh, don't want to change. We've heard some people would like a change. But overwhelmingly what I've heard is that this has become something that we didn't do in a way that was appropriate. So I'm not going to force a change when we haven't done the proper process. So we can't continue to purport to be those people. And then operate this way. So I'm going to at this point, um, vote in favor of keeping the name. And if we'd like to engage in a proper process, I'm happy to do that. Okay. Next is cancer Toso. Thank you Mayor Paterson. Through you, I'll be brief. I'm going to vote against this because I think we should change the name of the road. I think it's fairly clear from some of the delegations and just from where the, uh, trends are going in other cities that this is a derogatory and offensive name. I think the sooner we can get the process derived of renaming this, the better. So I appreciate the amendment, um, but I'm not comfortable with leaving the name of this road. Thank you. Anybody else an option to. Okay, we will call the vote. Actually, Councillor McCain, you do still have the last word if the. No. Okay. We'll call the vote. That loses by a vote of five to eight. Accounts through ocanicLaren Glenn Osterhoff and Hasan in the minority. Okay. So at this point, um, a councillo can move the other option. Council Ridge Canani. Okay. So now, uh, that is to put option one on the floor. Sorry discussion. Councillor Ridge. Thank you, yours. You've been through you. Um, I want to begin by saying I'm in support of this option. I want to thank the delegations for coming sharing their thoughts and perspectives with council, the residents of Indian Road who took part in the consultation and shared either their support or frustrations, um, with the process, uh, the indigenous individuals who took part in the consultations through talking circles. Um, I also want to thank the many, many people, uh, who sent me messages expressing either support or opposition to this. And finally, I want to thank staff for their hard work. Uh, there are two things that I want to talk about. The first is the importance of names. And the second is the importance of empathy. As has been discussed multiple times, far better than I will be able to this evening names are important. The active naming something or someone has tremendous importance in many cultures, uh, for the people of the Flint, the Mohawk, the act of naming reflex one's identity lineage and connection to the spiritual world. For Christians, the name reflects not just one's identity, but designed by which God calls them. Um, in Islam, a name is not just a signifier, but a sacred responsibility and spiritual aspiration. The act of renaming is equally important. Jesus renamed his apostle, Simon to Peter. As a foundation upon which is future church would stand. The act of renaming oneself in conversion to Islam is also very important. Naming can imply ownership. In Abrahamic faiths, Adam and Eve were tasked with naming knee animals and thus having ownership over them. When we name our children, it's very much the same process. The active naming others in ownership has also been an act of power. The word Indian comes from the name for people's living near the Indus River. In Southeast Asia, what we now call India. Um, but it was applied to entire groups of people in North and Central America at first mistakenly and then perpetuated. And now as we've heard from number of delegations, that name put on people has a history of subjugation, exploitation and trauma. But this principle is not just applicable to the name or the Indian. I'm going to make a comparison that I know is that a hundred percent accurate, but I want to try and for people to try to understand to a degree. Everyone at some point in their life has been called names, been given names to make them feel less than what they are. You could have grown a poor. You could be, um, it could be something to do with you're a woman, someone who's a minority, someone who is a disability, different sexual identity, uh, someone of different faith, Jewish Muslim. Uh, or even a man inside your person had reduced to an insult. I want people to think about that. And when it's happened to them. Now imagine it's the name of a street in the city you live in. As per the consultation with indigenous individuals during this process, the name Indian was deemed painful. It was overwhelmingly the result. This is part of the reason we have a policy for street naming. Which takes me to empathy, your worship. Uh, at our last council meeting, we had a motion presented in discussion about the necessity for equity and inclusivity in changing, uh, in change rooms for children. There was a discussion about these values. Um, and removing barriers for access. And that motion passed unanimously. Every one of us here voted for it. I also empathized with people around the changing of names. Um, these conversations can be difficult and frustrating. Um, like the original naming of Indian Road, uh, the term, as was said earlier, was introduced to be respectful of indigenous people. But the context for names shift over time to reflect new understandings