Regular Meeting of Council – April 21, 2026

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All right. RS means data online. Makes it easy to plan, estimate. assets whether currently designated or

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not. Though with the aim for designation during the renovation process, heritage grants can offer financial assistance under a variety of terms. Such grant programs can help property owners with the costs associated with restoring, preserving, and rehabilitating heritage resources through matching heritage grants supported by the province of Ontario.

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Property owners and possibly municipalities. Heritage buildings can be conserved and renovated to increase the number of residential dwelling units in heritage buildings. Such heritage buildings may have once provided dwelling units though are currently vacant or uninhabitable and no longer counted in the housing stock or could be adapted to offer residential uses or converted for additional dwelling units.

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Applicants are expected to contribute a matching amount of the total eligible project cost. Properties must be then formally heritage designated or in a process of being designated or under a legal agreement. This heritage helping housing grant program would support Ontario’s housing objectives while advancing the keeping, restoration, and reuse of our heritage assets by incentivizing owners to revitalize vacant or unutilized heritage buildings.

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And there is a list of nine reasons that we came up with that’s uh identified in the motion. Heritage Burlington is recommending the city of Burlington endorse the proposal for a minimum of 10 million matching heritage helping housing grant and the mayor to send a letter to Doug Ford the premier Graham McGregor Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism Peter Bethle Felvy Minister of Finance Natalie Pierre MPPP for Burlington to urge that funding for the program be included in the provincial budget and annually thereafter seeing only upsides and here that I’m not asking asking this council for money. Should council support this resolution, we would appreciate that the motion be sent to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, big city mayors, and forgive me, I should have also included the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association because many of their downtowns have uh uh vacant residences above their storefronts. From

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a personal perspective, I may be able to offer insights on such a program. In my past municipal career, I was in two smaller towns where I had the opportunity to live in such historic buildings in the downtowns. Both were in 1880s buildings. One a recently renovated privately owned building while the other was an owned by the municipality and both had businesses on the ground floor while my residences were on the upper floors.

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The municipally owned building had its BIA in the storefront while a residence was created after an unemployment center was no longer needed in the upstairs. Uh meanwhile at that time only half to a third of these residences in such historic buildings were being used. So there’s much uh uh dwellings that would be uh utilized.

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Living in these historic buildings fan my interest to own and restore a heritage house and sit as the chair of Heritage Burlington. It must be noted that also at least one committee member in Burlington owns a renovated designated home that has a number of rental units. There is an example for a grant program in Alberta.

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Owners of legally protected heritage resources can apply for both municipal and provincial grants to support heritage conservation projects for increasing housing. Uh the heritage preservation partnership program provides mashing grants to support initiatives that preserve and interpret Albertas.

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At the same time, qualifying sites at the city of Calgary must be designated with a municipal historic resource designation or be in the process of obtaining a designation and entered into a legal agreement with the city of Calgary. These grants provide necessary assistance for owners of historic resources, induces dollar fordollar private investment in heritage conservation, and directly supports uh specialized trades in the city’s local economy.

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You are out of time, Marca. >> I was just going to close if you wouldn’t mind if you can indulge me. Uh, in closing, council has taken a leadership role in investing in Burlington’s heritage through research grants and tax credits, endorsing a motion to seek a provincial matching heritage helping housing grant demonstrates the city’s heritage properties can play a strong supporting role in addressing Ontario’s housing crisis.

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It is with this aim that Heritage Burlington has brought forward this motion. And lastly, with this week being the National Week of Volunteers, I would like to express my appreciation for all the work that the volunteers at Heritage Burlington, the Burlington Historical Society, and other organizations who give their time to support Heritage Week.

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Thank you for the opportunity to delegate today. This concludes my comments and I would be welcome to any questions you may have. >> Thank you very much. I will look to the board. Not seeing any questions at the moment. You are very clear. Thank you so much for being here. Okay. Our next delegation is Harsh Singh from the Halton Cricut Club also in council chambers to speak regarding Central Park Cricut motion.

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You have five minutes and there may be questions whenever you >> Yeah. All right. So my name is Hersh Singh. I represent Halton Cricket Club, Halton Cricket Academy and HDCL which is Hamilton District uh cricket league. So today I’m joined with uh you know some of the parents from my academy, some of my fellow club members and also other cricket uh clubs uh that play in Burlington such as CSK Talivas uh cricket Burlington as well and we are here to um actually oppose the memo that has been brought forward to pause the renovation work at Central Park. Right. Um if you could uh please go to the next slide. All right. So just a little bit about our our club and HDCL. So HDCL is uh a

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league. It has about 90 uh teams. Uh they have about 12 plus teams in Burlington uh from Burlington that play at Central Park. Right. Apart from that I also run a cricket academy for kids uh which has like about 60 kids and we have um you know an adult teams as well. Uh we have about 400 members uh in total uh active members playing in Burlington and we call Central Park our home for cricket because we are taxpayers from Burlington who play at Central Park.

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Right. And this is the only park that is available for cricket in Burlington. Uh can I go to the next slide please? All right. So why this matters is as I said other u cities uh like Oakwell they have two uh two cricket grounds uh Burlington only has one Hamilton has three cricket grounds right compare this to other games like baseball etc which has like 58 uh diamonds in Burlington right we are comparing this to Central Park and now uh the motion that has been brought forward if it passes uh it means that there will be no cricket so no cricket cricket for 400 plus members just from our team and other clubs as well who have similar numbers as well. Right. Also for kids for the for 60 plus kids right now and kids who aspire to represent uh the province and to represent cricket Canada. Right. There will be no cricket for them in

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Burlington if this motion passes. Right. So we are here to oppose this motion. Um can I get to the next slide please? All right. So there are a few uh concerns that have been brought toward u you know because of cricket at Central Park. Now we understand those concerns right and uh we are trying to you know work around those concerns.

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So some of the concerns that have been brought forward are stray balls. So you know when you play cricket obviously it’s played with a bat and ball so the ball can go around and there are you know houses close to the central park so balls can sometimes reach there right. Um early morning noise. So you know the residents have complained that you know there’s a lot of noise going on.

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Uh parking so next to the uh uh the pitch there’s a parking so balls go u there all the time and you know the damaged cars and stuff and you know general safety cuz you know there are a lot of uh you know kids and you know parents walking around you know they can get hit with the ball. But this is not unique to cricket right? This happens in all the sport.

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If you’re not careful, you can get hit. Any sport with a ball, balls can go everywhere, right? However, we have been working with the residents, with the city to make sure that you know these issues are not there anymore. So, what we have done is um we have started playing only from one side of the wicket.

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So, if you look at Central Park on the right hand side is the residence, right? Um a few houses. So, we only play from this side. So that you know when people hit the ball it doesn’t go that far compared to on this side when you hit the ball it goes further away right so we have already taken care of that we are only playing from one side of the wicket which is not usual for cricket so we but we adapted right the second part is the noise right so we made sure that city uh permits are only available for cricket after 8:30 a.m. in the morning, right, on the weekends. So that is that that’s a change like compared to other cities, they start at 7:30, right? We start at 8:30 because we want to be cognizant of, you know, the concerns that are being brought by the city residents, right? Uh parking overlap. So with the new renovations that are coming up, I just want to talk about that. So the new renovations will move the pitch even further away from uh the houses,

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right? So what that means is that you know there will be lesser balls that will go in there plus that new uh that renovation also takes care of the parking because they’re going to move the parking away um so that you know the balls don’t go over there right um so so these renovations are really important if the the concerns that are brought by the residents are just about cricket are just about safety but we don’t feel that those concerns are just about safety we feel there is a kind of a systematic racism that’s happening because uh cricket is being treated as an immigrant uh sport, right? >> You are I’m sorry you’re out of time. >> All right. Um so yeah, I mean that actually concludes u my presentation. I have a lot of other slides too, but then again uh you know that’s that’s what I have the time for. >> Okay. Thank you. We did get your slides uh in advance. So thank you so much for that. I’ll there quite a few questions on the board. So you may uh get some

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questions that help you uh finish what you were going to say. Uh councelor Nissan, go ahead. >> Hi Arsh, thank you very much for your delegation. Um certainly I want to support uh cricket very much in Burlington. Um and I’ll be honest, I think you know more about this renovation than I do right now uh as it has not come before uh council in detail.

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So um I will uh not ask you specific questions about the renovation because we’ll ask staff those questions later, but Um you mentioned that this motion would uh sort of uh end cricket at Central Park. Why do you think that the motion would end cricket? It is mentioning a pause to renovations. So uh you know certainly I have no intent of cricket ending there.

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So why do you think it would end cricket at central? >> Uh so my understanding is that you know there would be a community feedback that uh happens after if they pause renovations and there would be no cricket. Right. That is my understanding. And um >> what do you mean by no cricket like perhaps? >> So no cricket as in uh so will the field be open to play uh this uh season itself.

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So is is that what you’re referring to? >> Yeah, that’s what I’m referring to that for the >> So your concern is that there wouldn’t be any cricket this year. >> This year I I don’t know if it’s going to be in next year as well. I don’t know how much time it takes for getting the community feedback.

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What kind of community feedback we’ll get. I mean cricket we call Central Park our home for cricket. You are taking that away from us right and we don’t know when it would be available. So that is a concern and these renovations again are >> for the benefit of those residents right we are trying to do those renovations or the city is trying to do those renovations so that you know all of these uh issues that have been raised can be taken care of.

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So if anybody who is really concerned about uh these concerns, they should be supporting it rather than actually saying, you know, pause renovations. >> So uh Harsh, you mentioned um I I did read your slides ahead of time and I think your sort of plan B would be to allow people to continue to play cricket there until the renovations started.

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That I think that was your slides. It might have been the next delegate slides. >> Um might be the next delegate, but uh yeah. So then I’ll We basically want you know cricket to happen there throughout the season right so renovations we understand and we actually you know I don’t really want any interruptions and I know that you know with the renovations they’ll be like 2 months so the park would not be available till end of June maybe or you know from July but we are okay with that because we are cognizant of the concerns that have been brought up right so we want to make sure that it’s safe for everybody so even though it affects my academy it affects my club. It affects HDCL. We still want those renovations to go forward because that’s a sensible thing to do. >> Okay. Thanks, Harsh. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Council Karns. >> Thank you for being here, Harsh. And my first question is, can you please repeat your last statement about racism? And I’m going to ask you if you’d like to um redact that from your delegation because

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I do not think that that is part of the conversation that we’re talking about. We’re talking about safety. So um so this is a public opinion. So this is my opinion as well that you know there is a little bit of systematic racism. Now if you’re going to hold me accountable for that for sure do uh go ahead and do that.

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But yeah that is my uh personal opinion that you know there is a systematic racism as well because uh you know these renovations make sense for the residents. I don’t know why they’re trying to stop these renovations at such right and again cricket has been treated as a you know as an immigrant sport just because of the demographics that are involved in it right however it’s it’s not true uh cricket has a deep and rich history uh in Canada it was once a national sport as well for a brief time and even the first televised game was played by you know between Canada and the US we have a deep history of cricket but then again it’s being treated as an immigrant sport in Canada, right? And you know, these concerns that have been brought up, you can’t help it to, you know, to think that maybe there is racism involved. Maybe it’s not just about, you know, um just about the sport. It’s about, you know, getting people out of there cuz we have baseball

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diamonds there as well, city um like I haven’t seen people complaining about, you know, baseball that much, but it’s just cricket. >> Okay. I think there’s more to that conversation. And my second question is this. Where do your players go for shade during the day when you’re playing? >> Uh so usually you know uh it depends uh for that for central park you know we usually go towards the parking site where there was parking and then you know we would just sit there or you know even further away uh where there’s a baseball diamond we would go uh cuz there are uh bleachers there so we just go there and sit and watch the game from there. But do you use any trees? >> I mean if there are yeah I mean yeah I mean there is some shade uh some of the time but then again you know cricket is played you know throughout the day so you know the trees help a little bit not that much but yeah >> I’ll have more questions. Thanks.

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Thank you councelor Bentania. >> Thank you mayor. Um, thanks for the delegation, Hersh. Um, you mentioned uh 400 membership. Um, can you can you describe the caliber of play with the 400 membership or you know, I’m sure you got young ones and you got older ones. How what is the caliber in terms of experience? >> Yeah.

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So um so I have 400 uh you know adult members right so adult members so there are different levels to it and I I don’t know if I’m answering that question but let me know if if it’s not the right u answer right so we have different calibers right so we have players who represent uh provinces as well we have players who are net new beginners who are you know picking up a bat for the first time um we have players who are seasoned we have players intermediate We have young players who we are giving chances so that they can come in perform at HDCL and then get selected to province and then get selected to maybe even cricket Canada right and then again I also have an academy right so for kids specifically where we train kids uh throughout the summers I did this last year free of cost where there were at least 60 kids that came in in every session right so it was free of cost the kids would come in we would train them I

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had uh cricket Canada coach come in and we used to train all of these kids throughout the summers. So you know it’s kids, it’s beginner level, intermediate and you know uh seasoned players. Does that answer your question? >> Okay. So there it’s all over the map. That’s >> it is all over the map. Yeah.

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So my second question has to do with um the safety aspect that we keep talking about. So balls are going over fences in people’s backyards. in your opinion these renovations um when they’re get done like how far I’m assuming how far back are these renovations going to be done and how that how is that going to affect those balls from the caliber of play of your membership >> to fly over those fences.

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Yeah. So I just to answer that question I want to highlight a difference between organized play and unorganized play. Right. So we Halton cray club and the members who are here as well from other clubs we play organized cricket. Organized cricket is being played uh through HDCL which is a full member of cricket Ontario right.

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So what I mean by organized cricket is you know we have a league we have our kids and we play only from one side of the pitch right. So when you play from one side of the pitch usually the balls would not go towards the resident area right. However, the problem that you know the city residents often complain about are from people who are un unorganized, right? So, people who are not from HDCL, not from you know our club, but people who just go in there and just, you know, go on the pitch and start playing. Now, they use a different kind of a ball which is called tape ball where you put a tape on the ball and that has pretty much no air resistance. So it carries much further than a leather ball that that is being played at organized cricket, right? So that unorganized ball uh cricket ball that these unorganized groups use, they travel a lot more and then they play from both sides. So the balls go over to

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the residents houses, right? So that is the issue. When we play, the balls don’t even go all that far. And with the new renovations now that we are moving the pitch even further away, you know, the chances of going, you know, all the way is even it’s it’s probably 0%. I wouldn’t say 0% but yeah, probably 0%.

