Every week, Bramptonist rounds up the interesting items on upcoming city council and committee meetings, so you don’t have to bore yourselves paging through huge (and, if we’re being honest, tedious) PDFs and to make it easier for you to be a well-informed resident.
All meetings are open to the public (aside from items which are specifically marked as closed), and are generally held in the City Council Chambers, unless stated otherwise.
Council
May 2, 9:30 a.m.
Council Chambers, City Hall
City Council meetings are the final approval meeting for all matters of the city. Matters are typically considered finished after they are approved at council, unless opened back up with a two-thirds majority vote.
Vital Services By-Law
This is a new by-law (page 8) that is primarily directed at residential landlords. This bylaw replaces the Adequate Heat Bylaw. There will be fixed dates of September 15 to June 1 where landlords must provide heating. However, there will be some new flexibility allowed to react to unusual situations where a heat wave occurs in late September or a cool spell in late June. Enforcement of the bylaw will move from a provincial offense to a municipal penalty, allowing faster processing of cases.
Land Purchase Budget Amendment Request
At the last committee of council meeting, staff requested additional funding to expropriate land for city projects. This report (page 96) provides further clarification. The request is a further $7,000,000. Projects include road reconstruction and widening for Countryside Drive, Chinguacousy Road, Intermodal Drive, and Goreway Drive. Project teams for these project have depleted the expropriation budgets faster than originally estimated. The funds will be taken from the Development Charge Reserves dedicated for road projects.
Read the Agenda here.
Inclusion and Equity Committee
May 2, 7:00 p.m.
Training Room WT-2A, West Tower
The I&E Committee is a citizen advisory committee comprising two councilors and citizens carefully selected from different diversity groups. This committee advises on practices of equity and inclusion on all levels of the city.
City Inclusion and Equity Update
This is a report (page 23) detailing all efforts and measures that the city has undertaken in the past few years to ensure inclusion is part of how the city operates internally, as well as in delivering services to the public.
Examples of how the city is meeting this mandate include: the translation of city materials into French and the top three other languages (Punjabi, Gujurati and Urdu), targeted public education to specific groups (fire safety, budget, taxes), conformity with AODA (provincial accessibility law) in providing documents in braille or other formats, ads in ethnic and specialty media, adjusting the city website to conform to AODA, targeted diversity outreach for recruitment, inclusivity training for city staff, 311 service is available in 170 languages, etc.
Read the Agenda here.
Brampton School Traffic Safety Committee
May 3, 9:30 a.m.
Fourth Floor Council Committee Room, City Hall
The BSTS Committee is a citizen advisory committee comprises one councilor, two school trustees (public and Catholic) and residents. This committee does site surveys with the head crossing guard to find problems and solutions to traffic and safety issues around Brampton area schools, as requested by school officials and parents.
Site Inspection Reports
Eastbourne Public School (page 34) A review was requested by the head crossing guard to deal with School Travel Plan issues. Recommendations to the principal include adding flexi-posts along the pedestrian area of the Kiss and Ride, refreshing pedestrian pavement markings and signs, adjusting the “Do Not Enter Except Buses” sign so that motorists can actually see it, and put a sign at the parking lot entrance off Eastbourne doesn’t go anywhere except a parking lot.
Dolson Public School (page 39) A review was requested by the school bus transportation planners from the Peel District School Board, to look for any issues before the new school opens. Recommendations include asking the school nurse to be part of any School Travel Plans, and that the city should repaint the pedestrian intersection crossings at Creditview/Remembrance and adjust the signal timings.
Springbrook Public School (page 41) A review was requested on potentially adding a crossing guard at Jordensen Drive and Antibes Drive. There is already a crossing guard at James Potter/Antibes. Recommendations include repainting the pedestrian markings at the all-way stop at Jordensen/Antibes, adding “no parking” restrictions on the east side of Jordensen and north and south of the Kiss and Ride entrance, and asking the Peel Police to enforce any restrictions.
Issues in Brief
Like every other city committee over the past few weeks, the Brampton 2040 Vision update will be presented (page 13). Nothing new is presented, and you can read the Bramptonist summary of the document.
A resident in the Mount Pleasant area of Brampton shares an email from school bus company First Student Canada (page 22), which is openly defying a Peel District School Board direction to not use Aylesbury Drive to get to and from Creditview Road, due to the street narrowness and turning radius at the intersection, which has almost caused collisions. The email from First Student Canada claims the board did not send any instructions and they see it as perfectly safe.
Deb Pratt, principal of Countryside Village Public school is asking for a Site Inspection, inquiring about possibly adding another crossing guard to a four-way intersection on the west side of the school that is close to a park. The school already a crossing guard east of it that not as many parents and student use. The report is on page 25.
Read the Agenda here.
Brampton Sports Hall of Fame Committee
May 3, 7:00 p.m.
Fourth Floor Council Committee Room, City Hall
The SHF Committee is a citizen advisory committee comprised of three councilors and residents. This committee is in charging of selecting nominees for Brampton’s Sports Hall of Fame at the Powerade Centre, as well as organizing the gala event that happens every May.
Issues in Brief
Like every other city committee over the past few weeks, the Brampton 2040 Vision update will be presented (page 14). Nothing has been added since the Bramptonist summary of the document.
The Brampton Sports Hall of Fame is a semi-independent body (similar to how the library works) in relation to the city. As such, it has its own constitution that governs its operations. An update to the constitution is presented to this committee to fix minor errors (page 1*)
Read the Agenda here.
