Hall Monitor: Going… Going… And Going… and Going…

After such a casual break last week, our city council – or most of it – returned to council chambers last night for meeting 16-2012 of council. You can find the agenda and addeds on the city’s website.

While the crew was once again in chambers, the meeting did run a little differently than normal, since the Mayor is on vacation at the moment – timed likely to coincide with his birthday. Our current Deputy Mayor, Councillor Bill Glover, was therefore at the helm and took to the big desk. Now, I’ve commented before that it’s a bad omen to try to predict council length before even the bell, but glancing the agenda – and knowing that the mayor was out – and I had to guess that we’d have a short one. Alas, it was not to be – and we were there until almost midnight. Oh well. The agenda didn’t have any real major draws, so we again focused on debugging video – but they did get a few things done.

We started with an item that triggered a round of applause in presenting a life-saving certificate to a citizen who used his first aid skills to save another man on a golf course. It’s not often you hear the chambers erupt in applause like that, so that was a treat. We also heard an impressive update from CFB Kingston’s base commander.

When council got down tow work, they did get busy – approving a plan to develop a new air service strategy for the airport, naming the new spots field ‘Caraco Home Field’ and endorsing ongoing discussion about providing drinking water to Wolfe Island and Marysville. They also re-built the Kingston Municipal Heritage Committee as the Municipal Heritage Committee  and adapted it’s mandate and appointment terms. After that, they approved more than $500,000.00 to close Artillery Park and relocate services for 18 months for renovations and approved the audited 2011 finance statements.

Then, just when 10:45 was passing by, and no motions to extend were presented – we all thought we were off the hook. Not so. At 10:53, we extended through several deferred and time sensitive items, and council approved a new Affordable Housing Land Acquisition and Disposition program, an Affordable Housing Investment Program and asked staff to develop a new plan for the Farmer’s Market.

What a night! Our (modest) tweet stream is below. We’re still working out video kinks and hope to do more with that soon. Also, we’re hoping to get some (or all) of council for some Q&A – so if there’s anything you’d like to ask, now’s your chance to let us know! Council next meets on June 19th, 2012.

• 7:32 PM: Broadcasting live from City Hall for #ygkc. Follow the steam at http://t.co/8diLs9B8 or stay tuned for your tweets! ^TV
• 7:37 PM: Deputy Mayor, Coun. Glover, is chairing tonight. Short agenda, but a few big items up: Naming the sports field and Artillery Park. #ygkc ^TV
• 7:40 PM: We’re starting with a life-saving certificate presented to a local citizen for his actions in April. #ygkc ^TV
• 7:43 PM: We’re now hearing from the Blue Marlins as a delegation about the Artillery Park item in the CAO report. #ygkc ^TV
• 7:46 PM: The marlins are in full support of the pool renovations, and are thanking the city and @queensu for facilities during closure. #ygkc ^TV
• 7:47 PM: We’re now getting a briefing from the CFB base commander. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:00 PM: Base commander is saying that base will reduce staff by less than 90 over 3 years. Had 108 retire in the last three years. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:10 PM: Q&A with base commander has finished. We’re onto the emotionals. I’m going to try to get video effects working. Again. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:27 PM: Continuing to fight with video stream. Council, meanwhile, approved much of the first report and is discussing airport plans. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:52 PM: Putting aside video issues and going back to tweeting for now. I’ll fight with it again another night. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:54 PM: Council is now discussing changes to the Heritage Committee. I’ll recap the passed item on the site tomorrow. #ygkc ^TV
• 8:56 PM: In short: Approved naming rights for the new sports field (CaraCo Home Field), and approval of water discussions with the island. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:09 PM: Discussion is about the wording for the new nomination procedures for the re-formed Heritage Committee. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:24 PM: New amendment from Coun. Hutchison on the Heritage item now calls for balance for restructured committee btwn public and experts. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:38 PM: Coun. Hutchison’s amendment has finally passed. We’re back to the motion on the Heritage Committee re-forming. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:45 PM: Finally passed the new heritage committee item. We’re into a briefing from Com. Hurdle on the Artillery Park item. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:50 PM: Commisioner Hurdle speaking about the Artillery Park renovations, and where/how services would be moved during constructions. #ygkc ^TV
• 9:54 PM: Open Q&A With Com. Hurdle about Artillery Park changes. Discussion is about cost and relocation of services during build. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:03 PM: Com. Hurdle says that members of Art. Park will have FULL access to the Queens facility while they provide services. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:10 PM: Approval for the Artillery Park item. We’re onto the heritage report. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:16 PM: Onto report #74 from the APC. Heritage item passes. @DorothyAHector notates that the city auditors are present. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:18 PM: APC report and financial statements pass. Quick break for me – but we’re onto the ARCPC report (#75) #ygkc ^TV
• 10:25 PM: All three of these items have been deferred previously, two of them through multiple meetings over multiple months. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:39 PM: Ongoing Q&A about affordable housing costs and land acquisition and non-profits. Expecting an extension of council. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:46 PM: No motion to extend council tonight. We’ll be out of here at (or right around) 11:00pm, then. #ygkc ^TV
• 10:53 PM: Here we go – motions to extend are finally coming forward to handle all time sensitive items. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:02 PM: Amendment on the item is defeated, so we’re getting back to the motion itself. Still a long night ahead. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:05 PM: Affordable Housing Land Acquisition item passes after multiple deferrals. Onto the investment program. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:25 PM: Half of the investment item, the 5.1.8 amendment, has been defeated. We’re onto the second half, 5.1.5’s amendment, #ygkc ^TV
• 11:31 PM: Gallery is completely empty, by the way – and most of city staff has gone home. Total population in room: 27. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:35 PM: Second amendment on the Affordable Housing Investment item loses too, but the item passes. We’re onto the Market! #ygkc ^TV
• 11:36 PM: Market item passes, We’re maybe starting to move through this agenda at last. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:37 PM: information reports are being deferred. But Jun 3 – Jun 9 is now cycling week, and Jun 9 with fly the Scouts flag at confed basin. #ygkc ^TV
• 11:40 PM: Quick motion to invite a briefing to the Jun 19 agenda. And we skip straight to by-laws. We’re out of here. 11:40 pm. #ygkc ^TV

Thanks to reneilet for today’s original photo.