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Thank you, Councelor Galbreth. >> Thank you, Mayor, and uh thanks for the presentation and uh for advocating for cricket. I certainly appreciate it’s a growing sport and and I’m happy to support it here in Burlington. Um, just with regards to the planned pause, um, has your organization been coordinating with the the city parks and wreck and and you’ve planned to pause your operations and restart them as soon as they’re completed? Like, do you have all of this planned already? >> Uh, yeah. So, it’s not ideal for us because, you know, everybody wants to play outdoors, right? And especially for the academy, uh, because, you know, parents want kids to go outside and play. Uh but cricket unfortunately with cricket you can’t just go in and play anywhere right you need to have a hard surface in order to play organized cricket right and unfortunately Burlington only has central park right so for the time being for the first two months when this these renovations will

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happen our plan is to train indoors because we train throughout the year so during winters we train indoors right so we’ll train indoors but then we can’t play any games, right? Games only happen during the summer, right? And if there are no games, we can’t play any games. We can train but we can’t play, right? So, unfortunately for that time, we’ll have to pause our games at such that affects again that affects kids that affects you know um adults who aspire to be playing for cricket Canada one day. So, it would pause uh you know all the games that are happening. >> Thanks for that. And just a second question, I I I haven’t even seen the renovations. I I I I don’t have very much information on this, but have you did you work with the city to come up with the optimal design features and and the changes that are proposed? >> Yes, I was actually consulted by the city as well. So, we worked around um you know, I gave my opinions obviously

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and the city staff are also very knowledgeable, right? So you know they understand how cricket is played what are the issues uh so you know we worked on it and we said okay let’s move the pitch a little bit more um you know away from the uh from the houses and also the parking right so the current parking that we have there um you know it’s it’s very unsafe because you know balls travel on on your leg side a lot more and we’ve seen instances where you know cars get damaged and it’s usually cricket players cars because we park there right so you uh it it’s been an issue. So now with uh with mo with moving the pitch away, you’ll also have to move the play area around, right? So you can’t just move the pitch, you have to move the whole play area a little bit, too. And that is why that parking lot has to be included in the play area. And that’s why that renovation also covers the parking lot. But it also makes it safer because now people can’t

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park their cars that close to the play area. So, you know, lesser damage. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Councelor Charman. >> Thank you very much. The uh thanks for the delegation, Harsh. Um this is part by saying I was brought up with Brit in Britain. My dad played cricket every weekend.

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I played a lot of cricket and I totally appreciate the desire to play cricket. Uh and of course with the many millions of Canadians who arrived from Great Britain in the 70s, there are lots of people who support uh uh cricket from all over the world. Um that said, um I also recall my question is this um that that our cricket pitches were always much much larger than we have in Central Park there.

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Is that true or am I wrong? Um so you know this is not an international venue as such right. So uh you know usually a cricket pitch is about 60 mters. Uh no not the pitch right. So pitch is you know um 20 uh the pitch is 22 yards. Yeah. But the ground by itself the boundaries are about 60 m regulation size. Right.

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But for club cricket for junior cricket you don’t need that big of a boundary. Right. So usually over here we have about 50 mters. if I’m correct. Uh but yeah, so it’s a little bit smaller for sure. It’s not, you know, regulation size. Uh but then again, it’s the the only thing that we have, right? So yeah. >> No, I I I do get that.

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Um and and you know my point was even my local clubs are much larger and that leads to the question about well do you not think um that even and we councilors know nothing about what’s being proposed and and that that you know giving the local uh community members an opportunity to find out what’s being proposed and giving them an opportunity to comment.

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Doesn’t that seem like a reasonable thing which we do for everybody else? Why should we not do it for them? No, I’m not saying, you know, don’t have that community feedback, but keep that play like keep that play happening, right? So, we want, you know, uh the the central park to be available throughout this season and with those renovations, those renovations are also important, right? Why are we pausing those renovations is my question.

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What is the issue with those renovations? I’ve heard, you know, issues like, you know, um u you know, the canopi and the shade and stuff like that. But then again, that happens with every renovations. And I’m pretty sure the city is taking care of, you know, planting new trees. Every time you take out a tree, you have to plant new trees.

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The city is doing all of that, I’m assuming, right? So, it’s not like, you know, we’re just removing we’re cutting down trees or anything like that or, you know, I I just don’t get what is the reasoning for stopping the these renovations, right? So, these renovations will ensure that Central Park remains open for cricket now and in the coming years.

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We’ve already been playing there for multiple years. We call it home. We want our future generations and other players as well to call to keep calling it home for cricket. >> Well, sorry, mayor. Can I just ask a quick follow-up question, please? >> Go ahead. >> It’s as you’re speaking harsh. I recognize you’re you’re making comments uh about you don’t know about what’s planned exactly.

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Um and nor do any members of council and apparently nor do the do the public. Do do you not think we should all have a moment to understand that before we go rushing ahead and doing this? >> Yeah, I mean those plans um I actually understand those plans. So I was a part of that and we looked at that plan and that plan is just moving the pitch away and you know moving the uh parking away right so I’m not sure what you know what the council doesn’t understand uh from a perspective of the renovations but that’s what the renovations are and you know that’s what we we’re trying to make sure that it’s safer right so why would you pause cricket why would you stop cricket altogether together when there is just one field cuz this can happen next year or the after you know a couple of years as well. When the new ground comes in, right? If the when the new ground comes in, you can have you you

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can take a pause to get you know other things like you know community feedback and stuff like that. Why stop cricket right now when you have only one cricket ground? Well >> well thanks very much. We’ll we’ll ask them those questions so we can get those answers for ourselves from staff. Thanks >> councelor Karns.

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Thanks very much. Um my question is about um how you found out to delegate today harsh because we don’t have any residents delegating today and it was brought on by me as a um uh urgent business and it’s because council doesn’t know about the renovations. The community doesn’t know about the renovations.

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Uh what I’m trying to achieve is the best possible outcome for everyone to continue playing cricket at Central Park. So, um, when the renovations would go to their fullest extent, uh, what the community is believing is that it would really, uh, push out to a far boundary, and they’re wanting an opportunity to identify a way to make, uh, Cricut and the community uses most compatible.

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So, um, how did you find out about today’s meeting? Were you engaged by anyone? Did you just happen to be reading the the council agenda? Can you tell me how you know about this? Yeah, I mean uh because uh we had a meeting actually uh we were scheduled to have a meeting uh with um I think somebody from renovations or something like that because you know we uh like specifically me because you know I opine on you know how should we uh do things about cricket right so I was asked to you know uh give my opinion and then that was cancelled because you know we were told that there would be a you know a council meeting for it So that was canceled and that’s how I got to know about it and then I read online and you know I registered myself as a delegate for it. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for that. And then my second question is this. So you’ve indicated that the issue is with the nonpermitted use which I

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have observed myself at very early hours which is unfair to neighboring residents. Um, if you are here, I’ve already spoken with another Cricut group and we have another Cricut group in chambers. Why can’t we find these people who are using the Cricut field unpermitted which is the source of the concerns which is um ours noise which side of the cricket uh pitch they’re using um as well as uh the hard and more competitive uh leather ball.

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So, can you help us find these people who are using the cricket pitch uh without proper permits and you know following that code of conduct because we can’t seem to find them. >> Um I’m not sure um what what help you need from me on finding those people. Uh but then again u you know this is not new to cricket.

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This is not new to um you know just to cricket right. This is fair this is actually true for any other sport as well. you have unpermitted uh usage by people who are unorganized, they would just pop in, start playing, right? Uh unfortunately at Central Park that happens on cricket. I’ve seen that happen for baseball as well.

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But then again for cricket uh these groups they play with tennis balls, right? They are unorganized, right? Unfortunately there like and and again this is not something that we can what we are trying to help with is educating you know the cricket community and we’ve held you know uh you know stories and you know stuff like that on Instagram, Facebook, social media, our own club that please do not go and just start playing there.

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Please only play there when we have a permit. Right? So we have we’ve been trying to educate you know the cricket community not to do that. But then again these people are sometimes not even from Burlington right so they would come from you know other cities as well and just start playing because you know they see it available.

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I’ve seen so many times that people come in at six o’clock in the morning and then they you know just put their stumps in you know occupy the pitch and then they start playing and then at 8:30 when we come in with the permit we have to kick them out right so this is the responsibility of maybe the city uh staff or you know from city of Burlington to actually police it in the morning for a little bit right so you do this four times five times you issue them a ticket they’ll not come back for sure right and there are groups but then again nobody will take responsibility of it even if I were to tell you that you know this group does this you know they would deny it right so I’m not sure what kind of help I can provide on identifying those groups but yes uh there needs to be some accountability there needs to be some action from the city itself in policing going there in the morning and we have seen that happen you know during business hours at Central Park cuz a lot of times people even right now because Central Park is

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not open but last year um even at this point of time there were people who would just go and start playing right but it’s not open you don’t want people to play there and then I I’ve I’ve actually seen you know somebody from the city come in and tell them that you know what you’re not allowed to play here they would just go right if if that can be done for a few days in the morning you know hopefully you’ll you’ll get uh rid of that also you’ve got to stop uh tape ball uh cricket happening there because tape ball is the concern. Tape ball is the ball that goes all the way, not the leather ball. >> Okay. So maybe could a pause help with identifying some enforcement measures because um we don’t have that plan right now. >> Yeah. So um unfortunately like I haven’t seen it uh anywhere to be uh anywhere in Canada or elsewhere like how do you enforce it? Like you can’t put a cage on there. you can’t, you know,

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like we tried looking at those options, right? But unfortunately, we couldn’t think of anything that you can actually do to stop that kind of play other than actual policing it, right? >> Okay, that’s the end of my question, Hersh, in the interest of time because um we have another delegation as well.

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Thanks, >> Councelor Bentania. >> Thank you, Mayor. And uh I thank Council Karns for that comment. um the best possible outcome for both parties. Uh I like that. Uh my question is we’re talking about two different things depending on the questions that are coming up. One is a pause for engagement with the community and with I’m assuming your organization to find solutions that’ll make things safer.

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That’s number one. We’re talking about pause in terms of renovations which means everything gets pushed back. So my question is do you feel you can get the engagement done with the renovations continuing and come up with a solution with the residents and with the city. So >> we have been trying to come to conclusion with the residents.

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I have personally met you know the residents um a couple of times right and you know they actually brought a bag of cricket balls as well and when I looked at those balls and those balls were from over the years which have reached their you know residences and such when I looked at those balls most of those balls 90% of those balls were tape ball that’s how we identified that issue that you know it’s not the leather ball that travels it’s the tape ball secondly HDCL which we are a part of HDCL that the the games that happen there we use a specific type of ball that has HDCL branding and you know um a a vendor branding as well none of those balls were there right in in that bag right which tells us that you know HDCL balls or organized cricket balls actually don’t go don’t travel that far right but it’s still an issue so with these renovations when you’re moving it

00:38:53
away from the residence you’re actually helping helping those residents, right? So, why not do that, right? That’s the that’s the whole idea of the of these renovations. And when you have only once one pitch, why would you stop play there and not wait for one year or two year? I think we are supposed to break ground on the new cricket field uh next year.

00:39:14
So why not wait for another year or year and a half and then you know um have these consultations because we never know how these consultations will go right they can stop cricket altogether as well. Why not wait when the till you know the new cricket ground is available. >> Thank you for that.

00:39:35
My second question has to do with again um how we found out about all this. Uh, I personally got 10 to a dozen emails this weekend, >> right, >> from residents explaining their situation and I spoke to many of them and I emailed uh some of them as well. So my question to you is if we in terms of trying to find a safety issue, one of the concerns they had was the time of play.

00:40:08
You would play for you know, 12 hours a day, you know, many hours in the week and so on and so forth. Can you give me roughly how many hours of time because I’m assuming you got permits or you got you got how many hours is that? >> So on the weekends, which is Saturday, Sunday, um we start there at 8:30. As I said, you know, we made that change because we wanted, you know, residents to be happy for it, right? So from 8:30 in the morning to about um I think in the summers it’s like about 7 7:30ish right so about 11 hours or 12 hours on the weekend each day and then on weekdays the ground is available but then I don’t think they there are bookings during the day it’s usually like after 5 right so from 5 to maybe 8 early part of the summers right so

00:41:06
because it gets you know darker later part of the summer. So it’s like 5 to 7 or 5 to 8. So another 3 hours every weekday >> in the range of 137 hours a week. 35 37 hours a week. Okay. Thank you. >> Uh is it 137 hours? So 5 15 plus uh if you take 12 24 + 15 right a week you said >> I’m just asking. >> Yeah.

00:41:32
So uh a week a week day is basically 3 hours from 5 to 8. Yeah. So 15 hours for that and then 12 hours on the weekends, right? So 12 + 12. So 24 24 + 15. So that is what 39. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> councelor Nissan. >> Thanks Harsh. Um thank you mayor. The um my last question is uh as you know Sherwood Park is is going to have a cricket pitch.

00:42:00
I’m sure uh it will be very well used. Do you think that once that’s done having two pitches is the right amount for Burlington in 2028? >> I would strongly I strongly feel that because uh if you look at the other, you know, city comparable city and I’m not comparing Bmpton where there are, you know, maybe 10 different fields, right? Cricket fields or even more.

00:42:20
I’m comparing about with uh with Oakwell. I’m comparing with Milton. I’m comparing it with uh uh with Hamilton. So Hamilton has three grounds now. Oakwell has two grounds, right? And then central uh and in Burlington we only have one ground, right? So definitely we need another ground grow.

00:42:40
You have seen that you know um our bookings have increased as well, right? So earlier it used to be I I I guess we used to get for 22 hours or something like that. Now we get a lot more permits because cricket has grown tremendously. It’s one of the h you know one of the fastest growing sport. It’s the second most watched sport in the world as well.

00:43:02
So you know you have to accommodate that and Central Park by itself is not sufficient given you know the size of Burlington city the the demographics of Burlington city. So I strongly believe that yes we definitely need two grounds uh in the near future and maybe perhaps three grounds which conforms with the uh conforms with the live and play as well.

00:43:24
I think three rounds by 201 something like that >> and ideally you’d have two fulls size grounds in a perfect world. >> In a perfect world. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. >> Councelor Benia. >> Thank you mayor. Uh, are you aware that we have a a live and play book within the recreation and culture book? Right. I’m assuming.

00:43:49

Yeah. Yeah. I read through that. >> We have a forecast in there that we’re going to build a pitch at Sherwood Park. I’m not sure size and caliber and so on, but it’s going to be a new pitch and and we all welcome that. If this motion passes, what happens to your organization and anyone else or for that matter if I want to go with my kids and I never played cricket and want to try it, what happens to the league? What happens to the game here in Burlington? >> Unfortunately, as I said, there is just one cricket ground, right? So if we are not allowed to play, right, we’ll have no games in Burlington, right? Which given the size of Burlington, given the demographics of Burlington, given the community that is involved in Burlington, it would be a shame to see

00:44:48
that happening, right? There would be no games for kids, right? There would be no games for players who aspire to represent Canada one day. There would be no games for, you know, beginners as well, right? And nowhere else does this happen that you know you you have one cricket pitch and you’re taking that away right so that like that would be very very unacceptable just not to not just to you know people who play cricket but also people who watch cricket the whole South Asian community as such we are very passionate about cricket and we have to live with just one pitch but if you’re taking that away as well I don’t know what people will do we’ll just have no place to play. >> My last question is if it does go away and the next pitch is due I believe 2020 I’m going to say 28 maybe 29 I can’t remember how

00:45:47
if you’re still around in terms of organ organizer how difficult would it be to bring back the players the hype and so on and so forth. U with all that laps with no games here in Burlington. >> I can’t even dare to imagine that. You know, h not having cricket in Burlington, not having people, kids play cricket.

00:46:15
I can’t even dare to imagine that. You’re talking about 3 years, 2 years where there’s no cricket and then bringing back everybody to play here. That’s that’s I mean that’s something unimaginable to be honest, right? that’s not going to happen. Like if I bring back people to come and play here, I I I don’t even know what to what to say about it.

00:46:36
But yes, if there is no cricket, um that would be a shame, right? That would be a shame if there is no cricket happening in uh Burlington. We’ve been playing here for for almost a decade. As I said, we call it home. Um we want to continue this and we want to have that new pitch as well. I my I I strongly feel that you know the city should go ahead with the renovations, wait for that community feedback and stuff when the new cricket pitch is available and you know then take it from there.

00:47:12

Okay. Thank you uh councelor Karns. >> Uh thank you very much. I just need to ask you if you’re explicitly aware that there is no intention whatsoever to end cricket in Burlington at all. very explicitly clear the renovations were already going to be closing the Cricut pitch for exactly the renovations for uh a couple of months through the course of the summer.