and new perspectives. Um, it's when I'm told something is hurtful, I'm not going to pretend I understand it all the time. Uh, I try my best to just change it and learn from it. But the word, the name or the word Indian has been derogatory deemed derogatory for a very long time. Also I want to say empathize with the residents. Uh, and here are their concerns and frustrations, which were very clearly expressed during the city's consultation process. And that empathy is part of the reason that, you know, we, on the original motion and recommendations from staff that we're including Goodwill payments. Because we understand that this is a burden and an imposition onto the residence. And I don't think that we should be pretending otherwise because that would be disrespectful. Um, we're also setting up clinics to assist with changing identification. Paid mail forwarding for a year. And a plaque recognising the history of the neighbourhood. The place is not changing. The neighbourhood is not changing. It is the name that is changing. I also want to thank Councillor McLaren. Your worship for doing a job in representing his constituents. He has put in a lot of work. He's shown that. And he has fought very hard for him. But as counsel, he have a responsibility to consider the broader context. 30 seconds. Why when we're renaming the road. Uh, we as a Council of Demonstrator repeatedly that we respect these values of inclusivity. And values are either universal. Your worship or they're not values. Um, well, we can undo the harms of the past. I hope that we can move forward thoughtfully with this and support the residents to the transition. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Sanek. Yeah. Thank you, your worship. Um, I just wanted to acknowledge the residents on Indian Road who didn't want the name change. And with the outcome of this motion tonight, the amount, like the burden, the amount of work, they're going to have to go through now with the civic addressing change. Uh, contacting their credit card companies. It's like moving. It's like moving. Um, you know, inform CRA. Like it's an address change. And that's a lot of extra work for all the residents on the street now with, um, the new street name. And I feel badly about that. Thank you. Okay. Is there any further discussion. Okay. We will call the vote. Now on option one. That carries by a vote of eight to five cancer ocanic. McLaren Glenn Osterhoff and his son opposed. Okay. At this point, I will ask for emotion to extend the meeting to finish the agenda. Move by cancer Amos, sectioned by Councillor Shaves. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Okay. Nothing from committed to the whole. Information reports. If you have any questions, just raise your hand as I read through these. Number one, bill nine municipal accountability Act 2026. Number two, April 2026 tender and contract awards subject to delegation of authority. Number three, update the tragically HIP programming. Okay. We have no information reports. Members of Council. We have no miscellaneous business. So we will move to new motions. We have four new motions. First, move by Councillor Bohm, seconded by Mayor Paterson. Where's the intersection of Highway 15 and Rose Abbey Drive, Waterside Way has been identified by residents as a concern for the safe crossing of elementary school students. Travelling to and from St. Martha's and a Cole, Maple Elementary Schools. Whereas an initial review by staff suggested additional signalized pedestrian crossings on Highway 15 connected to existing neighbourhood pathways, provides the most effective long - term solution, improving court or efficiency. Neighbourhood connectivity and pedestrian safety at all times. Whereas acrossing guard can be deployed on an interim basis to address concerns that have been raised until new crossings are in place. Therefore be it resolved that Council Direct staff to deploy one Crossing Guard at the intersection of Highway 15 and Rose Abbey Drive Waterside Way in Fold 2026 on an interim basis and protect for the possibility of a second Crossing Guard being added should operational requirements of the location warranted. And the staff include up to 44, 000 dollars in the 2027 operating budget to support the interim placement of Crossing Guards at this location, subject to the mayor's budget direction. And the staff be directed to investigate long - term solutions to improve pedestrian safety along the highway 15 corridor and the area of highway 15 and Rosabi Drive, including the design and construction of signalized pedestrian crossings to be included for consideration in the 2027 Capital Budget submission subject to the mayor's budget direction. Councillor Bohm, you have the floor. Thank you. We're shipping through you. Yeah. The, uh, petition and the motion already speak to this quite clearly. So just one of the thing I want people to keep in mind as, uh, as they consider this is that we have crossing guards, uh, much more minor streets, uh, to ensure the safety of children. This is a major highway. That's only getting more and more busy. Um, I have worked with, uh, senior staff, uh, you know, commissioner sample and everything on a lot of solutions and just nothing's working right now. So that's why this is an interim solution to try to look at some other things going forward and commissioner simple helped me draft this as well. So I'd ask for everybody supporting this. I mean, it's one of those things where, you know, this is a pretty unique situation across the city when you have to cross a highway like that just to get to school. It's, uh, it comes from the ranges at which kids are now expected to walk, which is dedicated by the school board. So this is something that we can do to help keep them safe on their walk. So I hope everybody's supported. