Oshawa Special Council meeting tomorrow Monday July 13, 2020 @ 9:30 a.m. start. First on the Agenda is a delegation from Durham Black Accountability Coalition requesting Council Take Action to Address Anti-Black Racism within the Region.
Next are 11 public staff Reports on various corporate/finance and development/planning matters, followed by 3 reports and 1 correspondence under the Closed Meeting section (1 relates to the Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority, 2 to the Oshawa airport property and 1 to the Oshawa Fire Master Plan).
According to Council procedural rules please note that:
1) Council members may consent to any or all items on the Agenda. In that case there is no discussion. However, If they have questions or desire to make changes to any of the recommendations, councillors will ask to 'pull' items for questions or a vote to change the report recommendations..
2) there is always a vote to go into closed session if any of the closed items are 'pulled'. No votes are taken in closed session, but when Council rises from closed session any votes are made in public.
Here's a link to the Agenda http://app.oshawa.ca/…/…/07-13/2020-07-13_AGENDA_Council.pdf
One of the public staff Reports concerns the Oshawa Generals request for financial support for its bid to host the 2021 Memorial Cup.
The staff Report "CNCL-2--146" can be found here: http://app.oshawa.ca/…/ci…/2020/07-13/report_cncl-20-146.pdf
Staff are recommending to Council that funding be approved as follows:
a) $200,000 of in-kind services and $50,000 cash, to support the operating expenses; and
b) $110,000 in capital capital upgrades to the TTC facility for the tournament
Included in b) is:
$40,000 for 2 upgrades ($30K for improvements to the Video Replay Room and $10K for 2 Countdown Clocks for the Visiting Team dressing rooms, which are mandatory requirements for the bid; and
$70,000 for 11 metal detectors to be installed at the entrances and exits of the city-owned Tribute Communities Centre as a safety measure, which is one of two optional Oshawa Generals requests.
As this $70,000 for 11 metal detectors is optional, it would be interesting to learn how receptive the public is to having metal detectors installed. (Note they will be used not just for the Memorial Cup games, but for other events at the facility).
I posted the above both on my Facebook page and on 3 group pages, Downtown Oshawa, Our Oshawa and South Oshawa FB pages and received a number of comments strongly for and strongly against spending tax money on metal detectors. A few suggested the City seek sponsors for advertising on the metal detectors to offset the cost.
Doing some more research, it seems the City of London's Budweiser Gardens arena had metal detectors installed in 2017. Also, it is not clear if the Soo Greyhound's arena has or is planning to have them as part of the Soo's bid to also host the 2021 Memorial Cup. Interestingly the GFL Memorial Gardens arena at 269 Queen St. E., Sault St. Marie opened in 2006, the same year as Oshawa's arena.
http://gflgardens.ca/.../GFLmemorialgardens-TechPackage.pdf
Next are 11 public staff Reports on various corporate/finance and development/planning matters, followed by 3 reports and 1 correspondence under the Closed Meeting section (1 relates to the Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority, 2 to the Oshawa airport property and 1 to the Oshawa Fire Master Plan).
According to Council procedural rules please note that:
1) Council members may consent to any or all items on the Agenda. In that case there is no discussion. However, If they have questions or desire to make changes to any of the recommendations, councillors will ask to 'pull' items for questions or a vote to change the report recommendations..
2) there is always a vote to go into closed session if any of the closed items are 'pulled'. No votes are taken in closed session, but when Council rises from closed session any votes are made in public.
Here's a link to the Agenda http://app.oshawa.ca/…/…/07-13/2020-07-13_AGENDA_Council.pdf
One of the public staff Reports concerns the Oshawa Generals request for financial support for its bid to host the 2021 Memorial Cup.
The staff Report "CNCL-2--146" can be found here: http://app.oshawa.ca/…/ci…/2020/07-13/report_cncl-20-146.pdf
Staff are recommending to Council that funding be approved as follows:
a) $200,000 of in-kind services and $50,000 cash, to support the operating expenses; and
b) $110,000 in capital capital upgrades to the TTC facility for the tournament
Included in b) is:
$40,000 for 2 upgrades ($30K for improvements to the Video Replay Room and $10K for 2 Countdown Clocks for the Visiting Team dressing rooms, which are mandatory requirements for the bid; and
$70,000 for 11 metal detectors to be installed at the entrances and exits of the city-owned Tribute Communities Centre as a safety measure, which is one of two optional Oshawa Generals requests.
As this $70,000 for 11 metal detectors is optional, it would be interesting to learn how receptive the public is to having metal detectors installed. (Note they will be used not just for the Memorial Cup games, but for other events at the facility).
I posted the above both on my Facebook page and on 3 group pages, Downtown Oshawa, Our Oshawa and South Oshawa FB pages and received a number of comments strongly for and strongly against spending tax money on metal detectors. A few suggested the City seek sponsors for advertising on the metal detectors to offset the cost.
Doing some more research, it seems the City of London's Budweiser Gardens arena had metal detectors installed in 2017. Also, it is not clear if the Soo Greyhound's arena has or is planning to have them as part of the Soo's bid to also host the 2021 Memorial Cup. Interestingly the GFL Memorial Gardens arena at 269 Queen St. E., Sault St. Marie opened in 2006, the same year as Oshawa's arena.
http://gflgardens.ca/.../GFLmemorialgardens-TechPackage.pdf