00:47:37
What can happen with this pause is that uh community members who have been afforded no information just like council would have an opportunity to seek any um gentle changes to the modifications that are being presented and with time to open up the cricket pitch once again at some point before the end of the summer.

00:47:59
For explicit clarity, do you understand that no one at the city is ending uh cricket in its entirety at at all? that has never been the intention. Are you aware of that? >> Um, I am actually not. I I’m kind of aware of that. But wouldn’t that also mean that, you know, you’re increasing the time of renovations and such and then wouldn’t that mean that you know, Central Park will not be available for an extended period of time? >> So, this is not a debate, but my next question will be the purpose.

00:48:32
Are you aware the purpose of the community engagement piece is intended to be less than a month and because we don’t it could mean nothing and there could be no change to the process. It could mean that a modification comes in the May cycle of committee. Um but at no point is it intended to eliminate Cricut from the city of Willington.

00:48:55
Do you think it’s fair to allow the community an opportunity to review the proposed plans as it affects their neighborhood and allow council an opportunity to understand what modifications are being made? Because at this point, the only party that is aware of the modifications are staff and the user group. I don’t think it is fair to stop cricket u being played there for an extended period of time when summers are only 5 months and now you’re talking about having 3 months taken away from it or two months taken away from it. I don’t think that is fair. >> Thank you councelor Benia. >> Uh the delegate just answered my question with his last statement. Thank you. >> All right. Not seeing any further questions. Thank you so much for joining. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> We will turn to our next delegation and that is

00:49:54
Imran Alam from Cricket Burlington. Uh speaking virtually I believe there you are. Welcome. Uh we can see you and uh hopefully hear you and you will see the clock on your screen there as well. You’ve got five minutes and there may be questions. Go ahead. >> Uh thank you honorable mayor. Just want to ensure everybody can uh hear me.

00:50:17

Yep. Coming through loud and clear. >> Awesome. Great. Thank you. You know, thank you, mayor, and members uh for the members of the council for the opportunity to speak. You know, I’m here behalf of Cricut Burlington. That’s a registered cricket program provider with the city.

00:50:32
Uh I proudly call myself one of the founding members of cricket in Burlington and have been collaborating with the city and its amazing staff for over 16 to 17 years team since back in the day in 2010 when if uh honorable mayor me remembers that she threw the first pitch at the at the cricket groundbreaking.

00:50:49
It’s still an amazing day and and whenever I go to that pitch I remember that date and it’s always amazing. So team cricket cricket you know central park cricket has been a part of Burlington since 2010 over 15 years of safe responsible and organized cricket play which is most important today it supports 300 plus active members in the organization we got youth from under 19 uh to under 13 all the way to women’s and adult and even seniors above 50 are actually playing the sport with us there are almost 27 to 30,000 residents in Burlington who have a strong connection to the sport and want to see it grow. This is Burlington’s only dedicated cricket facility for now. And this is just not a field team. It’s a field of dreams. It’s a community asset that we’ve built together. And today the decision whether you know we move forward with the renovations or delay it a bit. But we ensure while while we’re having the community’s input, which is very important, we

00:51:48
continue and let the community use the pitch once the seasons open in May. while we ensure that residents and communities concerns and voices are heard and we move the renovations maybe to after the season ends. Again, that is something I’ll let the council to decide. Can we move on to the next slide? Uh now, uh council members, I want to be clear.

00:52:10
Uh this is not something that we waited for this motion. In collaboration with the city uh uh and cricket Burlington, we have been acting on residents and community concerns for many years, right? You know, just like soccer and baseball as an example where a sport that is played from both sides. We actually took the decision to just move it from one end.

00:52:29
Think of where you know all the soccer soccer fields and the basketball players are trying to score on one end of the of the net. Think of how uh you know crazy that’s going to be. You know, we went ahead and made that change and we’re like fine. You know what? We’re amazing members and neighbors.

00:52:42
We want to ensure the safety of our residents and be continue to be amazing members. So further to that team in working with the city, we installed clear signage. We we with cost from ourselves from our pockets, we installed visible boundary lines to let residents know that hey this is the boundary line of the cricket pitch.

00:53:00
Uh we added two onfield monitors at every match to manage play and behavior, noise, so on and so forth, right? We we did that in collaboration uh with our local leagues. And in 2026, I’ve got amazing news is we’re planning to launch a Burlingtononly lead. So what that means committee members is no external teams, less traffic, more accountability on local residents.

00:53:26
Right? So we as a community, we make it stronger. Right team, these are real proactive solutions that we already put in place. Can we move on to the next slide? Now team, you’re seeing a snippet of the proposed design. Now the proposed design team is actually not a risk. It is actually the solution and I know the council members uh need some time to kind of review it.

00:53:49
It actually orients the play as Harsh mentioned away from the homes reducing stray ball risk. It reduces a buffer zone of 20 m. Now this is not 20 m between the pitch and the resident’s home. This is extra 20 m on top of the 20 and 30 m to the nearest home. Right? So clearly separating uh cricket from the residential areas.

00:54:11
It actually shifts activity towards the parking lot improving noise and traffic flow and it builds on existing safety measures that we already in place the monitors the boundaries and the signage. So team this is what we call safety by design not by restriction. Right? So delaying this process mean delaying the very improvements the residents are looking for.

00:54:35
So, the safest way to move safety is to proceed with it, right? But the idea is we want the community to have their voice and be heard and we’re all actually all up for it. Can we move on to the next slide? Now, here’s a stat for you, council. Over 15 plus years, there has been zero zero known cricket related safety incidents in Central Park, Burlington.

00:55:04
That’s not theoretical. That’s a proven record because games when we play are supervised, structured, community-led and have monitors always there. And with the new Burlington only league that I just talked about, our accountability increases even further. We want to partner more closely with our community.

00:55:23
So you’re not managing a problem, you’re supporting a success story. So restricting or delaying a solution that actually follows a problem quite frankly in our mind team doesn’t exist. It actually makes uh makes the makes a community and the central park much better for the for everybody. >> You are out of time actually.

00:55:41
So we’re going to we’re going to stop there and there are some questions and you may >> if it’s okay. Can we just move on to the last slide? Literally my ask slide if it’s >> your last slide. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So team, we actually have a clear one more slide. Sorry. The sixth one. Yeah. So team, I know there were some questions that came up.

00:56:06
We actually have two clear asks, but we’ll be mindful, right? One is let the work proceed. It delivers safer layout, buffer zones, better orientation, stronger local accountability. Right? It actually does that. But if we continue with let’s say delaying this having the community’s input which is very important let’s move ahead with May 16th when the season open let cricket start in the exact same restrictions that we have in place so we can have the community input and maybe move these renovations to after the season so nothing’s disrupted we have the community input and we can make a better decision as a community thank you mayor me again for those extra minutes really thank you community for your time here. >> Thank you. You have one question so far coming from councelor Bentoia. >> Councelor, thank you. >> Thank you Amir uh delegation. I don’t want to repeat any questions we had with the previous delegator. So I’m just going to be pretty right straightforward

00:57:05
here. Um you want this work to proceed is what the message I get and that’s what I got the previous one. So my question to you is how confident are you to make sure that or to ensure that the resident’s concerns which is safety whether it’s balls whatever it is the safety issue that they’re concerned with.

00:57:32
Are you confident that if the work continues proceeds as planned >> through discussions and whatnot that you can you said you had zero uh issue incidents but are you confident that it’ll improve from whatever you got? If you got zero I don’t know how you improve from zero but but there might be other safety concerns as well.

00:57:54
So uh how confident are you in in the engagement that is discussed if the work proceeds >> 100% I think so council this takes us back to how we actually came to the decision of this new design right if you think about it when we met the residents we had the city members there we had the city parks and recck team and they highlighted some of their concerns that we have so when we worked with the city of uh Burlington to come up with this new design.

00:58:25
We actually had all of those uh uh let’s say concerns in mind. That’s how eventually we came up to that new design concept of moving away from houses, moving it with more open field, right? And only having always having the zero track record which we’re going to stick to. We’re actually very confident counselor that we’ll able to achieve that if not even more.

00:58:48
I’m actually 100% 200% confident. You can put a number on it. So my second question is and I just I just got you just hit me with a hammer here. You’re saying that you and the residents and the city met to discuss this previously. Is that what I heard? >> Yeah. So not the design of the plan but when at one point when the resident they actually came to a cricket field uh at one time and we had a meeting and they actually put their concerns and said guys this is kind of like what’s happening. That’s where we saw the bucket of balls. That’s where they said the noise concern. So that is I believe a conversation that we had with the residents at that time and I think so happened last last year at the start of the season. So we’re close to that. >> Thank you. It’s good information for me to know. Thank you. >> You’re welcome. >> All right. I am not seeing any other questions. So thank you so much for joining and uh this item will be discussed later in our agenda. You can

00:59:48
stick around for that. >> Thank you again. Thank you so much. I got left off easy. >> Thanks for joining. >> Thank you.

01:00:00
committee meetings and just a summary of some of the work that we’ve been doing that uh got us to today. We had our regular council meeting March 10, 5 hours, 15 minutes, seven delegations and eight uh sorry, five recommendations. Committee of the whole meeting April 13 and 14 was 9 hours, nine delegations and 23 recommendations.

01:00:21
pipeline to permit committee April 16, 23 minutes uh zero delegations and three recommendations. So a total of 31 recommendations arising from those meetings. We had three bylaws and uh spent 2 hours 15 in confidential council meeting March 10 with one recommendation and 42 minutes in confidential committee of the whole meeting April 13 with two recommendations.

01:00:52
So, we have a number of items grouped together as consent. We will get those up on the list. Uh, if council wants to speak to an item, they don’t have to pull it. If they want a separate vote or have additional questions, uh, just let me know and we can pull that out. So, we’ve got, uh, St.

01:01:06
Luke’s Window to the Lake 2026 tax levy bylaw financial status report December 31st the tender award for Spruce Avenue renewal significant tree maintenance rebate the uh government relations uh report and funding update uh the advisory uh committee 2025 annual reports community engagement charter relaunch council Remuneration report 2026 to 2030.

01:01:42
Uh we’ve sorry we’ve also got uh item F in there. I missed it in reading. Uh operating budget performance report as at December 30th. Item uh L, economic development and tourism service delivery. Item N Motion memorandum regarding eligibility criteria for membership on standing committees. Item N, motion memo regarding on demand transit pilot.

01:02:10
Uh motion N regarding changes to the 2026 calendar of meetings. Motion P regarding the 2025 community survey survey vision zero road safety action plan. Item Q, item S, the provincial land development facilitator request for 1200 King Road. Item T, official plan and zoning bylaw amendments for 1056 to 1060 Brandt Street.

01:02:34
Item U, draft housing community improvement plan amendment, the confidential legal update litigation matter regarding Burlington new official plan and the confidential legal update regarding 2076 Old Lakeshore Road. Does anyone wish to pull any of those items? Does anyone wish to comment on any of those items? Councelor Bentia.

01:03:04

Thank you, Mayor. I just uh want to comment uh quickly on the on demand uh transit um COW 1026. uh we received a delegation um on email and um when I read it I I was I was concerned that some of the information that was brought forward um I’m not saying was was interpreted differently from what we had discussed um in specifically mentioning a particular organization which that is not part of the staff report.

01:03:40
The staff report is going to come back and give us a recommendation which may include numerous um organizations which I may or may not be aware of but generally how we can improve uh our situ our our service which means increasing ridership um to better service our residents and taxes uh better experiences for our customers and potentially reduce the cost per ride.

01:04:15
So that’s what we have discussed and I will reach out um personally with with the delegate just to make sure that we’re on the same page. So I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. >> Thank you councelor Karns. >> Thank you very much. I just wanted to uh comment on the supplementary information around the council renumeration as uh as it was requested.

01:04:42
So I appreciate that that has come back in item 20.2 which does indicate three times. I recognized one time within CO and beyond uh you know the elected officials offices have exercised this program for uh internship um opportunities and I I’m not going to put an amendment in because you know we got this cut a little bit late and you know I’m a little bit away uh but I would just hope that uh those elected official rules uh restrain themselves from additional support going into the future because this is really a little bit unfair for the rest of council and it’s a good example of just because you can it doesn’t mean you should. When we do see how many times since 2018 uh different departments have been relying on this support to help do special projects and to help uh work through things. I’d also want to highlight that it was helpful to have the variance report that indicates the times in which the full budget wasn’t

01:05:40
used and uh again if those budgets could be used to their fullest extent. I know that there’s a lot of departments across the city that are looking for that uh intern help and to help create that pipeline to uh gainful employment and trained employment within our uh city. So, thank you very much to HR for preparing that report.

01:06:02

Councelor Charman, >> thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here. Um couple of things. one is the economic development and tourism service delivery um discussion we had uh over the course of the last year um and we’ve come to a conclusion u on that matter that I think is fitting and and and you know align strategy and processes uh correctly or has the opportunity to do that uh and and will will hopefully provide a a a really really well-informed future uh for uh operating economic development as well as tourism services. Um, so I think we’ve come to a a good solution. I’m very pleased with that. Thank you to staff. Thank you to the board and staff of the Burlington economic development uh and tourism. Um, so that was good. The other one I want to comment on is of course the uh the the motion memo regarding the on demand transit pilot. Um, yes, I I I agree there was uh some

01:07:02
confusion um in terms of the uh the dialogue. Um but I can also say that that that it clearly the the the way in which we stimulated the discussion by uh uh engaging Argo Transit to come and show their buses and let people see them um was actually very positive. Um but nowhere in our motion memorandum did we we say we wanted to engage them.

01:07:24
Uh what we’ve asked staff to do is take a look at how we can improve local services to our community members who are presently underserved. and uh that was received well by staff. Uh in fact they helped helped us uh improve the document and all round a good outcome too. So I’m very pleased with what we’ve accomplished in those matters as well as a lot of other things this this month.

01:07:47
Thank you >> councelor Bentania second time. >> Thank you mayor. Um I just wanted to um actually make a comment on U the uh vision zero uh road safety action plan. Uh again, as I mentioned at the committee meeting, uh I am certainly in favor 110% to uh make sure that our roads are safe uh for everyone.

01:08:09
Uh having said that, my concern uh and I will reiterate that is that it is $300,000 that we’re putting in mid-season pre-budget. And uh it’s something that I’m concerned about um that we didn’t bring it up at the last budget for whatever reason and I believe we should wait till the next budget to bring it up.

01:08:40
It doesn’t delay anything in my from what I can read the report is going to come back in Q4 of 2027 which gives all of 2027 or most of it uh for this um if it’s passed at budget time for this report to get done and come back with a recommendation to council. So, uh, I won’t support it because it’s an, as I call a walk-on budget, um, that, um, probably should have been brought forward in last budget and if not, now I’m looking at next budget.

01:09:25
So, thank you for that. >> Are you wanting to pull something out for a separate vote, counselor? >> Yes, please. I thought we uh went through that the last that committee. Yeah, pull it out for a separate vote. Thank you. >> Uh, and sorry, which item was that? >> It was Q. >> Q.

01:09:47
Okay, we’ll pull that out and uh get the list back up and have a separate vote on that. Okay, councelor Nissan. >> Yeah, thank you. Just on the same item, there was a lot of uh things that need to be cleared up there um as staff already stated at committee. Uh getting this done uh and approved today uh will allow them to advance the work.