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion. Okay. If not, we will call the vote on new motion one. And that carries. Okay. Um, I'm going to read new motion number two. I've spoken to the mover about this, just the clerk and I have reviewed this, um, just to note that the resolve paragraph, uh, is out of order because it would require a reconsideration of council's earlier direction on the alto high speed rail project. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to, uh, strike that piece. The rest of the motion is in order. And so I will read it now. So moved by Councillo Glenn, seconded by Councillor Assan. Where's Canada? Is at a national inflection point with the federal government committing 81. 8 billion dollars in new defence spending through budget 2025 launched its first ever defence Industrial strategy was 6. 6 billion and targeted Industrial Investment and introduced sweeping regulatory and transportation reforms through the recently announced the law McKinnon discussion papers is advancing the Alto high speed rail project. Whereas these announcements represent interconnected pillars of a national economic and security architecture in the city of Kingston sits at the intersection of every one of them. Whereas Kingston proudly hosts Canadian forces base a CFP. Kingston, the Royal Military College of Canada, Queens University, Kingston Health Sciences Centre, a growing cybersecurity and AI sector. And the fifth busiest via rail station in Canada. Whereas developing a federal advocacy position outlined specific funding requests and partnership mechanisms to ensure Kingston's infrastructure, housing, transportation and municipal services can sustainably support these national priorities. Whereas Canada's defence Industrial Strategy is ambitious and necessary in the La Black McKinlean Reforms are an opportunity to provide Kingston perspective. Ulta represents a generational rail infrastructure investment. Whereas ambition of the national level must translate into partnership with the local level as the federal government cannot build 125, 000 new defence jobs, modernized national supply chains and construct a 60 to 90 billion dollar high speed rail network while leaving the communities that host its military bases, train its officers conduct its defence research and carry its passengers to absorb. The consequences on property tax revenues. Whereas Kingston is not asking for special treatment, but to be recognised for what had already is, a proven national asset, a functioning defence hub, a research in health sciences centre and community that has served Canada's national interest for generation. Therefore be resolved. The Council Direct staff to submit formal written responses to the federal La Black in and discussion papers. And the Council Direct staff to advance the advocacy identified below, including but not limited to the establishment of defence community infrastructure fund. Designation of Kingston has a defence innovation corridor anchor community. Designation is a regional defence investment initiative hub and federal investment and VR rail services in Kingston Station Infrastructure. And that Council requests the federal government established a formal partner community framework, the city of Kingston to coordinate national investments with municipal infrastructure capacity and planning. And that a copy of this motion be sent to the right honourable Mark Carney MP, Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Steve McKinnon, Minister of Transport, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of International Trade, The Honourable David McGinty, Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Mark Garrettson, MP Kingston, the islands, and Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Alto and Via Rail Canada. Councillor Glenn, you have the floor. Thank you and through you. Uh, so the reason for this motion is that things are moving very quickly. And as a city, uh, I think it's incredibly important that we make sure that we are advocating appropriately for Kingston. So although advocacy is happening through FCM and yesterday, I attended, well, co - chaired. The defence task force second meeting. And I had CAO hurdle attend with me. So we were able to speak with Chief of Staff, General Kerrigan. And also with assistant deputy minister, uh, Pete Hammersmitt and municipal councillors from across the country. The impact that this is going to have on our city is real, but the opportunity before us is also