Newsletter Edition – Recap of November 18 to 22, 2024

Mayor Andrea Horwath wants a review of the City’s procedures when it learns a building is unstable and may not be safe.

This follows the uncontrolled collapse of the heritage buildings in Gore Park around 6:12 a.m. on Monday, November 11.

Mayor Horwath visited the collapse a few hours later, and made clear the collapse was unacceptable.

“But for the Grace of God there are no injuries,” “I cringe at the thought of what could have happened had this had this devastating incident occurred yesterday when we had veterans and police and fire at the service,” and “It’s terrifying, it’s terrifying what could have happened” were among the Mayor’s comments that day.

The Mayor and City Manager Marnie Cluckie stated city inspectors were at the buildings less than three days before they collapsed.

Shortly after these statements, the City of Hamilton’s communications department took control of official messaging.

The City is refusing to answer questions about the November 8, inspection, saying any questions must be  “submitted through the Freedom of Information process.”

The City was required, by the provincial laws, to disclose it issued an order on July 22, 2024, that the building was “structurally inadequate or faulty.”

On Wednesday, the issue arrived on the floor of City Council in a controlled debate.

Mayor Andrea Horwath moved a motion entitled “Ensuring Public Safety and the Preservation of Hamilton’s Built Environment” to conduct an internal review and “report back with findings and proposed changes to ensure timely enforcement of by-laws and regulations, with the aim of achieving better outcomes and increasing accountability.”

“I do not see buildings falling down in every city around us,” the Mayor opened her remarks on the “complete failure of processes here.”

“There’s something not right in the City of Hamilton when it comes to how we address these kinds of situations.”

“As Mayor, I do not accept buildings falling down and potentially harming people.””It could have fallen on all those people we were honouring that day [Remembrance Day] … I have not been able to have a single day where I haven’t thought about that. It’s terrible.”

“This is not acceptable. We need to do better.”

[YouTube link]

Ward 2 Clr Cameron Kroetsch was second to speak, the collapse having occurred in his ward. He thanked the Mayor for her remarks and noted he hosted a walking tour days before the collapse.

“As the Mayor says, if we had just had a slight difference, all the people who joined me on the tour would have certainly been seriously injured by the building collapsing.”

Kroetsch firmly stated the City must act in the future to stop demolition by neglect.

[YouTube link]

Ward 9 Clr Brad Clark found the accountability question to fit within the restrictions of the debate.

“Last term, I brought forward a motion, shortly after our Cootes Paradise and Red Hill Valley fiascos, that staff must notify Council if there is imminent risk to the safety of the public. I understand the report on the building indicated that there were safety risks.”

“Why wasn’t Council advised in advance that this building was in that condition?”

City staff responded that the July 22 structurally inadequate or faulty order did not mean the building was “unsafe” and the order was to support portions.

“I’m not trying to split hairs here but the engineering reports, as I understand submitted prior to November 11th, did not indicate that the building was unsafe and needed to be removed,” added Acting General Manager of Planning and Economic Development Steve Robichaud. “The engineering reports that we were receiving identified that structural rehabilitation or works were required to stabilize the building.”

The owner’s reports did not say that the building needed to be removed, Robichaud stated.

“The owners, and their consulting engineer were working at providing reports to stabilize the building and ensure that the building was in a safe condition.”

“I don’t want to split hairs, but it’s an important distinction as to what information we receive from the professional consulting engineers in terms of what are the next steps in terms of how we deal with the building.”

At this point, the Chair of Ward 8, Clr John-Paul Danko, cautioned Clark that councillors should not ask specific questions about the collapse of the Gore buildings.

“This is the first opportunity that this General Issues Committee has to ask questions after this building collapse. And now I’m being told they can’t ask those questions,” Clark responded.

“I’m going to continue with my questions. And if you think I’m out of order, you can let me know.”

“Why wasn’t a safety cordon put out in front of the building so that the people who are walking on that sidewalk would walk around the cordon?,” Clark asked.

“I don’t understand how we could have had so many people walking in front of that building just moments before its collapse, and yet we were aware that there were issues in that building.”

City staff conferred before answering. The Director of Building, Robert Lalli responded, “As General Manager Robichaud stated, we were never notified that the building was unstable or in imminent danger of collapse.”

Clark emphasised the City knew the building was unstable.

“To be clear, you were notified that it needed to be structural supports put in place, and that was a request was made to the owner of the building. That’s what I just heard moments ago.”

“So again, why wouldn’t we put in cordons to protect the public?”

Lalli replied, “Under the Ontario Building Code, there’s no requirement for us to provide any types of face, fencing or cordon off the area unless the building is unsafe.”

Clark quickly responded, “Under my humanity code, there is a responsibility, and we’re the municipality of Hamilton.”

The Council timer dinged, and Clark’s time was over.

[YouTube link]

Following the meeting, the City’s building officials stated there was no evidence the buildings were at “imminent risk of collapse” which is the threshold for a City response such as closing off the area surrounding the building.

Mayor Horwath’s motion passed.

City staff will investigate city processes.