01:10:04
It is a significant amount of work and uh and it will not be all completed in it cannot be all completed through the next budget uh into 2027. So um staff are very clear that uh approving this now would allow them to get a head start on the work and it is a lot of work. Um and uh I’m certainly not going to unnecessarily delay things just for the symbolism of getting something done uh in a budget uh cycle when in-y-ear uh budget appropriations are completely normal and acceptable in uh municipal practice. And we couldn’t do it in the budget last year because we were still waiting. Uh we that was the same time that our um our speed cameras were uh in the process of being uh that program being dismantled. So uh it wasn’t uh feasible uh with the lead times to get that into the budget last year. So that’s why it’s

01:11:03
coming as an in-ear and I think it’s extremely important that we do this ASAP and also I want to uh have this approved in this term of council. Thank you. >> Thank you councelor. uh not seeing any other comments. I will take a moment to comment on the uh additional information regarding the student internship program and provide some additional context that may be helpful for community’s understanding of this since uh my office was flagged as using it.

01:11:31
We we have done uh in 2019 and 2021 uh council will remember the uh mayor’s office staff was three. uh we had the review from the independent committee uh around the um uh corporate use uh of resources. We also had them review uh staff compliment. I had an intern at that time. Uh so my compliment was four. They said that was appropriate uh in this term of council.

01:12:02
uh council will recall I brought forward the request uh after detailed study by our staff around uh the appropriate staffing level for the mayor’s office and it was confirmed uh not only uh because we well used the intern program uh but uh staff independently confirming that another resource was required uh and that was granted uh thank you council very much for that appreciate uh the support for that so our compliment is now four and uh we have used uh an intern for uh summer relief and special projects.

01:12:38
The process uh just so folks may be uh interested in using it uh if they are is an open and transparent call uh that anyone can apply for and staff make that ter determination. It’s not a political determination. It’s based on a demonstrated need. So uh and that is true and fair for all departments. So that’s how uh that all came about.

01:13:05
Thank you. And we’ll turn now to the vote on the grouping of items. Go ahead. >> Councelor Gre >> support. Councelor Karns >> support. >> Councor Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty >> support. >> Councelor Charman. >> Councelor Benia >> support. >> Mayor me >> support. >> Seven in favor. >> Thank you.

01:13:24
Uh turning now to item J, the real estate matter and uh councelor Greath will not be voting on that. Any excuse me >> Q. We got >> We’ll come to Q after Jay. Thanks Angelo. Uh anyone wanting to ask any questions on that item before I call the vote? Any qu uh comments on that item? Seeing none, I’ll turn it to the clerk for the recorded vote. Councelor Greath.

01:13:56

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Council Gold declared an interest. Councelor Karns >> support. >> Councelor Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Salty >> support. >> Councelor Sherman >> support. >> Councelor Bentovenia >> support. >> Mayor me Ward >> support. >> That’s six in favor. >> Thank you. Now coming to Q.

01:14:13
The vision zero program. Any further questions or comments on that? Seeing none, I’ll turn it to the clerk for the recorded vote. >> Councelor Goldberg, >> support. Councelor Karns. >> The Port Safety, yes. >> Councelor Nissan, >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty, >> support. >> Councelor Charman, >> support. >> Councelor Bentania, >> do not support.

01:14:42

And Mayor Maidward, >> support. >> That’s six in favor, one against. >> And that does carry. Turning now to uh item R, the heritage response to Bill 23, the short phase 2 short list of designation candidates. The list is on your screen there. Any questions or comments on that before I call the vote? Seeing none, uh turning to the clerk for the recorded vote.

01:15:09

Sorry, I couldn’t get my hand up. >> Go ahead. >> Thanks. I’d like to call a separate vote, please, on Ontario, uh and Birch. I can’t see the names. I can’t see them on the screen very well. Uh, but if you could just separate those votes. I’m going to look for the number. >> Uh, it’s items 9 and 10.

01:15:28
So, we’ll take >> two separate votes. So, the first vote will be um items 1 to 8. I’ll turn it to the clerk for the recorded vote on items 1 to eight. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Councelor Golth. Support. Councelor Karns. >> Support. >> Councelor Nissan. >> Support. >> Councelor Stoalty. >> Support. >> Councelor Charman.

01:15:55

Do not support. >> Councelor Bentmania. >> Do not support. >> Mayor Maid Ward. >> Support. >> That is five in favor, two against. >> That carries. And now items nine and 10. >> Councelor Greath >> support. Councelor Karns >> do not support. Councelor Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty >> support.

01:16:19

Councelor Charman >> do not support. >> Councelor Bentovenia >> do not support. >> Mayor Mard >> support. >> That is four in favor, three against. >> Thank you. Uh we are going to take a fivem minute recess. We’re at 11:00 and be back here at 5 after 11. Thanks everyone. >> Sorry I wrote in your agenda.

01:16:41
You want me to grab you another All right, folks. We are back and uh

01:25:06
we’re on item uh 13.2, pipeline to permit committee meeting of April 16. And all items are grouped together for one consent vote, the planning and building fee review update, staff presentation regarding the community improvement plan update, and a verbal update on Burlington’s new zoning bylaws.

01:25:26
Any questions or comments on those? Seeing none, I’ll pass it to the clerk for the recorded vote. Go ahead. >> Councelor Gworth, support. Councelor Karns, >> support. Council Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty >> support. >> Councelor Charman >> support. >> Councelor Bentania >> support. >> Mayor Maid Ward >> support. >> That’s seven in favor.

01:25:53

That does carry. I now have a motion to approve the standing committee meeting minutes moved by councelor Stoalty. Seconded by councelor Golbrath to confirm the meet minutes of the following meetings of committee. Committee of the whole meeting minutes of April 13 and 14 and pipeline to permit committee meeting minutes of April 16.

01:26:12
All those in favor show of hands. Any opposed? Seeing none, that does carry. We have no urgent business. We have no confidential items. I do have a motion to confirm the confidential closed meeting minutes. Moved by councelor Nissan, seconded by councelor Karns to approve the meeting minutes of March 10 and the minutes of April 13 and 14 of committee of the whole.

01:26:37
All those in favor? Show of hands. Any opposed? Seeing none, that does carry. Uh I am now going to pass the gavl over to Deputy Mayor Councelor Charman to chair this portion of the meeting as I’m seconding the next motion. Over to you, councelor Charman. Well, very good. Thank you very much.

01:26:58
It’s uh from afar and a pleasure to do this. Um so, I’m looking for any I guess you want to begin by describing the um the proposal. Um I’m sorry, who’s who’s moving this? Okay, go ahead, Council Stallsy. Thank you. >> Thank you, Chair. Um yeah, so thank you very much for the opportunity to put this forward and thank you to the mayor for seconding it.

01:27:26
Uh we can all see when wording comes forward for a motion that’s full of whereas whereas whereas that we’re doing some advocacy and that’s exactly what this is. Um it’s advocacy on a combination of issues that both are quite important to the values of Burlington which is kind of exciting or I hope you at least you find it to be so.

01:27:46
So, the request is to provide some advocacy to the province about a proposed provincewide heritage helping housing grant program. Yes, the HHGP that’s being put forward by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. Uh what’s great about this proposal is that it’s the idea is it’s combining creating new housing opportunities within existing heritage buildings and and giving the opportunity for residents to apply for a matching grant program.

01:28:13
The mayor asked a very good question when I put this forward to her for possible seconding as far as whether or not it involved any funding coming from the city, which it does not. It is a grant program that has been run, very similar program in Alberta in Calgary for almost 15 years quite su successfully.

01:28:30
And the grant program is purely an arrangement between homeowners and the province to access funding from a proposed pot of money that will allow for creating new housing in existing buildings. It reuses existing structures min minimizing the need for need for new infrastructure. It rehabilitates older buildings making changes less expensive.

01:28:51
It keeps older buildings helping a community enriched neighborhoods. It’s a simpler, more direct way for heritage building owners to fund renovations or conservation. Reduces carbon emissions in comparison to demolishing the building and starting from scratch. Offers an incentive for homeowners to work with municipalities to possibly have historical places recognized.

01:29:12
And it just all in all it’s been a very successful program in Calgary since 2012. And this is an ask to um support the mayor to provide a letter to the province to encourage the province to agree to the funding that the architectural conservancy of Ontario is putting forward. So that’s it in a nutshell. Thank you. >> Thank you very much councelor.

01:29:31
Over to you mayor. >> Thank you so much Paul. I want to thank uh councelor Stolty for bringing this forward and uh the incredible work of our uh volunteer heritage committee for staying on top of these opportunities. We really do appreciate this. And in addition to what councelor Stoldy has said, this is really a carrot approach.

01:29:54
Uh we do have the ability in law to designate buildings uh that are worthy of heritage protection, but we want to make sure that when we do that, we provide some assistance and and the city has done that ourselves with respect to the heritage property tax rebate, the uh grant renovation program and other tools.

01:30:13
Uh and this is a way for the province to help us participate in um maintaining and conserving those incredible heritage resources. So fully support this and uh support using all of the tools including incentives and uh as I said carrots. Thanks. >> Thank you councelor. I see your hand up. Are you going to ask a question or are you making a comment or >> Sorry.

01:30:36
I wanted a second comment for a second if I could. >> Um I wonder if we should do you do you would you prefer to wait for questions to see if there are any? >> It’s purely just an oversight on my part. If I could add two seconds. >> Go ahead. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to thank the mayor for thanking our heritage committee.

01:30:53
I was remiss and I would not want this to be perceived that I was bringing this forward. This was brought forward by our Heritage Burlington Advisory Committee and all their hard work and I also thank them for that. >> Thank you very much. Okay. Are there any questions of the movers or staff? Okay.

01:31:11
See, I’m not actually seeing any hands. No hands. That’s fine. Okay. So, thank you very much. Um, so this is moved by definition. Are there any comments? Again, I’m seeing no hands. So, I will just make the comment. Remarkable as this may seem, I fully support this. you know, given given the challenges um that are often uh taken on by by owners of heritage homes um and sometimes against their will when their homes are force heritage made were forced to be heritage.

01:31:52
Um it it it creates it creates all sorts of different uh constraints that they didn’t have uh imposed by the government and so for government belief helping and improving that is a good thing. So I actually I think government should pay for the house in the first place and buy it off of them. But you know that’s a whole other conversation.

01:32:11
So I support this anyway. Are there any further comments? >> Go ahead councelor. >> Oh councelor Stoy just uh was looking at me making sure that I was with her. Uh I will support this as well. Um, it’s always a good plan when uh a willing applicant receives willing money from upper level government.

01:32:36
So, I will certainly support this uh um motion. Thank you. >> There you go. That’s a good sign. Uh are there anybody has anybody else any comments? >> I shouldn’t have heard the hands, so I’m going to call the vote or I guess this is a recorded vote. So, over to you, clerk. Councelor Goldberg >> support. >> Councelor Karns >> support.

01:33:00

Councelor Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty >> support. >> Councelor Charman >> support. >> Councelor Brenttovenia >> support. >> Mayor me Ward >> support. >> Councelor Sherman that’s seven in favor. >> Very good. >> I’m going to hand back the uh the the the graph the gavl may be. Go ahead. Thank you.

01:33:20

Thank you councelor Charerman. Appreciate that. All right. Moving now to item 18.2. to the Central Park Cricut item and we do need to have a second uh recorded vote which I’ll turn it over uh a proced procedure bylaw matter. I’ll turn it over to the clerk to explain before we actually get into discussion of this.

01:33:39

Thank you, Mayor Mid Ward. Uh yes, a second two-thirds vote is required before this the motion uh from councelor Karns and seconded by councelor Nissan goes on the floor. The reason for this is that uh this is a staff direction and staff directions through in the procedure bylaw require a report back from staff.

01:33:54
So this is just waving that requirement to report back from staff for this motion to be put on the floor. >> All right. So I will assume councelor Karns and Nissan have moved the waving first and uh we’ll deal with that and then we’ll assuming that gets two/3 support. We will move to the item itself. Over to you clerk for the recorded vote >> comment on that.

01:34:17

Oh uh go ahead councelor Nissan. >> Yeah thank you. I uh I generally don’t support uh us waving this section. So, this is a bit of a surprise to me. What we’ve done in the past is modified the direction in in the process to get the appropriate report back. However, I do want to have the discussion.

01:34:36
So, I’m I’m fine to second it for the sake of the discussion and we’ll have to keep that uh in mind. It is calling for a pause. So it it’s uh kind of more of a the request is relatively urgent, so I can see the value here, but it should be a pause and report back, which I I thought was roughly essentially in that motion.

01:34:58
So uh for the procedure cleanup, I’m okay to second this. Thank you. >> Councelor Bentania on the waiver. >> I just want to make sure I have a friendly amendment to um that I’d like to put forward at the next one. Okay. Sorry. We’ll do that next. Yep. >> Okay. We just need to get the item on the floor first. Okay.

01:35:22
Uh any further questions or comments? All right. To the clerk. >> Councelor Gre >> support. Councelor Karns >> support. >> Councelor Nissan >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty >> support. >> Councelor Charman >> support. >> Councelor Bentania >> support. >> Mayor me Ward >> support. >> That’s seven in favor.

01:35:42

And that does carry. All right. So uh we have the item on the floor which is to direct the director of recreation, community and culture to pause the renovations of central cricket pitch in order to un undertake a public engagement process and explore options to address resident concerns.

01:35:58
So, I’ll look to the uh before I open it up for questions of stuff or the mover. I’ll um offer well the uh mover to speak to it and the secondary to speak to it and then we’ll open it up for questions and comments. Go ahead, councelor Karns. >> Thank you. First, I want to address why this was brought in under urgent business.

01:36:21
So, uh, the community was provided information, uh, a few weeks back indicating, um, construction is happening in your neighborhood which outlined, uh, with no diagrams, with no, um, detail, uh, that there was going to be a change to the orientation of the Central Park cricket pitch. that uh incited some alarm in the community because people did not know what was happening in a main park that’s used by a number of different users which is talking about that balance for all user groups including passive and permanent play. Um there were some additional elements that became available to community members by way of an FOI process and report which then caused a significant amount of misinformation that was circulated which resulted in there is a petition a live petition out there. Uh there’s been a number of flyers handed around the park and the uh surrounding areas alerting uh park users and community uh members uh and maybe

01:37:21
even Cricut users uh to the issue uh that’s at hand which is just really um this has been brought forward by way of uh recreation and community culture and consult with uh the engineering department uh which is generally within their purview of delegated authority. Um, however, I think what we’re really asking for here is an opportunity for the uh surrounding community and maybe even beyond to understand what adjustments are being made, what that means for their um enjoyment and use of their nearby properties, what it means for both the user groups and the passive user groups. um some of the preliminary diagrams that I have seen uh really stretch that buffer zone kind of out to the very uh last blade of grass in in Central Park. Uh reading through some of the report pieces that have come forward, it does include the removal of seven mature trees, I think they span between 35 and 45 centimeters in

01:38:19
diameter and are often used as the only source of shade uh for one of the ball diamonds and of course the Cricut users. So, um, really this is a a situation where it’s not intending to be pausing, uh, in permanency the use of the Cricut pitch at all. It is sort of bordering between that inform and consult piece where having some extra feedback and engagement can deliver the best possible outcome for everyone because right now uh there is a lot of tension in the community related to what is happening and a lot of misinformation and this is a chance for staff to get some additional input from community members on the proposed plan. uh maybe even as well the user groups we’ve heard about um issues that have they’ve raised as well uh related to some of the safety concerns. We’re we’re not even defining it fully as a safety concern at this point. So there is some ambiguity around that as well which is concerning. Uh and then there’s an additional loss of some

01:39:19
parking spaces on that uh sort of west gravel area that is often used uh for people accessing the ball diamonds, some of the soccer pitches for the little soccerers and the uh community garden. So really all I’m asking for is a chance to review exactly what is happening, get some community input uh that says, you know, let’s do this.