enormous. So the biggest thing that I think we need to do right now is to support all of the various agencies, bodies and organisations in our community. And by advocating in this way, we can do that. So a few key things here. We know that change is coming and we know that there's put on infrastructure. We've already had a very long discussion this evening about infrastructure. So one of the things that FCM is advocating for is a defence community infrastructure fund. Uh, so we're asking that money that's already allocated, be set aside to ensure that should any military building get done here that they commit to investing in our community. So not just the pipes, but also into the soft infrastructure like childcare doctors, um, also housing so that not everything necessarily lands on the base. So, uh, this is a really important piece because, uh, what's coming is going to be huge. Uh, the estimate right now from the base commander is that in the next couple of years, we're going to see a thousand new positions on the base. That's a thousand new families in addition to that. Others coming from headquarters. So quite a number of people. And then the supports that go along with it. But rather partners. And municipalities are advocating to be partners. So although this is happening again at the national level, it's important that we speak up as a community because we are one of the key hubs here. So obviously we want to make sure that we take advantage of the opportunity for research dollars. We are research and innovation hub and home to a number of research organisations. So we're seeing that in certain in the information provided, you saw the opportunity there for Borealis and potential drone hub, that we could really bring some amazing things here to the city that would impact us economically an incredibly positive way. And last but certainly not least, we have talked ad nauseum about rail. Now is the time to also emphasize how critically important it is that we have appropriate rail service to Kingston. Our primary product from the Defence side is going to be people. It's going to be individuals who are innovating, who are creating the next great thing who are actually providing that innovation to the defence. So we've got to be able to get those individuals in and out of here easily. So if we're going to expand the number of people in the base, if we're going to be able to bring experts in and out and allow them to collaborate together, they need to be able to get here quickly and easily. So I hope you'll support this federal advocacy piece. I think it's going to result in some great opportunities and benefits for us. But we need to be at the table to also make sure that we're mitigating any potential risk to our city. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Is there anybody else on new motion number two. Okay, we will call the vote. And that carries. Okay, number three, moved by Councillor Ridge, seconded by Councillor Glenn. Whereas Council on July 9th, 2024 Directed Staff to work with our Livable Solutions, OLS, to develop terms and conditions for the sale of 17 sleeping cabins to OLS for one dollar with the condition that OLS is Crossroads Village proposal be completed within 24 months. Whereas OLS has updated the city as to progress made toward establishing Crossroads Village, including securing a line of credit, commitments from private donors, and advancing negotiations with a provincial entity for a social enterprise. Whereas OLS is requested additional time to finalise their operational plan and complete necessary planning and development steps prior to submitting a funded proposal. Whereas extending the timeline supports the city's ongoing commitment to increasing housing stability and reducing homelessness in Kingston. Therefore be it resolved to cancel extend the timeline for OLS to submit a funded proposal for the Crossroads Village Sleeping Cabin Project by one year to July 31st, 2027 to allow OLS sufficient time to finalise their operational plan for the village site. The Council Direct staff to facilitate adjoint inspection led by city staff and including representation from OLS of the Sleeping Cabins currently in storage and report back to Council by Q1 2027 on the condition of the assets. The Council Direct staff to delay any preparations to sell the Sleeping Cabins until after July 31st, 2027, or until OS confirms they will not be proceeding with the Crossroads Village Proposal, whichever comes first. Councillor Ridge, you have the floor. Thank you. Your worshiping through you. I believe the language of the motion provides a narrative as to the sequence of events and where we are now. Um, OLS has made some progress. They still need additional time for the planning, the preparation of the village, uh, they have shown to me that they have secured over 700, 000 dollars in a line of credit that are forthcoming. Um, and so they've definitely made positive progress, but they will not be meeting the current deadline. Um, so they're moving in the right direction. And I think that based on the work that they've done and what they've shown, that it's, it's fair to try and give them another a year to do that. But no, no more than a year. Uh, the other piece too is a better assessing the cabins. So I think that it's only fair that OLS have the opportunity to assess the conditions of the cabins, uh, as part of their planning for the preparation of Crossread Village. Um, but simultaneously if the city are to take the cabins as an asset, we also need to know the condition regardless. And so that I think that it's important just in terms of prudence and also, um, kindness to all us. To move forward with that. You wish back in barely speak. Um, so I'm going to leave it at that. And I hope that my colleague support this. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else on new motion three. Okay. We'll call the vote. And that carries. Okay. Our final motion. I'll ask of the deputy mayor would take the chair for this one. Right. She's awake. Thank you. Um, new motion four moved by Mayor Paterson, seconded by Deputy Mayor Steven. Whereas the Asiation of municipalities of Ontario, AMO is currently seeking nominations to their 2026, 2028 Board of Directors and nominations need to be received by June 22nd, 2026 at 12 p. m. and whereas nominations to the ammo board must be supported by a Council motion, which indicates the financial support of that council. And whereas the city of Kingston has benefited from having local representation on this significant Ontario Municipal Board through Mayor Paterson and prior to that Councillor Kevin George. And whereas having a seat at the ammo table enables the city to be part of provincial and municipal conversations around issues of significance to the city, including municipal finance reform, infrastructure spending, new policy, and legislative initiatives to name a few. And whereas Kingston is not part of current provincial government. And would benefit from being associated with a municipal body that has a memorandum of understanding with the province around municipal policy and program decisions. Therefore be it resolved that the Council of the city of Kingston nominates Councillor Don Amos for election to the board of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario as a member of the large urban caucus and that the city of Kingston agrees to cover all travel - related expenses for attending the ammo meetings in Toronto. Mayor Paterson, you have The Floor. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, I think I'll say that it's really important that Kingston is represented, both at Amo and at FCM. I think we benefit from having Councillor Glenn at the FCM table. I can tell you that, um, my time on the ammo board's been very valuable, understanding what's going on provincially and making sure that Kingston's voice is represented in the advocacy that's happening provincially. It's been a privilege being on this board for a number of years, but I think it's time for, um, a new face and, uh, Councillor Amos, I have no doubt that you would be an excellent representative, uh, for us on the board. Um, so this motion of course is our endorsement of you, uh, and we certainly wish you all the best as you run for a board position this August. Um, we'll be there in full force to support you. And so, uh, thank you. And I hope everyone can support this motion. Anyone else on new motion number four Councillor Ridge. Thank you, Deputy Marylands, for you. I'm not too sure about this motion, to be honest. I don't know. It just seems like there's, it might be an error in here somewhere. I'm just joking. I am wholeheartedly excited to support Councillor and any of his endeavours. Thank you. Councillor Shaves. I have an amendment. Just joking. Thank you. Councillor Tozo. So can we learn a little bit more about this councillor Amos? Like who is this guy? I'm just joking. Happy to support, a little bit humor at the end of a very long night. Thank you. Call the vote. Colli vote. I'm calling the vote. Thank you. Um, so calling the vote on your motion four. And that carries Mayor Patterson. I returned the chair. Thank you very much. Stephanie Mayor. With that we have no other new motions. Are there any notices. Of motion. Councillor Amos. Adam notice motion. Your worship. Just a thank you to Mike Follow colleagues for their vote. Um, fingers crossed. Thank you. Absolutely. We're behind you. Okay. Are there any notices of motion seeing none, Madam Clerk cross for minutes, please? Move by deputy mayor Steven seconded by Councillor Sanek that the minutes of Council meeting 2026 14 held Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 be confirmed. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Okay. Is there any other business. Addam Clerk asked for bylaws, please. Move by Councillor Osterhoff seconded by Councillor McLaren that bylaws 13 and four be given their first and second reading. All those in favor opposed. And that's carried. Moved by Councillor Osterhoff seconded by Councillor McLaren that bylaws one through four be given their third reading. All those in favor. Opposed. And that's carried. Motion to adjourn please move by Depp and Mayor Stevens, seconded by Councillor Ridge. All those in favor opposed. And we are adjourned. Thank you very much.