The City’s Housing Secretariat Director presented his annual report to Council on Wednesday.

“I would like to say that it’s a day for celebration,” the Director of the Housing Secretariat Justin Lewis began his annual report presentation. “Because it is a celebration today, we can give a round of applause to city staff for the work that we do, I’ll ask you to do it each time because it’s a celebration.” [YouTube video]

The Mayor, councillors, and senior staff dutifully applauded and repeatedly applauded after each part of the report. (Not all councillors did)

“I’ve seen in the last year and four months, I’ve been here at the City of Hamilton. We do amazing work. We just need to get better at telling that story and showing what we do,” Lewis said to excited applause, hoots, and hollers from the Mayor, Councillors, and City staff.

The applause, cheers, and celebration continued for nearly an hour.

Following this, no critical questions were asked.

Returning to the report, here are a few highlights:

Late CityHousing construction projects at Bay Street North, King William Street, and Queenston Road are complete or nearing completion.

Hamilton’s new affordable housing development project stream has 42 “eligible submissions” “representing 2,576 potential units” that the City says are ready for funding opportunities – be they municipal, provincial, or federal.The City is contributing funding to “approximately” 885 units, with final agreements pending.

City Housing Hamilton has reduced its vacancy rate from 9.07 percent at the beginning of this council term in 2022 to 3.68 percent, and hopes to reach 2 percent by the end of this year. [More on TPR here]

A New Non-Partisan Approach to Getting Non-Profit and Social Housing Built

Notably, the City finally has a process to ensure the most effective deployment of municipal funds to build new housing.

Mayor Horwath stated:

“What’s happened in the past is that [groups] come forward, line up the votes, and get past City Council without any analysis, without any understanding of how long it might take for that project to come online, or if there is a different investment that could come on faster, or if there is a way to leverage those dollars to have two or three developments happen, instead of just one.”

“It has been, historically, a very politicized way of building housing. and that is why we have over 6000 people on our waiting list. We haven’t had an organized way of dealing with this.”

She says the Housing Secretariat is succeeding at bringing all parties: City, non-profits, homebuildings, and corporations, together to solve the crisis.

“It is a complete city approach to solving the crisis … we have the expertise, the knowledge, and the professionals. They are all willing to do their part to solve the crisis.”

Council voted on a motion for a series of audits and reviews of spending on these files..

Of note, Council wishes to receive semi-annual reports on the number of people transitioning from encampments to shelters and housing.

The City says it has spent $9,620,662 in extraordinary costs related to its February cybersecurity failure. Most of this has been for external consultants and experts.

Council spent over two hours in closed session discussing city operations and impacts. There were no public updates provided.

Council approved a reallocation of funds for winter response. The City is making 45 shelter beds permanent, creating 25 permanent evening drop-in spaces, and adding another 20 temporary shelter spaces.

The City has determined these beds and drop-in spaces will provide more service than previous programs. The HSR “warming bus” program will not return this year, and recreation centres will not be used for holiday warming centres.

Councillors deadlocked on eliminating direct citizen engagement with Council. On one side, councillors who felt it is their role to support staff recommendations or are concerned about the political alignment (to the left) of citizen advisory committees.

On the other side, councillors who say they promised more transparency and accountability at City Hall.

There was one public delegation against the change. Thursday’s delegations were the first time public input was permitted on the proposal

. Instead of following the traditional Engage Hamilton open public consultation process, the City Manager’s Office and Office of the City Clerk hired a consultant to conduct controlled engagement with selected individuals and City Council members.

Ward 9 Clr Brad Clark noted the new staff model will have staff summarizing what residents are saying, not residents directly engaging with Council.

“I have been involved in committees where staff clearly disagreed with what was being proposed. If it’s a staff-led process, then how are we to have the comfort that the objections or the positions of the community liaison committee itself is being properly explained to the Council?”

“This process creates basically backroom meetings with citizens and then staff reports to [Council]. That’s not what an advisory committee is supposed to be. An advisory committee is supposed to be free to provide advice to a standing committee on any matter.”

Clark summed up his view of the change by stating, “transparency in this recommendation, in my humble opinion, is going out the window.”

Ward 2 Clr Cameron Kroetsch and City Clerk had a lengthy back and forth in which staff tried to claim the new process was more transparent and would empower the citizens staff choose to consult with.

City Clerk Matthew Trennum said staff are open to considering appending citizen feedback to their reports.

“While it is unclear because this is new for the city, I get that this is a big change. This is a conceptual change. And conceptual changes are hard,” he stated. “A community written report or something along those lines that could still happen, that could still happen through this process where that report is written, provided to staff,and the reports written by these community liaison groups are appended to staff reports coming forward, so that that information can still come through, that you can see the work that these people have put into it, even though it’s coming through a department. I’m not saying that can’t happen. That can certainly still happen. It’s just the the direction that staff are recommending to manage this is through currently, a department led route.”

Kroetsch reminded staff that this is not what their report says.