01:39:40
We’re we’re fine with it now that everybody understands. or could we make a minor uh modification here that would result in X which would be a better use of the space. Um but process without any engagement uh including with council is just really difficult to absorb by the community. Thank you. >> Councelor Nissan, you’re next.

01:40:04

Thank you. Your worship. So obviously this came in very quickly and uh I received some of the emails as well. So, I’m happy to second it to get it on the floor for the discussion. Um, I’m most concerned or want just want to know what the deal is with the trees. I just want to know because that is very well used shade in a park that doesn’t have much uh shade um in that area in particular.

01:40:29
But um I also want to know uh given that we’re doing a a new um cricket pitch in 2028 um and there’s uh further uh opportunities for more pitches um that uh I want to understand the the larger strategic element of that um and better understand the plans. Uh that being said, um I mean I’ve learned I learned more from the delegate than I had prior to that, including seeing uh a diagram I had not seen before.

01:41:00
Um so that’s adding more information. It doesn’t look like the trees are particularly large trees, but I do want to know how they’re going to get replaced. And I do want to refer my colleagues uh back to a motion that I brought that we all supported um exactly a year ago. and the title of that was more cricket in Burlington.

01:41:19
So any concerns about where council’s position is on cricket could be allayed by this um motion memorandum that is on the books from April 15, 2025 and which was responded to uh two months later with uh quite a number of different opportunities uh which uh a couple of which I’ll ask uh staff about um including um City View Park which was noted for potentially a smaller field.

01:41:46
So uh I see a lot of opportunities for cricket and in that context I just want to understand better uh why this rena is happening. Uh the trees I I we and I want to note that we were given advanced notice about this through an email. Uh the email did not mention any trees coming down.

01:42:03
So that’s a gap that I would like to fill through this meeting. Thank you your worship. >> Thank you. All right. Um, I will turn it now to questions first if folks could uh do that and then uh we’ll we’ll go to comments just so we can uh easily manage the clock here. So, uh, Council Greath first with questions. >> Thank you, Mayor.

01:42:24
And I’m waiting for Emily to get up here. Um, so my first question is, um, and I’m assuming there was public consultation done already. just wondering what type um how long ago and and and what was done to inform the public in the past about the upcoming renovations. >> Uh thank you councelor for the question uh through the chair back to you.

01:42:50
Uh so we received for the last couple of years we’ve received a numerous uh resident emails and concerns about the the cricket park the cricket activity in the park. Um so we were engaging with them and last year um and the delegate referred to this we had on-site meetings um with uh both the residents who had brought forward concerns as well as the Cricut groups to look at options.

01:43:13
So things that were on the table at the time were items that were um brought forward by the delegates today. So things like noise um stray balls uh the time of permits and so forth. Um we actually had two site meetings. Uh so through those conversations uh staff have brought for had brought forward a proposed uh field layout to which we had the resident and other groups kind of comment on um and then um through engineering’s magic work t took in some of that feedback and came up with the proposal which is what you saw in one of the delegates up there today. Um, in full transparency, we never went back to those residents to let them know that that was the exact layout, but we did inform them that construction was going to take place this year, uh, through a resident drop letter that went out in March. >> Great. Thanks for that. Um, and then, um, second question, you know, a lot of the I’ve received, we’ve all received, uh, emails and public comments. Um, some

01:44:12
want cricket removed from the park and some want it the safety improved. um and they’re not they they don’t seem to be aware of the details of the renovation. So um do the planned renovations and changes address the safety concerns most of them that were there prior to this. >> Thank you for the question.

01:44:36
Counselor Erin Browers, director of engineering services. Um yeah, the design as Emily described uh had evolved uh with the support of staff and our consultant to basically um address the safety concerns related to balls landing in um adjacent residences uh and the parking lot that you heard referred to by the delegates.

01:45:00

Thank you, >> Councelor Stalty. >> Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Um the first one is actually to the mover to councelor Karns. I’m assuming it’s given the fact that this is in your ward in ward 2 um that you’re aware of the petition and I’m curious about the nature of the petition.

01:45:15
Can you speak to is the petition in regards to adapting the pitch and addressing some of the safety concerns and noise concerns or is the petition in an effort to prevent the pitch from being installed? >> Go ahead, counselor. I will just need a minute to pull that up because um I’ve not been involved with the pit with the petition.

01:45:39
I’ve just been made aware of it and I also believe there’s two. So I’m going to ask my office to pull that up really quickly and if you can come back to me I will uh give you that answer. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um so my second question is to staff. Um I’m no I shouldn’t assume. I was going to start with saying I’m assuming and I won’t because it’s a question to you.

01:46:00
Are the comments and challenges that you’re getting from the community are they not uh sim are they similar to the changes that we get whenever there’s changes proposed to the parks like when there’s proposal for pickle ball courts and so on going in are they similar change concerns >> uh through the chair to you councelor stol um certainly anytime there are changes to uh a park especially when it uh means providing more activity there’s always a dividing Right.

01:46:30
There’s folks who are super excited to see the parks active and there’s folks who want to see more calm in their neighborhood and and the issue you alluded to around pickle ball. We’ve seen, you know, over the years some noise concerns around um pickle ball for sure. So to that piece, yes, it’s it is fairly similar around the noise piece.

01:46:48
Um that said, the stray balls and some of those pieces which we are addressing through these renovations are would be more unique. That said, staff are responding appropriately with the proposed renovations to address those concerns. >> Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up to that? Okay. Thank you. So, when you allude to the stray balls, that’s that would be more of a safety issue for people using the park.

01:47:12

Yeah. Uh, councelor, I think that’s right. Yeah. And am I correct in my understanding that when you met with residents and pickle ball or not sorry not pickle ball sorry um cricket users last summer as regards to trying to address some of those that staff did mention the possibility of including nets in the pitch proposal and that who who decided that nets were not the best way to deal with safety issues.

01:47:38

I’ll start and I’m pass maybe pass it over to Aaron for support here. So through the chair to you counselor. Um so last summer when we met with the residents, we looked at all options. Part of that was from a consultant report which councelor Karns um mentioned in in her opening remarks. Um so some of the mitigation strategies that the consultant had identified included nets, including a pitch uh reshuffleling and some of those pieces.

01:48:00
So we looked at kind of all those options and that was part of the engagement. We received a strong no from the enga from the residents that we engaged with. They were really opposed to the nets as as you can imagine. And so, um, we took that feedback and, you know, engineering staff were able to come up with a design that still addresses those safety pieces and doesn’t necessarily call for nets immediately.

01:48:21

Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. We’ll continue with questions. Uh, councelor Bento, you’re next. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just want to um ask a question based on councelor Galbre’s question. um with the work that you’re proposing uh in terms of the renovations uh to the park. Um and you had the discussion with the parents and you had the discussion with the users.

01:48:51
Um from a consultant standpoint, they came up with this solution to uh eliminate the risks and what what the residents were looking for. Is this consultant specifically or a cricket consultant or is it just a regular sport consultant? I’m just curious. >> Yeah, thank you for the question, counselor.

01:49:20
Um, this consultant is a licensed um landscape architect in Ontario and and this is the type of um professional that we would typically rely on for the design of sports fields. >> Great. Thank you for that. And my second question has to do with the process that we used when we had this discussion and the information that went out.

01:49:41
Is this typical of other facilities when we do a a ball diamond or like you mentioned uh any other sport is it? >> Thank you counselor for the question through the chair to you. Um absolutely. So you know I think you know renovations come from multiple areas planned from a capital perspective as in like life life cycle renewal um emerging needs um and in this case it came from you know wanting to solidify cricket at that location given on the demand as well as a response to uh the resident concerns and the engagement. So um absolutely this is the typical process that we would do and as much as we engage with the residents um the overall design really is a city is a citydriven piece right we’re the experts we know what’s safe we know how we build those pitches for the enjoyment of the community so I would say yes to your to your question

01:50:40

councelor Nissan >> yeah thank you uh the about the trees then um what is the status of those uh trees and what are we going do to provide shade in the in the park to replace them if anything? >> Uh to you chair to the counselor. I will uh I will answer the tree questions. Uh I’m so there are seven trees um that are sort of in conflict with the proposed uh uh shift of of the playing field.

01:51:08
Uh of those trees are in relatively good shape. They are they are mediumsiz and uh the plan would be um for compensation would be very similar to other corporate projects whether they’re roadway parks facilities um that uh we would uh look to have replacement plings um in the area and in this case the replacement plannings have been identified as 31 50 mm cal caliber trees and they’ll be uh the plan is and although we don’t have the locations determined right now would would be to plant those uh within the park area. >> Okay. And uh so that allays that concern. Uh with respect to uh the budget, could you tell us what the overall budget is and what uh what that budget’s going into high level? >> Yeah, thank you for the question,

01:52:06
counselor. Um, so the the improvements that we’re contemplating for construction this year, uh, basically relocating the pitch, uh, removal and replanting of the trees, um, adjustments to the parking, uh, the estimated budget is in and around $275,000. >> Those are my two. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councelor Karns.

01:52:30

This is not a question. This is a response to the earlier uh, query. Uh in regards to the petition, I have uh located it online on change.org. It is not calling for the permanent removal. What it is calling for is uh holding the city of Burlington accountable for park safety and it speaks to uh close calls, etc.

01:52:50
uh and it is speaking to the lack of transparency and action from the city regarding the original build and expert assessments of these hazards. Uh the noise assessment uh potential injury and it also speak to issues regarding um people having the ability to traverse the park. Uh because the new mapping basically goes corner to corner, width to width, north to south.

01:53:12
Uh for people who are trying to get to the neighboring amenities, which would be the senior center, the Y, the library, uh tennis, dog park, etc., uh the playground, uh and other community buildings. And it indicates in the opinion of the permit of the petition, uh that it’s putting the young and the old and those with mobility issues at risk.

01:53:35
So, uh, that’s what it speaks to while also encouraging a more appropriate, um, permanent home that’s wellappointed at Sherwood Park for the game. So, um, that that would be the response for you, Councelor Stooly, from what the petition I can find online looks like. >> Okay. Um, I’ll come back >> to my questions now. >> Uh, yeah. >> Can I use this new hand, a new hand for questions? >> Sure. Go ahead.

01:54:03
and then I’ll come back in line to councelor Stoalty if you wanted to follow up on that information. Thank you counselor. Go ahead with your questions. >> So my first question is this. So, how long would it take for the staff both engineering and recreation and community culture to at least return back to staff, return back to the community, which is, you know, enshrined in our engagement charter to tell them how their feedback was used uh and present the findings of what the reorientation might look like and to hear their final feedback and make any modifications as might be required. So, um, how long of a pause is essentially would essentially be the minimum amount of time to do that work? >> Thank you, counselor, for the question through the chair to you. I think an appropriate timeline would be a couple weeks uh for us to put together um I think you’re referring to a public information session. Um, so I think in

01:55:03
order to do that well and set it up and get the notifications out would be a couple weeks. Uh, to speak to the delay piece, um, I’ll ask Aaron to speak to the delay on the construction and what that would mean. >> Yeah, thank you for the question. Um, maybe just to level set where we’re at with the schedule at the moment.

01:55:21
Uh if we were to tender this work uh today, we’d be looking at um roughly completing construction in uh probably early August, there’d be a period of time where we’re waiting for the for the saw to establish itself. So perhaps playable in September. Um so to the question if we basic if we are to uh hold on the tender until the consultation is done you can we would essentially add that amount of time to the back end of um making the the field uh ready for play.

01:55:53
So likely working within the month of September at the moment. >> Okay. So, just to follow up there, um, were people in the user group aware that they were already delayed through to September for any game play at all? Because it’s making it sound from the delegations where they thought it was like June um, and any kind of work that we would be doing in engagement was going to push them into September, but I’m hearing it’s already September.

01:56:20
Were they aware? Thank you counselor for the question uh through the chair to you. Originally that was the dates we were looking at had we tendered back in March but just based on the internal discussion and the pause to to have the internal discussions and clarify and then waiting for it for the discussion today we’ve added that extra um month and a half.

01:56:48

Okay. So my second question will be related to the trees. So, I heard that we’re losing 35 to 45 mm trees being replaced with 5 mm 50 mm calipers, which is 5 cm. Are they intended to be replaced in the same areas or could we have just been increasing the tree canopy in Central Park anyways? >> Yeah, thank you for the question, counselor.

01:57:16
um uh the opportunity to replant the trees in and around the existing area or immediately adjacent to the field are are pretty limited. Um it that’s driven by the the existing constraints around the park and the size of the field that we’re working with. Um so the the location anticipated would be would be more easterly of the existing field.

01:57:39
Um and I I suppose that opportunity uh always existed. That’s true. Okay, I’ll go back into queue for my next questions. Thanks, >> Councelor Sherman, you’re next. >> Thank you very much. um just start off commenting uh so just begin with the notion that there’s 39 hours of time in that in that cricket pitch today which seems like an awful lot of disruption for a community when that pitch was initially going to be used much less than that.

01:58:16
Um and that leads me to the question um about the degree the way in which we um um have community engagement because I remember with Sherwood Forest Park when we were talking about having a cricket pitch put in there, we’d had no community engagement uh you know formal um meeting. So we had a meeting um and and it was and we did that as a result of my asking staff and we had a good outcome with um but why do do we not do this anymore for do we not do this for mass big changes in in sports uh amenities? Do we not have sort of a the same sort of community engagement um as we do with other such changes? Thank you counselor for the question through the chair to you. We do when it’s a major renewal or a net new asset. In this case, the changes are really

01:59:14
related to wanting to have a better fit with the other pieces that we talked about. So, you know, adjacency to home, stray balls, and maintaining the current state. There is no enhancement happening here. We’re maintaining the renovations are essentially happening to maintain the current play that is happening here today.

01:59:33
Thank you for that. Um you you say major but when that when we put in that initial um hard green turf uh um cricket pitch which was you know fairly small I I recall that the use of the overall cricket for cricket was going to be not not as substantial as we now have. Um, did we give consideration to the amount of change since

02:00:00
was initially implemented >> uh through the chair to you counselor. Um, I think it was a I wasn’t here when that was initially pitched, so I can’t really speak to the engagement that took place at that time, but I I can speak to what we’ve seen, which is over the last couple years, an increase in growth in the sport.

02:00:20
And, you know, this isn’t new to any other way that we would accommodate like in shared use parks, if we have a higher need for a certain sport, we’ll adjust the permitting. And that’s essentially what we’ve done here. As everyone’s aware, there’s also a soccer pitch and two baseball diamonds in that field.

02:00:35
So we have to, you know, work around the permitting that we allow. You would typically have permits from 5:00 to 8 every night of the week for a sport and on weekends as well. Understanding that a cricket game takes a little longer. So that is what we’re seeing in terms of the 12-h hour plays on weekends.

02:00:51
Um but that said, um that’s kind of been an evolving as the sport has grown. Um I’m not sure if I’m answering your question. >> Well, I really sorry. Thank you for that. it. Yes, I understood it was growing. I It’s just that it’s a very different kind of um use or or or or amount of use uh when we first put in that cricket pitch which was you know very limited that was never expected to be the getting the kind of use it has now.

02:01:21
I fully understand cricket is growing and we need to deal with it. Um which is why it got show in Forest Park and that’s that’s good. Um, but I just wonder about this the scale in that location because it’s so close to people’s homes and things. >> Thanks, counselor. If I may add, I think, you know, one of the pieces with Sherwood and our live and play plan, which does call for three Cricut pitches by 201 to meet the demand we think we’re going to see.

