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Home My WebLink AboutADMIN-06-01 ,-..- -.--" ;T~___ ON: A006-01 THE CORPORATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF CLARINGTON Meeting: General Purpose and Administration Committee File # If! 10 Res. it01f1-)) r -tJ / Date: Monday, April 9, 2001 Report #: ADMIN 06-01 FILE #: By-law # Subject: JOINT GOVERNANCE STUDY OF BROCK, CLARINGTON, SCUGOG AND UXBRIDGE RECOMMENDATIONS: It is respectfully recommended that the General Purpose and Administration Committee recommend to Council the following: 1. THAT Report ADMIN 06-01 be received; 2. THAT Council endorse the recommendations contained in the Reports of the five Sub- committees for the purposes of further discussions and refinements with the municipalities of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge; and 3. THAT the Townships of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge be advised of Council's decision. 1. BACKGROUND: 1.1 As a follow up of the Region's recommendations encouraging local municipalities to address the many issues of governance, Clarington partnered with Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge in early 2000 and commissioned the Randolph Group and Enid Slack Consultants Inc. to study the subject matter. Phase One Report was completed with the Consultants recommending against any amalgamation. The Consultants advised that efficient and effective local governance lies in service delivery and urged the municipalities to further explore this area. 1.2 As a result, the four (4) municipalities undertook the next step culminating in several meetings that lead to the formation of five (5) sub-committees to examine various cost- saving ideas. These sub-committees are fire services, tourism, park and recreation, 1001 " REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 2 planning services and reduction of politicians, and they tabled their findings and recommendations at a joint meeting of the four Councils held on March 8, 2001. 1.3 The four Councils resolved to refer the sub-committee reports and recommendations to each municipality and agreed to continue the process at the next joint Council meeting to be held on April 19, 2001. 2. PURPOSE: The purpose of this Report is to review the sub-committee recommendations to enable Council to adopt an official position. 3. SUB-COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS Fire Service Sub-committee a) Preparation and exchange of a list of specialized resources available within each of the four municipalities. An example of this type of resource would be Clarington's advanced fIrst aid and defibrillator team of certified instructors. Other examples would include, but not be limited to, persons with expertise in farm implement rescue, confined space or high angle rescue. This would make specialists in various areas available to the fire departments. b) The need for specialized training should also be investigated. Such specialized training could include forest and wildfire emergencies, rescue related to farm equipment, high angle and confined space rescue. Planning Services Sub-committee a) Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge undertake discussions regarding a shared planning servIce. b) The four municipalities convene a series of meetings regarding "Best Practices", shared services and common areas of interest and concern. 1002 , REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 3 c) The four municipalities actively co-ordinate their review and comments regarding the Durham Official Plan update. Tourism Sub-committee a) Preparation of a joint "gateway" website page consisting of one or two pages to introduce the four municipalities; the web page would provide links to each individual municipal website. The cost to design and set up this website would be approximately $2500 ($600+/- for each municipality). Clarington staff have the expertise to maintain the site and have offered to do so. It was noted that grants are available to set up websites. b) Devote a 1/2 -1 page advertisement within each municipal recreation guide to promote the other area municipalities and upcoming events. c) Develop partnerships with the Regional Economic Development and Tourism Department as there are advantages to the Region and each municipality. The Region has staff specifically devoted to tourism promotion and they hire part-time staff on a continuing basis. d) Consider quarterly meetings with the four municipalities and the Region to discuss upcoming events/workplans and the results of previous efforts/events. e) Consider meetings with the various tourist operators to outline grant programs available (since many of these sources of funding are not available to municipalities). f) Collectively identify strategies for specific tourist themes (e.g. agriculture, lakes, museums, etc.). 1003 , REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 4 g) There may be an opportunity to partner in the preparation of annual visitor guides to save costs; Clarington has the ability to do the layouts. h) Tourism inventories (events/operators) should be prepared by each municipality and shared. i) Collective tendering opportunities should be explored (e.g. the printing of visitor guides, brochures, etc.) to save costs to each municipality. j) Collective training should be undertaken (e.g. "tour guides", volunteers, etc.) Park & Recreation Sub-Committee a) Bulk purchasing: Discussion on tendering the supply of various standard purchases. This could include concession supplies, refrigeration equipment, parks equipment and related supplies, pool chemicals, etc. Contracting out the service of refrigeration equipment was high on the list and it was felt that the cost reductions could be significant. b) Sharing of equipment: Discussion on sharing equipment amongst the partners. Initially each municipality will develop a list of equipment that would be available to be lent out. In some cases, the municipalities would supply staff as part of the agreement to ensure that equipment is operated properly. Lists are currently being formulated. There was also discussion about having a mutual aid agreement in regards to ice lD04 REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 5 clearing equipment at arenas. There was an agreement in principal that if required, ice clearing equipment would be lent out if an required, provided it was not currently in use. c) Standardizing equipment: Discussion on purchasing standard types of equipment that would allow parts to be shared in the case of an emergency. d) Five year capital purchasing: Discussion on sharing the information that we have in regards to five year equipment forecasting. It was agreed to meet to discuss what the future equipment needs would be and that we would be further ahead if we could agree to each purchase equipment, that is not required everyday, for the purposes of sharing. e) Personnel services: Some of the areas to consider include but are not limited to: . Purchasing services Planning, Programming, Operational Audits, Board Reviews and Youth Services . f) Staff development and Health and Safety training: Discussion on the benefits of training and the types could provide by doing so collectively. Currently a number of partnerships exist. The focus for the future would be to identify all of the training required by each and the establishment of programs to meet the needs. g) Promotions: Discussion on providing a page within each community's Recreation Guide to allow for the promotion of services or events. Promotions would not be in lOGS , - REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 6 competition with the services being offered by the host guide. The promotions would focus on events or services that would benefit the community. h) Networking: Currently there are a number of networking opportunities within the Durham recreation sector. Presently the Directors and Aquatic Programmers have committees that meet regularly. Discussion that the various levels of service delivery should meet and discuss their best practices initiatives. This would be an excellent opportunity for everyone to gain new ideas and perhaps be more efficient in the process. Reduction of Politicians Sub-committee No specific recommendation comes out of this sub-committee. However, the sub- committee concludes that there is a general desire to reduce regional govemment representation by allocating one seat per each local municipality plus each additional seat for each 28,001 population using the 2001 time census population. This proposal would effectively reduce one regional representative for each of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge while Clarington's current complement of three (3) regional councillors would not be affected. 4. COMMENTS: The recommendations of each of the sub-committees were reviewed by the staff siting on the respective committee and they generally concur with the recommendations contained therein. In this regard, we respectfully ask Council to endorse the sub-committee' s recommendations for the purposes of further discussion and refinements with the Townships of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge in order to effect efficiency and saving in service delivery. For the information of Council, the next joint Council meeting will be held in Brock Township 1006 " REPORT NO.: ADMIN 06-01 PAGE 7 on April 19th, 2001. Further details will be provided upon notification from Brock Township. Respectfully submitted, o C~~.~~ Franklin Wu, M.C.I.P., R.P.P., Chief Administrative Officer FW*jip 1007