“I’m fine with change. I asked for this change loudly. It’s not about that. It is what it says on page eight of this report. And maybe what you’re saying now is that maybe you’re willing to reconsider this, which would be helpful. But it says on page eight of this report, the groups are chaired by and called to order by departmental staff.”

“I’m just reading the language in front of me in black and white,” Kroetsch continued. “That’s what it says. Now you’re saying … maybe they can write a report together. You’re suggesting the chair could be a citizen … my concern remains that we do not have a structure here that says these will be citizen-led.”
City Council will debate the staff recommendation at their ratification meeting on Wednesday.

No matter the outcome, now two years into this Council term, even if Council were to vote down the staff request, it may be impossible to resume advisory committees before the 2026 municipal election.

The Vote

In favour (of ending citizen advisory committees): M. Wilson, T. Hwang, J. Beattie, M. Spadafora
Opposed: C. Kroetsch, B. Clark, M. Tadeson, A. Wilson

In the annual ‘fraud and waste’ report, the City of Hamilton revealed that one of its managers resigned after failing to be available when needed in their City of Hamilton job.

“The employee did hold an appointment with another government organization and found a high volume of work activity at this additional government organization for select periods of time. Some of the work activity at the other government organization, when compared to the manager’s City of Hamilton schedule, provided evidence that the manager was working for the other government organization during City business hours.”

The City permitted the manager to resign. The City is not revealing any further information.

The City of Hamilton continues to be fooled by invoice scams, when thieves claim to be a vendor and request the City pay invoices to a difficult bank account than what the City has on record.

In one case, the City paid $552,000 to a fraudster. Beyond the fact that such a high amount could be paid to a fraudster, the actual amount owed to the vendor was “about $137,000,”  The City’s Auditor says the fallout of the City’s cybersecurity failure was the primary cause of the error.

The week prior, the vendor had notified the City it had experienced a security breach and told the City their banking information had not changed.

Luckily, the City was able to trace $417,000 of the funds that a financial institution still held.

A City update states:

“A (now former) City employee who was a Plans Examiner that had been charged with two counts of breach of trust. The charges followed a Police investigation. Per our review of court documents, two charges were laid against a City employee. Both charges were: “being an official with the City of Hamilton, a Plans Examiner did commit Fraud in connection with the duties of his office by entering false information on City of Hamilton documentation and depriving the City of Hamilton fees owed to it contrary to Section 122 of the Criminal Code”. These charges were stayed in Fall of 2024. The former employee was terminated earlier in 2024 due to their conviction on a drug-related charge as part of the Project Skyfall investigation.”

With the criminal trial concluded, the City says “a full investigation” is now underway by the City’s internal auditor.

Councillors approved a new council meeting schedule that, in theory, will reduce the number of Council meetings.

There will be 15 meeting cycles in 2025, down from 19 in 2024. [More on TPR]

 

Council 2025 Water and Rate Budget (Friday)

Council deferred approving the 2025 Water budget to give some councillors time to inform the community of the plan to increase rates by 9.5 percent, bringing the average residential household bill up to $1,061.50 per year, an increase of $96.10.

Ward 6 Clr Tom Jackson moved the deferral. Council is required by provincial laws to ensure a well-maintained and safe water system. The budget increases, approved in a 10-year plan last year, are primarily driven by requirements to replace aging infrastructure and close the infrastructure gap created by decades of deferred maintenance.

9.82 of the 9.5 percent increase is deferred maintenance and capital-related.

Council will meet again on Thursday, November 28, to vote on the budget.

Of note: $500,000 of the increase is to respond to the algae blooms in Hamilton Harbour.

Councillors received an information report on the cost of emergency repairs to a critical water main at the Kenilworth Access reservoir, and a staff report recommending no action on a request from the City’s cycling committee for Council to lobby the provincial government to implement Idaho stops.

They approved a replacement water tower in Carlisle, a new water well for the Greensville water system, and spending $5-mil to comply with an Ontario Superior Court order for the City to clear and maintain the storm sewer channel at the north end of Kenilworth Avenue that flows into Hamilton Harbour.

It was a ‘housekeeping’ style agenda with the City designating 65 Frances Avenue as conservation land, an update on the rental [student] housing licensing bylaw, anti-renoviction bylaw updates, and one closed session OLT appeal discussion.

The provincial government is updating rules to require municipalities to permit more of what we locally call Additional Dwelling Units. For the most part, Hamilton has already implemented the changes.

However, there is growing opposition to intensification. Ward 8 Clr John-Paul Danko has issued a notice of motion. He wants to study lowering the as-of-right height limit for ADUs, which are presently allowed to be up to 6 metres.’

Hamilton’s police service and St. Joseph’s Hospital created the model of having civilian professionals working alongside police when responding to mental health and crisis calls. Other communities adopted the model.

In Toronto, they took the model further and created a non-criminal crisis response 2-1-1 service: the Toronto Community Crisis Service.

Councillors vote to have staff study the Toronto service, the costs of adopting a 2-1-1 service, and to report back in 2025.

This was first published in TPR's Email Editior
Email Edition Date: November 25, 2024
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