02:01:49
So, it might even be bigger. These are anticipated demands. The intent would be that um you know as that as the field use has grown at Central and with Sherwood coming online in the next couple of years to re-evaluate what we can do with understanding that um the Sherwood pitch will be built very differently than the one at Central.

02:02:07
So we’re understanding of that and with the intent knowing you know how much demand we have if we’re able to scale back the play or change the use at Central so that it meets the needs of everybody. That certainly would be our intent with another full pitch coming on. >> Thank you for that. Just let me clarify if I might merit.

02:02:26
Um I my question was really about the community engagement process and and you know whether over time we we we actually as we as we see change happen whether we might have had a community a formal community engagement process that’s all. Uh, sure. Um, to my knowledge, I don’t I we haven’t done one. You’re right. We’ve engaged with the residents in terms of the impact.

02:02:53
Um, it’s certainly there’s always room for improvement as it relates to engagement and and this is perhaps one we should have done a couple years back when the demand was increasing. >> Thank you. >> All right. I’m going to jump in for a first time question. Uh, do you support pausing the renovations? Uh thank you mayor for the question through you.

02:03:17
Um certainly as it aligns with the demand that we’re seeing in cricket and the impact that we’re already seeing with this year’s um season with the proposed timelines. Our recommendation is to go ahead with the renovations. >> Okay. And so they if I heard you there’s a followup. Uh if I heard you correctly around the August date that was building in a pause or did I mishar that? >> Uh to clarify, mayor, no that’s the schedule we be on as of today.

02:03:49

Yeah. Okay. Um and so could you uh well I guess part of the reason for the pause is to explore options to address the resident concerns. So, do you feel that have you heard anything new in some of the discussion that has happened? Uh, do you feel like you have uh already addressed the resident’s concerns? Do you expect anything to emerge that would potentially change the design? So I I would um with any improvement there are obviously you know minor tweaks uh shifts these kinds of things can occur. Um essentially with the work that the uh project team uh staff project team did in in consultation with our with our um expert consultant. We do feel that the um those tweaks, those options um were considered and and

02:04:49
basically resulted in what is being proposed for construction this year. >> Okay. Um second time questioning back to you councelor and Bentoia. >> Thank you mayor. And along the mayor’s comments she good segue for me. Uh you mentioned better fit is what we’re working on. So I make the assumption um that these renovations are going to obviously be and I haven’t seen any plans but move back move to the side whatever the configuration is going to be in the construction work because the reason why I say that because the residents had other concerns. So, one of them, for example, be they take their dog for a walk and they’re on the outside of the field and, you know, somebody’s yelling, you know, ball. What? I’m just saying. Uh, is that

02:05:48
I’m assuming that by this renovation that will be there’ll be more space to do that. And there’s uh other concerns where they talked about uh where they just want to go for a leisurely walk or the kids are playing baseball in the field. So the space will be enlarged. I guess that’s my question or move back. Sorry.

02:06:14
Uh through the mayor and thanks for the question. um uh I guess in order the the staff has tried to respond to the concerns that have been raised by um residents um sort of in the manner in which uh we can implement them. So uh with reference to um stray balls for pedestrians in the park um signs uh warning residents at all of the major pedestrian um entrances to that area and there are a number uh have been implemented already.

02:06:45
um in speaking to the pedestrians. So and and um noting that some of these this field existing and proposed will overlap with existing um softball diamonds. So uh that uh risk I suppose is not exclusive to cricket. It’s also true of um the other baseball facilities that are on the park.

02:07:07
the uh to your second question um I guess you could say that the the realignment of the cricket pitch basically what’s happening is it’s being rotated and shifted from its existing uh center point and essentially it’s a bit of an oblong circle it will rebalance it within the constraints uh surrounding the park which are um primarily um the the rear yards of residences on each side.

02:07:34
So, it’s going to balance the location of that between those two. And in so doing, it will increase the distance from where the batters hit to those um rear yards by approximately 20 mters, I believe. Um so, I don’t want to strictly say that we’re increasing the size of the field, but we are reorienting it and creating additional buffer between the playing area and the closest sensitive receivers, which are the residents backyards.

02:08:01

Thank you for that. That’s uh makes it a little clear for me. Uh my second question has to do and again I’m now I’m not talking about the pitch, I’m talking about the surrounding stuff. Um which is also a concern uh to the re residents. Um I want to talk about the trees and the and that I’ll call it tight driveway filled with gravel on that on that side which I’ve driven by for 40 years.

02:08:26
Um, is that going to be what’s that going to look like with the changes that we’re looking at? Or is it going to be safer, I guess, is the word. Cuz right now, I’ll be honest with you, it is not safe. >> So, just a clarity on the question, you’re referring to the the existing gravel parking lot. That’s >> the portion that that where the trees are going to be removed and replanted.

02:08:56
There’s gravel that goes along the side there. I mean, is is is that going to take a different look? Is that going to have a different look? >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh I think um yes. So the with re reorienting of the field um the there’s a need to remove as you noted uh uh a few trees that would be within the existing play area and the buffer as well as that existing parking lot.

02:09:24
So the parking lot would be reduced uh basically away from the playing area to to ensure that we can create that puffer. Um if there are other if there are stored gravel etc. I maybe can’t speak to that at the moment but we could take away and look at that. Certainly it wouldn’t be left within the playing area or the buffer if that if that exists now.

02:09:46

Okay. Thank you for that. >> Councelor Stalty. >> Thank you mayor. Um, so my question, and if this has already been covered in some way, please tell me because I know that I was late getting to council this morning, so let me know if if this conversation was already had. I’m curious, and I don’t mean to be picking on pickle ball, no pun intended, actually pun intended, but um with pickle ball advancing as a newer sport similar to cricket in the city of Burlington, we’ve made a lot of efforts to share infrastructure with some of our tennis courts in order to enable pickle ball to be available to people. I know that in communities like Toronto and Bmpton and Kaledan and so on, they have opted for some of that shared infrastructure with the baseball diamonds. Has that been looked at as far as the artificial turf and the the temporary systems that can be put in place so that there’s the potential to share a pickle ball combo baseball diamond with the existing baseball diamond that’s there. Sorry, not pickle

02:10:45
ball. I I’ll get pickle ball out of my mind. Cricket. >> Thank you counselor through uh through the mayor to you. Uh so yeah absolutely that’s always part of the discussion and I can also share too I don’t think this has come up yet that we have done a small cricket strategy um just to look at like where might be able to to fit a cricket pitch in Burlington on existing city lands we’re very restricted just given the size that we require to do that um wherever there’s an opportunity to share amenities for sure um so we’ve already done that we’ve already looked at at all of that you’re looking at at central is exactly operating that way where some nights we have baseball, some nights we have cricket. So, it is a shared um space. Uh current state, there really is no other area where we might be able to put a cricket pitch other than Sherwood. Um the one item that councelor Nissan did mention was City View. So, City View is still on the docket for when we get there. Uh it would be um more along the same lines of

02:11:42
a central park-iz Cricut pitch and not the full-blown what we’re looking to build at Sherwood. Um if that helps. No, sorry, just for clarification. Sorry if I’m understanding your answer. I understand that presently there is the baseball diamond being used for baseball and in front of that there is screen space that’s used for a cricket pitch.

02:12:03
What I’m understanding in Toronto and Bmpton and so on is they literally use the baseball diamond with like artificial turf that’s extended out so that that same space that already has the protected backdrop. It already accounts for the balls that we talked about in you know that are fly balls in baseball.

02:12:18
So it accounts for that space without infringing further into the green space for the cricket. >> Thank you for the clarification. Um so we have explored that as well. Um I’ll be honest that we’re running into some insurance um risks with some of that because we’re having the groups are having a hard time getting insurance to be able to play on baseball diamonds.

02:12:36
So that’s a new development. So we’re working through that. That said, it it doesn’t meet the needs for like a full-blown game. It would be more so for a practice. It’s only one direction. Um but we h we have explored that and and we’ll continue to. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right.

02:12:53
I’ll just note that we are 5 to 12 and uh we do have a hard stop at noon. Uh we may not finish this item before noon, but go ahead councelor Karns. >> Thanks. I think we might have our engagement folks available to us and I want to ask if the process that has unfolded uh needs our engagement charter that we’re you know either legacy or about to improve approved.

02:13:27

We have stuff coming up from our engagement area. Yeah, through the chair. Thank you uh for the question, counselor. Um I want you to keep in mind the engagement charter is very new and I think in in keeping with the spirit of that charter and what I’ve heard in the room today, uh I would encourage us to pursue at least one public meeting if not more uh with this group to hear what they have to say.

02:14:00
I think that one of the biggest pieces of the charter is making sure that we always listen to residents and having one of those meetings would help us do that. >> Thank you. That’s the end of my engagement questions. My second question is back to uh Roughing Community Culture and maybe engineering. Can you speak to the safe passage and the uh I’ll call it like the width of the park from the uh north to south orientation I think it is.

02:14:24
Um, how will people get through safely without being at risk of flying balls? Uh, now that we’ve heard that the play times are pretty much from 8:30 a.m. until 7:30 or or possibly later, can you please talk to me about how people will safely traverse the park? >> Yeah, thank you for the question. um there.

02:14:49
So, the reorientation of the of the field will leave um an opportunity for residents to uh traverse sort of around the outside of the buffer area. Um and and I want to note I guess in in the I believe it’s in the 2028 we have some contemplated improvement uh improvements to formalize some of the existing trails uh within Central Park.

02:15:16
This was um a consideration that was in the plans sort of before this arose. Uh w with that being part of the the future plans for um Central Park, there’s an opportunity to sort of um address both the accessibility matter that they originally planned for, but also the uh the safety matter you’re referring to as well.

02:15:37

Sorry, that doesn’t that doesn’t answer my question. So, what kind of space do people have? Is it like a 4 meter walking perimeter? Uh what do they have to walk through the park safely? Whether it’s a family with young kids, a couple of seniors, people walking their dogs, how were they getting through the park from the G line to the Drury Lane during any of those hours of play which are all on non-traditional working hours? >> Yeah, thank you for uh clarifying the question. Um so there is uh approximately I believe it’s about 5 mters between the buffer and the existing private properties. Um uh and I think we heard from the uh cricket uh leagues that they’re painting that field. So the delineation of the boundary of the field along with that uh 5 meters that’s available um would be uh the the opportunity to traverse that field outside of the field of play and

02:16:36
outside of the the buffer. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh we are at noon. We had request for a hard stop at noon. I do have some additional questions and I’m sure we’ll have comments and discussion on this item. So, we are going to recess and reconvene at 1:00. We’ll see you soon, folks.

03:17:47
All right, folks. Uh, welcome back. We are back from our lunch break and we are still on item 18.2 and we are still in questions. So, um, I had some, but I don’t remember if somebody was already on the board before we broke. So, maybe I’ll dive in. I’ve had my I’ve kept my list. So, back up to the podium.

03:18:17
So, one of the questions uh, and this was raised by the delegation was the concern around um, the unregulated play. I don’t know if you’ve heard uh anything about that. I know that when we have permit users, if we hear any complaints, we have a way we have a way to contact people.

03:18:34
We have a way to share that and and moderate that behavior through permits. But we also uh our parks are there for passive use and pickup use. So, um you know, what can you tell us about what you’ve heard about unregulated play? Is that where some of the concerns are coming from that people don’t know maybe what the rules are there because we haven’t had that process to talk to them through the permit process.

03:19:00

Thank you for the question, mayor. Um, you’re correct. It’s a bit of a dance. You know, I we’re I’m sympathetic to, you know, the permit times that we have on weekends specifically and we’ve heard from the residents. So, we’re amendable to shifting that around and working with the user groups.

03:19:12
But to your point, when we don’t have permits, we have folks who are coming in and using the field, which is normally what we want to see, understanding that that doesn’t create um the window of of relief for those residents, it is really challenging for us to know who they are. Um we have in past years, we have sport ambassadors who that’s not their primary role, but given the number of complaints we were receiving, we have stationed them there to try to do education.

03:19:40
um to the delegates uh kind of point that he raised. You know, we don’t know for sure, but I think they believe that a lot of the the stray balls that are landing in folks backyards are due to the unpermitted play because they were not marked as as harsh indicated with their league name and logo on it.

03:19:54
Um so that’s one mitigation we’ve done in the past. Uh there’s a lot of uh informal uh discussions that happens on cricket groups. We’ve tried to have our cricket organizers, you know, talk to their friends and share the feedback. Um, in I don’t want to speak on behalf of bylaw, but I know that we’ve had the conversations with them and and and currently there really isn’t a way for us to enforce on permitted play um the way that it sits.

03:20:23

So, just just as a followup, if if um for example, you’re aware that somebody is is it’s not permitted play, which is permit, that part is permitted. people are allowed to to play, but if they’re using the wrong kind of ball, for example, the the wrapped ball, not the leather one, which goes farther and is harder, is there a way for our sport ambassadors or whoever to talk to those folks and and make sure that they use the appropriate ball.

03:20:51
They can still play, but >> uh through you, thanks for the question. Uh certainly we can. I just want to like level set expectations. We have four sport ambassadors and as you know the number of sports fields that we have so we certainly can have them you know do their their patrolling and and uh and and do that education piece because it’s definitely part of their role.

03:21:13
Um I to the residents you know concerns we’ve heard. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to mitigate all of that. We certainly can have a higher presence and and work with with bylaw if um if that’s helpful. >> I think it might be just given the the number of concerns. So, uh, I’ll leave that with you.

03:21:30
And then, uh, just to the, uh, notion of additional, um, public engagement. So, would you be able to, let’s say, in the next month, um, so continue, you you’ve recommended that we continue with uh, the renovations. So in parallel having a meeting with with residents in the next month, would that allow you if you heard something and and Aaron had talked earlier about tweaks, would that process allow you to uh incorporate any of those as the project moves forward so that so that we don’t have to do it sequentially and slow down the project? We could we could do it in parallel or in tandem. >> Uh thank you mayor for the question. Certainly the the in parallel could could take place for sure. I think just the earlier discussion we’re having before lunch is just want to level set around the the scope of which folks would be able to engage and and the tweaks that we might be able to make

03:22:30
which are would be very minor in nature mostly around the permitted times because the field layout and construction really is what the experts and I’ll pass that over to Aaron to add. >> Okay. Yeah, I think um thanks Emily and I think that’s right. Um in terms of tweaks on the design that could be made.

03:22:48
This would be post tender. I would I I off the top of my head I can’t really point to anything meaningful here today. I don’t want to eliminate the possibility of taking some of that uh feedback back from the residents if we do go ahead with another point of contact here. Standing here today, I can’t say that there’s anything I can think of that we can meaningfully change um without, you know, uh causing further delay.

03:23:10
uh to the construction period that we’re trying to maintain. >> Okay. Uh thank you for that. Councelor Nissan, question. >> Yeah, thank you. I just want to know and I apologize if I might have missed this earlier, but with respect to the pedestrians, um how do we uh and this, you know, I still haven’t gotten the map from staff.

03:23:33
So, are pedestrians going to be able to safely move around this Cricut pitch when they’re coming from G line into use the rest of the park like whether it’s the library, soccer fields, community spaces. So, I apologize if that’s a repetition, but I didn’t catch it. So, and uh are they able to now do it safely? Um it would be the second sort of part. Thank you.

03:23:58

Yeah, through the chair. Um thanks for the question, counselor. Um I guess I think the context maybe that’s helpful to provide is that one, you know, these are um having sports fields in a in a park where pedestrians would otherwise come through. Uh there’s a there’s a level of risk that would uh exist no matter what.

03:24:21
This is not there’s and there’s no um strict definition of uh in terms of in legislation or in terms of uh standards with the design of cricket or or or another type of sports field that would define what safety meant for a pedestrian going through. We do have um guidelines and best practices from some of the cricket uh uh governing bodies, cricket Canada um to inform our design and the decisions we make around that.

03:24:51
And so with that in mind, I think what we’re presenting is a design that um respects those guidelines uh which acknowledge safety and minimize risk to um pedestrians and and other sensitive receivers sort of in that park. uh as to that’s the future state as to the current condition um uh you know we we have cricket that was established here as I think some of the delegates pointed to 15 years ago it probably predated some of the more modern guidelines that we’re using today to design these fields so it’s uh we’re taking that opportunity to um take an existing condition and certainly the improvements uh move us significantly along that sort of safety spectrum for both players uh adjacent um homes, pedestrians, all of it. Um and yes, there there’s a to one of the earlier questions, there’s a path available um around what is defined as the both the

03:25:49
field and the um buffer uh without them having to cross into that. >> Okay. So, yeah. So, there’s just enough room basically to avoid the the buffer zone which exists for safety reasons already. Is that fair to say? >> Yes. Uh thanks for the followup. Good observation. as the buffer in in part uh presents that safety um boundary.

03:26:08
Uh and then we have I I think I spoke to 5 meters. We have six meters available between that and the closest uh property line. Is that is that an improvement on the current uh condition? I see right I think on the current condition the buffer goes right into the backyards right on one side but not so much on the other side.

03:26:32
So, >> so it’s a kind of it 50/50 >> through the chair. Thanks for the followup. Yes, the existing field, the buffer uh intersects with um the private property. >> So, that space is not available to the east as of today. Uh the the best route available today would be more secudous around the outside.

03:26:53
Um once the improvements are implemented, two options would be available. Uh if you’re coming from G line to get to the library, I think you’re kind of pointing to this. You’d have a um more direct route on the east side of the park. >> Okay, good. Thank you very much, >> Councelor Charman. >> Thank you very much.

03:27:13
Um so I to listen to the mayor’s question about a pick. Um do you need do you actually need a staff direction to do a pick and get it done quickly? uh through the mayor to you, Councelor Charman. We do not. We’re happy to take this as a as this next step forward. >> Well, you know, sounds like you got an awful lot of the work done.

03:27:38
We just need to go and talk to the community like like we do quite often. So, >> I’m good. Thanks, >> Councelor Karns. >> Thank you. A follow-up question. We received a um correspondence during the break that indicates and my question is are the trees in the buffer zone or are the trees in the active play zone? >> Thank you for the question um through the chair.

03:28:08
The the reconfigured uh cricket field would remove all trees from the playing field. There would be um existing trees within the buffer zone. >> Sorry, I’m not clear on that. So, there’s no other trees to be removed, just the seven. Are the seven in the active play zone or are they in the buffer zone? >> They’re in the active play zone >> and there’s no other way to orient it to keep those trees.

03:28:43
That’s probably one of the biggest issues. uh as well as the hours of play. So, can we not do like a temporary try it out and see if the tree if the trees are really an impediment to the game? I mean, they’re on the far far end of the active play zone. Uh so through the chair I I think the best way to answer that question is is that so in in in producing the design it staff looks at multiple constraints trees definitely being uh one of them.

03:29:24
um the adjacent residences and you know increasing that um distance from the pitch to their yards I’d say probably being the the the real driving um uh constraint. So I I I think I want to answer the question by saying reducing the tree impacts would create other um challenges with the the design and the and sort of the ultimate uh objectives of of the project.

03:29:54
Okay. But a followup is we’re not trying to create an absolutely perfect cricket pitch here. We know that it’s not 100% compatible in its modern use way with Central Park. So, can we at least pilot for this season the reconfiguration but retain the trees until we have another chance to look at it? That’s probably one of the key concerns is removing those mature trees just for kind of one end of the active play.

03:30:26
So, can we phase that in? And that’s partly the main driver of the pause is that the residents didn’t want to see the trees just cut down immediately. >> Okay. Thanks for that uh insight um through the chair. I don’t I don’t believe that uh engineering would be in a position to recommend that the reconfiguration of the field go ahead while leaving the trees in place.

03:30:58

Okay, then I’m going to continue to support a pause until we get a chance to look at this. >> Uh Councelor Bentania, go ahead. I was going to um add a friendly amendment, but I’m uh that last comment that councelor Karns made, I’m not sure she’ll want to do it, but I’d like to put uh that friendly amendment up.

03:31:22

Do you have a seconder? Well, say what it is and then a seconder and then if So this is your amendment, councelor

03:32:22
Bentovenia, to just remove the pause and do the public engagement and continue. I think we forgot. >> Sorry. through you mayor by removing the pause it would continue on the process would continue where they yet >> I just want to make sure that was clear and the reason for this uh friendly amendment um and again I think we all want the best possible outcome for both the residents and >> hang on before you speak to it sorry before you speak to it you do need a seconder councelor Nissan okay um now you can speak to it and you’ll have three minutes uh speak to the amendment. Go ahead. >> Okay, I’ll be brief. We’ve been talking about it all afternoon, but um I just want to make sure that, you know, we all agree that, you know, we want this to continue and and I’m just looking for

03:33:21
the best possible outcome for both, uh the residents and um the users and this does it. This the conversation will continue. Um the you know the discussion of you know what if we do this, what if we do that? I mean I that’s part of what organizations do when they they meet with residents and and uh I mean down the road these residents will be members of this cricket organization possibly.

03:33:50
So so it’s just um this I I think meets us both halfway and that’s uh that’s all I got to say. >> Thank you. Uh councelor Nissan do you want to speak next as a secondary? Hold. Okay. Uh councelor Gre go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, just I guess a question to uh Emily Cotay. Uh, isn’t this what you just suggested you were going to do anyway? You were going to hold a uh PIC and uh, you know, show the plans to the public and get input as we continue the the process to uh, redevelop the park >> through the mayor to you counselor. Uh, we’re happy to do that with or without the staff direction. Thank you, >> Councelor Stoalty. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I’m in support of this friendly amendment. Um, I do like the idea of us moving forward as well as continue to undertake public engagement and see if we could tweak things that

03:34:48
will make the community a little bit more satisfied with this. I know based on councelor Galbra just asking the question that staff have agreed to do this already. I just think it formalizes it in such a way that the community knows that we are behind them as far as ensuring that this happens. All right.

03:35:05
Any other speakers to the amendment? Councelor Nissan. >> Yeah. So, thank you our mayor. I just want to double confirm. So, this the this means that it is going ahead for sure and a public engagement process will will occur um to see what what we could do to mitigate concerns while going ahead. Um correct to the mover. Just want to make sure since it’s all happening quickly.

03:35:31
Um I think it’s always good to take another look. Obviously there, you know, we I know we do our best with our engagements. Sometimes we miss people. They’re away. They don’t they don’t see it. Um things like that or they do see it, they don’t necessarily uh take it all in.

03:35:48
And when things become real, then concerns uh bubble up. And we also heard a lot of concerns that are not actually related to the renovation, but and not directly anyways, but related to concerns around around play and the hours of play uh and balls and things like that. So, I have no problem with uh with this and uh going ahead and getting another round of of engagement and uh I hope it does uh go some way to addressing uh resident concerns.

03:36:15
There’s no doubt that there there’s going to be cricket here in this park, so we’ll just make the most of it. Thank you, >> Councelor Karns. >> Thank you. I I won’t be supporting the friendly amendment, so I’ll take a vote on the amendment. And then I don’t know if I can go back to my main motion or if that dies.

03:36:34
Um the reality here is that the community feels that we have not been accountable and transparent to them. We’ve delivered a reconfiguration plan, asked for their input, did not come back and present what that input resulted in. uh it does not take into account the community voice for those uh gentle modifications that may be possible and we’re essentially telling the community we’re going to go ahead and do what we want.

03:36:57
Uh but we’ll hear from you after we’ve already released the tender uh doing what was already been uh recommended by staff. So, uh, I won’t support this and, you know, we will continue to monitor the the play modifications that address a totally different concern. Uh, but the actual, uh, budget, uh, configuration, design, and, uh, loss of trees and parking is not something that I’m prepared to support today.

03:37:25

Councelor Sherman. >> Yeah, I’ll be supporting the amendment. Um, it’s it’s good work. Listen, we do PIC’s for all sorts of things where all the design has already been completed. Um, and then we’ll we’ll see if there’s anything that can be done to change it because oftentimes the engineering is pretty clear and obvious.

03:37:42
And I think that’s the case here. And I I realize that the pictures has been in the past 15 years has been um, you know, dimminimous. It’s it’s not really been very effective. And now with the with the increasing uh uh uh number of players, we need to do a do a much better job of it. So I get it. It’s in a tight spot and it’s busy.

03:38:04
Um and we now got to be serious about the way we manage it. So please move move along. Thanks, >> Councelor Gre. >> I guess just a question of process. If we support this, then we don’t go there’s no main motion, right? This kind of just eliminates the main motion, right? It amends the main motion. So, we vote on it twice.

03:38:27
Uh clerk has given me the thumbs up that that was the right answer. >> Okay. >> Unless you want to hear from the clerk. >> It’s okay. Okay. Well, I’ll just comment then that uh I I I don’t think the pausing, you know, based on all the communication I received, a lot of it was, you know, cricket doesn’t shouldn’t be in this park, which isn’t on the table.

03:38:52
Um what is on the table is uh a recommended staff uh you know uh amendment from the engineers that this will make the park safer and the number one concerns that I saw in any communication was that the current pitch is not that safe for the community. I I have parks and golf courses in my community where there were unsafe uh areas and they were addressed by staff and you know all those concerns went away and and I I feel the same in this situation.

03:39:24
I think the the new configuration uh addresses the comments that they’ve staff have heard over the last few years and I I think the sooner we make those changes the sooner the park will be safer. So I I I don’t recommend pausing it at all. I think we should we should go ahead with it. Um I think a PIC or um some resident engagement would be fantastic.

03:39:47
Uh m many of them probably have not seen uh the full design. Um I hadn’t until really today. So um it would be great to have that engagement so that the public can see it. Um but uh I don’t I don’t support any further delay of it. So I I will support this uh friendly amendment. Thank you. >> Councelor Stoalty.

03:40:12
Thank you. Just to further my comments, I also uh just wanted to re reiterate that this is a newer conversation and I took the opportunity over the lunch break to get a little bit more information and it it I’m satisfied that the uh public engagement process as far as not one but at least two meetings that took place on site.

03:40:29
I was of the understanding it was with staff and residents. I now understand that both the counselor and the mayor were part of at least one of those meetings. So, and that goes back almost a year ago to last summer. So I do believe that there has been significant public engagement over the years as the public and the user groups and the staff and elected officials have tried to mitigate, you know, what’s going on with incorporating cricket into Central Park.

03:40:52
I look forward to there being continued conversation as there always should be with the public, but I am very much in support of this going forward. >> Thank you. Um I’m just going to jump in with a question. Uh there was uh a flyer from the city uh flyer probably is the wrong word but a notice that the changes were coming.

03:41:14
My understanding but correct this is my question that that included the redesign and the details of the um of what was being contemplated. Is that correct? I’ll jump in. Thank you for the question, mayor. Um, no, it was just a resident letter that went out indicating that we had taken the feedback and we were going to proceed with construction.

03:41:36
We didn’t attach a revised um, design to that. Now, with the communications that have come back since then asking for clarity, we have attached the revised um, designs, but we did not distribute it at the same time as the letter. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, councelor Karns, go ahead. >> Thank you very much.

03:41:57
Um, I just wanted to provide some clarity that I did not uh I was not part of any type of resident meeting that happened. So, I’m sorry I wasn’t part of that. I have just been fielding emails and concerns from the community. But to councelor Stoalty’s commentary, I was not part of any uh community meetings. >> Okay.

03:42:24
I think councelor Stolty was referring to the on-site in the field meeting about a year ago. Uh okay, I’ll make some comments as well. >> I was not at that. >> Okay, just make sure that you uh raise your hand to be recognized. Thank you. Uh so um I’m supportive of uh doing some additional uh providing some additional information to community.

03:42:49
I’m supportive of staff who’ve advised us that they uh think the best path forward is to uh to proceed with the renovations. And having having spoken with the uh residents and staff on site uh over a year ago, um the concerns that they had then are some of the concerns that we’re hearing now. It was around the balls that were used, the time of day, uh access to um other areas of the park for pedestrians, walkers, uh and and certainly balls flying into backyards.

03:43:23
And so, um all of that feedback has led to the designs from the landscape architect. So, I’m satisfied that they’re uh certainly the voice of residents has been heard on this. uh they’ve been directly involved in shaping the safety features that we have in front of us. And it’s really important now to get back out and tell them.

03:43:44
Uh that’s one of the things that came up during our charter discussion is that we receive all this information and we we sometimes uh don’t close the loop with folks to tell them how their input actually made a a difference and led to the changes that we’re seeing. So, I think that’s a really important uh opportunity with additional public engagement to do that and to say how their concerns specifically were addressed uh that the concerns throughout this process uh have been heard.

03:44:11
And I also appreciate the uh delegations coming forward. Um and and what’s really compelling, I think, is that there’s been zero uh in incidences of concern in all of the time that the Cricut pitch has been operating over uh over 10 10 years, 15 years. So, people have found a way to coexist in the park. Uh it’s my park, too.

03:44:32
I live down the street, so uh make my way there quite a bit, including approaching from the east side uh from time to time. So there’s uh several ways to get into the park that wouldn’t interfere with the um certainly not the active play but not even the buffer zone which as we have heard is is uh is the safe space for folks to traverse that park.

03:44:55
So um I think uh this is an opportunity to provide some reassurance to the community that their concerns have been addressed that we take seriously uh safety as much as they do and that this has this is exactly why this reconfigured plan is in front of us today. All right. Uh, seeing no further questions or comments, I’ll turn it to the clerk for the recorded vote on the amended the amendment.

03:45:22

Councelor Greath, >> support. >> Councelor Karns, >> do not support. >> Councelor Nissan, >> support. >> Councelor Stoalty, >> support. >> Councelor Charman, >> support. >> Councelor Bentania, >> support. >> Mayor Maidward >> support. >> Six in favor, one against. >> And that does carry.

03:45:38
And then we turn to the main motion as amended which is the same as what you just voted on but we need to vote on it a second time. So to the main motion as amended. Uh councelor Karns. >> Thank you. I wanted to start my comments related to the main motion specifically to say that racism is not acceptable and not tolerated in the city of Burlington at all.

03:46:05
Full stop. I also wanted to say that what we’ve done today is essentially closed up community engagement on a significant issue in a community and we even heard from our community engagement um folks that this could do another thing uh that would help to alleviate some of these concerns.

03:46:27
Uh this has been an ongoing concern and it’s not getting addressed appropriately and the way in which we’ve shared information with the community has been unacceptable. So uh petition will probably still be coming forward and uh 39 is the calculated hours of play that is happening in a week uh in this area and that is a significant amount of time.

03:46:47
So we wanted to get it right and get to the best possible outcome. What we’ve done today is not listen to any community voices whatsoever. Uh all the people in that neighborhood and surrounding areas that use the park are not able to delegate because it’s Tuesday at 9:30 in the morning. uh and they had instead chosen to written in in which we have not addressed their concerns or their issues.

03:47:09
We’ve not even afforded them the opportunity for dialogue at the podium uh because they work and uh it’s really unfortunate that this has become a situation that is you know continuing to try to fit a sport in a way that we’re not having continued positive dialogue with both the residents, other park users and our user groups that are playing and that there’s no way uh to sort of stop this unpermitted play that’s causing uh many of these issues.

03:47:37
So, uh, I don’t think we’ve done a great job today. And I just want to say that I’m sorry to the residents that we didn’t put a pause on this to at least have another look of any possible modifications that could take the community voice into consideration and that we will be losing significant trees in our community park uh, right between a baseball field and between our community garden.

03:48:03

All right. Uh, not seeing any further comments. I did have actually one final question uh for um it’s it’s around the public engagement piece and I assume that’s going to take the form of a community meeting that is led by staff. I just want to get clarification on that.

03:48:19
I would like to certainly be there and I know it’s hard to schedule all of us to be there but uh can someone clarify that that is exactly what is going to take place in the next little while a staffled public meeting at minimum. There may be other ways to engage as well. >> Thank you, mayor, for the question. Yeah, based on the discussion today, that’s what we’ll plan on doing.

03:48:42

Okay. Thank you. I will watch my calendar for that invite. Okay. Uh councelor Karns, uh you’ve spoken twice. If you have a question, you can go ahead. >> It’s a question. Thanks very much. So, I have a portion of my own W 2 community update uh that will be addressing this issue.

03:49:01
clarity from staff that you will go and do your own separate um CIP related to the Cricut issue. Uh and that uh that will be the one the mayor can be invited to and that my community update meeting is a standalone separate from this. >> That’s correct. Counselor, >> thank you. Councelor Nissan. >> Yeah, I just wanted to confirm.

03:49:32
I mean, I I don’t agree that the public hasn’t been consulted on this issue. Sometimes we have issues where people are on both sides of them and someone’s going to be unhappy with whatever decision we take. Um I I’m glad that it did come forward. Yeah, I’m somewhere between a question and a comment.

03:49:50
Feel free to make it a comment. Um I’m you know um I know that yeah first of all this is that type of controversial uh issue. I’m glad that it came forward and we had this discussion at council. I’m glad we got to hear from uh both the written delegates which uh I read all of them and I’m sure we all did uh as well as the uh inerson delegates uh today and uh I’m glad that they were able to come in on such uh short notice.

03:50:20
Um my question and again council says a statement but my question was um the procedure bylaw and I I want to make sure I’m reading the most up-to-date one but it does allow for evening meetings. I think a request has to be made by a council member um or the clerk could designate issues of public interest. So just want to confirm that uh where that is in the procedure bylaw.

03:50:46
I think if you search for the word evening you’ll find it Mike. Um, and I want to make sure I’m not reading the old one here. Um, so I I don’t want to I don’t want the impression that we’re shutting down any consultation here and that we’re not following due process. Thank you. Or appropriately. >> Do you want to speak to that clerk? >> Certainly.

03:51:09
So, uh, referencing section 22.2 two of the procedure bylaw says, “Upon reviewing the council agenda, the clerk in in consultation with the mayor and CEO may designate items of public interest to be dealt with at an evening portion of a council commencing at 6:30 p.m. Items designated to an evening portion will be noted on the agenda.

03:51:27
” And then 22.3 says, “At that meeting, members may request that the interest the interest be dealt with at an evening portion of the meeting.” >> Items of interest be dealt with at the evening portion of the meeting. The request may be made by motion must be duly moved and seconded and approved by majority of council members present.

03:51:49

Thank you, >> Councelor Bentia. >> Thank you, mayor. And I just want to say that uh this discussion um today was very very helpful and um and I’m pleased um to be where we are right now. I am 100% confident that both the residents and the users are going to make this situation so much better through their consultation and u I mean we we need to look at the bright side and say because we’ve all said it here we’re going to have cricket at central and it’s in you know through these engagement processes that we’re going to have we’re going to make this work and we’re going to make sure of So, thank you. >> All right. Uh, and just to close out, uh, with respect to the procedure bylaw, I certainly didn’t receive any requests

03:52:48
from, uh, any member of council or the public to, uh, proceed into the evening to accommodate delegations. And just so folks uh, know, there’s many different ways of engaging your elected officials and staff. And we certainly did get a lot of uh of emails from residents outlining their concerns and um and people spoke to uh residents as well.

03:53:07
So there’s lots of ways that we can accommodate people’s schedules uh recognizing not everyone works 9 to5 either. There are shift workers and there are folks that have other obligations during various parts of their day and into their evenings. So we do our absolute best to accommodate everyone we can where we know that they have special needs.

03:53:26
We have a process to accommodate. All right. Seeing no further comments, I will turn it to the clerk for the recorded vote on the amended motion. >> Councelor Greath, >> support. >> Councelor Karns, >> do not support. >> Councelor Nissan >> support. Councelor Stoalte >> support. >> Councelor Sherman >> support. >> Councelor Bentoia >> support.

03:53:52

Mayor me Ward >> support. >> Six in favor, one against. >> And that does carry. Thank you. Moving now to the council information packages. We have six CIP packages March 13, 20, 27, April 2nd, 10, and 17. And if there’s any items a counselor wishes to be brought forward and referred to committee for discussion, let the clerk know before the next standing committee agenda deadline, which is next Wednesday, April 29 at noon.

03:54:19
I have a motion to receive and file information items uh considered by council. Moved by councelor Bentovenia, seconded by councelor Stolty. All those in favor, show of hands. Any opposed? Seeing none, that does carry. Any notices of motion? Seeing none, a motion to approve the bylaws moved by councelor Charman, seconded by councelor uh Galbrath to enact and pass the bylaws introduced, entitled, and numbered as indicated.

03:54:50
A bylaw to levy taxes for 2026. a bylaw to amend uh bylaw 5520 for uh reserve fund guidelines for the tree establishment and enhancement reserve fund and a bylaw to delegate approvals to staff. All those in favor? Show of hands. Any opposed? Seeing none, that does carry. I have a confirmatory bylaw moved by councelor uh Karns, seconded by councelor Nissan to enact and pass bylaw 27, 2026 being a bylaw to confirm the proceedings of council at our meeting April 21 being read a first, 2nd and third time and we do need a recorded vote for that. Over to you clerk. >> Councelor Greath >> support. >> Councelor Karns >> support. >> Councelor Nissan >> support. Councelor Stoalty >> support. >> Councelor Charman >> support.

03:55:49

Councelor Bentovenia >> support. >> Mayor me >> support. >> That’s seven in favor. >> Turning now to statements by members. Anyone wish to go? You are first on the board. Councelor Nissan, go ahead. >> Thank you very much. Uh mayor, so want to note a couple of important uh international friendship twin city events uh coming up.

03:56:08
I’m sure many of my colleagues will be there. Canada Netherlands Friendship Day is Saturday, May 2nd from 10 to 11:30 at the Lasal Park Pavilion. And the Sakura Festival is one week later on May 9th, a Saturday from 1 to 3:30 p.m. And that’s at the Bur Burlington Performing Arts Center. And you can learn more uh by googling Burlington Twin Cities and I’ll definitely see you there.

03:56:35
Uh there’s a community tree planting event uh April 25th. Uh that’s another Saturday from 9:30 to 12 at Brent Hills uh park in collaboration and run by Burlington Green. Finally, uh just wanted to note that uh the garden in a box program is back with Conservation Halton. These are curated native species kits.

03:56:57
Uh you have three options to choose from and for that just go to uh conservationhalton.ca/gardeninabox. I would just Google that to be easier. Thank you. See you uh for three Saturdays. >> Councelor Charman. >> Um okay. So residents are invited to celebrate the Robert Baitland Community Center phase 1 opening celebration on May the 2nd, 2026 uh from

03:57:32
1 to 4 p.m. The Robert Baitman Community Center is a vibrant multi-use hub where education, recreation, innovation, and community connection all come together under one roof. The afternoon celebration will include opening remarks, a ceremonial ribbon cutting, and opportunities to explore the building. Residents can enjoy the interactive activities taking place throughout the open areas of the building, connect with community partners, and experience all that the center has to offer.

03:57:59
Burlington Public Library, Brock University, Tech Place, and Halton District School Board will welcome residents uh into their spaces offering information and interactive activities for all ages. We’re going to move on uh to the next which is to support the increase in GO service on the Lakeshore West Rail Corridor.

03:58:20
Metro links is working with the city of Burlington and the town of Oakville to build the grade separation uh which is the underpass I guess at Burlo Drive. This will work uh this work will enhance pedestrian and vehicular safety and will optimize traffic flow at this rail crossing. Metroinks will need to fully close Burllo Drive between the Harvester and Wrath roads and um Prince William Drive, Superior Court intersections uh as well from May 22nd to June the 1st.

03:58:52
So, it’s a bit of a bit of a break. Um so for any any additional questions, please reach out to the Ward 5 office. I I must add that we appreciate that the closing of Burllo um for that amount of time is going to cause disruption, but it will also help us get this project closed and finished and us back into normal routine lives and perhaps with a whole lot better um access um with with the uh grade separation.

03:59:21
Okay, next one is our our project update on Brmley Road area minor reconstruction. uh the continuation of the project works uh in the Brmley Road are scheduled to begin in in the next couple of weeks after you know kind of a rough winter that we thought uh we might be able to get some work done but was the weather was was not helping us get that done.

03:59:40
Uh residents should expect to see the contractor mobilizing in preparation for the inroad works. Uh the project is currently scheduled to have all works completed less the top ashalt by the end of 2026. Finally, uh, we’re going to copy with the council taking place Thursday, April the 30th from 6:00

04:00:00
to 8:00 p.m. at 140 food court at 511 New Street. Your thoughts, ideas, and feedback are important as we work together to build a stronger community. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Councelor Gre. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um we have uh Snake Road minor reconstruction PIC happening um at the Laurate College which is on Snake Road April the 22nd from 6:30 till 7:30 p.m.

04:00:32
I’m hosting a drop-in session at Maple View Mall April 29th 10:30 a.m. till noon. And the next day we we are having our big Ward One community town hall which is April 30th featuring Indwell and Halton Housing. Um that will be at the Lel Park Pavilion from 6:30 till 8:30 p.m. Saturday, May the 2nd, Aldershot School garage sale from 8:00 a.m. till noon.

04:00:55
Um that will be in the parking lot of Alershot school. And then I will be attending the Great Lakes annual conference uh which is being held in Hamilton from May 6th to the 8th. It’s all for me. Thank you, >> Councelor Stoalty. >> Thank you, Mayor. Excuse me. So, the last Saturday of the month is coming up, which means it’s time for the next W4 coffee chat.

04:01:20
As always, I’m hosting this event at the hub at Burlington Center, and everyone is welcome. So, please mark your calendar for this coming Saturday, April 25th, from 10il noon. I’ll have the coffee hot and ready and look forward to hearing your questions and hearing your feedback. For those who like hands-on activities, Lee Valley, also in W 4, is offering a variety of workshops.

04:01:39
Learn the basics of wood carving um and block of soapstone carving. Visit lee valley.com and navigate the intore event link for more information. May is all about the mothers in our lives. So, in collaboration with Burlington Center, also Bell Tea Company will be hosting Mother’s Day high tea events at Burlington Center from May 2nd to May 10th.

04:01:59
It’s a ticketed event, but I do want to mention that a portion of every ticket price will be donated to Shift for Homes to empower and support young mothers in the community. So, please visit the events page at burlingtoncenter.ca for more information. If you’re looking for additional Mother’s Day ideas, the there’s a new business in Ward 4, Pottery and Paint Cafe is hosting their Mother’s Day pottery and painting event on May 10th with three different time slots available.

04:02:23
So for more information and registration, details are available at pottery andpaintcafe.com. With summer coming around the corner, Tensley Woods Pool Tensley Woods Pool’s monthly community event on May 15th will provide swim assessments. So staff will help participants to get ready for swim season registration and answer all your questions.

04:02:42
After your assessment, enjoy a splash in the pool with the fun swim. So please register via your live and play account. And one last item that sounds like a lot of fun is music bingo. It’s back at Nickelbrook Brewery every Wednesday night. All you need is a set of ears and the ability to have a good time

04:02:58
. The fun starts at 7 p.m. and will be hosted by comedian Chris Jary. Thank you, Councelor Karns. Thank you very much. So, we have a few exciting things. War 2 community update is April 22nd and May 19th, both at 700 p.m. room 247 at City Hall or Zoom. Please pre-register for the Zoom. The next W 2 walking tour takes place on April 26th at 10:30 a.m.

04:03:25
Meeting up at City Hall near Civic Square. Park pop-ups are back with select dates and locations from April 23rd to April 29th. Please email W2 burlington.ca for times and locations or keep an eye on social media and the newsletter. Uh Earth Week is happening with Field and Stream Rescue taking part in the Rambo Creek cleanup on Saturday, April 25th from 9 to 12.

04:03:47
The event will focus on removing litter from Rambo Creek. Uh Burlington Downtown is doing a Golden Egg Hunt digital pass. Check their website for that. Repair Cafe is happening on April 25th at St. Christopher’s at Gold Line at 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Residents are invited to bring their broken or damaged items. Please email Burlington Repair Cafe at Kojico to tell them what you’d like to bring and set up a time slot.

04:04:10
And the water the Burlington Waterfront Sculpture Trail is back and you can go and see that all the all around the downtown with great opportunities to experience public art, culture, and community this spring. Empowered Senior Series is back May 13th at the Art Gallery with Aging Boldly.

04:04:26
And the Burlington Public Library is host hosting a tech cafe Sunday, May 10th from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the central branch offering free one-on-one check support for older adults with trained volunteers from MLAN Health. Thank you, >> Councelor Bentia. >> Thank you, Mayor. And time just flies around here.

04:04:47
Um, I want to remind everyone, uh, Apollo Live, there’s 49 more days, uh, for the seventh season of our driveway music series. Um, and just mark it up. I think uh, well, I know it’s June the uh, 9th will be the first one. And, um, I look forward to seeing everybody there. Uh, I also want to um mention that on um April 27th at Tim Hortons at 3500 Dundas, we’ll be doing a smile cookie um decorating program and many of my colleagues I’m sure will be there in support of the Burlington Food Bank. And uh tonight, as we all know, uh the mayor and I and and uh Halton Regional Police and Crimestoppers will be uh doing um I guess is the fifth speaker series uh at BPAC tonight. We’ll

04:05:46
have a uh trade show and then the Q&A and I think it all starts at 6 o’clock. Um and that’s Oh, one more thing while we’re talking about BPAC. Uh May 12th, we have the season premiere um showing of what’s going to happen in terms of u uh events and um shows coming up at BPAC.

04:06:06
It’s always an exciting uh evening. Um well attended and there’s snack and beverages as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um lots of great things happening in community. Just a couple more from me. Next week, Tuesday, at 6:30, right here in council chambers, we will once again be back with our civic recognition.

04:06:28
It’s an opportunity for us to honor and really celebrate all the great community residents that we have and the good works that they’re doing in communities. So, anyone can come to that. It’s uh it’s always a great and inspiring evening. Uh April 30th, I’ll be doing uh my next drop in also at the Burlington Center Mall.

04:06:47
uh 11:30 to 1:30. So, come by. No appointment necessary. Uh you can come and talk to me about what’s on your mind. And finally, uh May 3rd, the Battle of the Atlantic will be commemorated down in Spencer Smith Park at our Naval Memorial. That is a Sunday at 11, and members of the public are invited to join in that.

04:07:12
All right. I have a motion to adjurnn. Moved by councelor Charman, seconded by Councelor Nissan. All those in favor, show of hands. Any opposed? Seeing none, that carries. We are adjourned. Thanks everyone.