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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCompass Kitchener - 04-04-12COMPASS KITCHENER MINUTES March 7, 2012 – 4:00-6:00 Conestoga Room, KITCHENER CITY HALL Present: Theron Kramer Kim Knowles Chris Kopar Tristan Wilkin Diana Bumstead Sue Morgan David Yoon Staff: Shelley Adams Jenn Grein Janice Ouellette Other Guests: Councillor Fernandes Regrets: Sarah Marsh Chris Hyde Holly Duff Hanan Mohamed James Howe The Compass Kitchener Advisory Committee met on this date, commencing at 4:05 p.m. Theron welcomed all members to the meeting. 1. Approval of Minutes The minutes from March 7th were approved. 2. Debrief from Advisory Committee All Committee Gathering Thanks to everyone who attended the all committee meeting this past weekend. It was a very successful ? event, with approximately 30 in attendance, with each and every advisory committee represented. Members of Compass Kitchener commented that the presentation was very well put together and the ? strategic plan was very well received. This was echoed from many who attended the gathering. Thanks to everyone who made this happen! ? 3. Update from sub-committees James provided an update at the All Committee Meeting on the Civics101 sub committee work progress. ? Holly/James/Chris were asked to invite Councillor Fernandes and Janice Ouellette to their next meeting. The Voter Turn-out sub committee has received some assistance from Misti, a student in Economic ? Development to research this issue. Group members have also done some research, and it seems there is little research available on this particular topic. A report is expect from Misti in mid-April and the group will look at how best to move forward at that time. The LEAF Community Consultation sub committee has just been set up, their first meeting will take place ? next week. As the next regularly scheduled meeting of Compass Kitchener will be a full agenda for the Report Card, ? st it was suggested that sub committees have a meeting prior to May 1 and time for an update will be provided on the agenda. 4. Report Card Process Kim thanked staff for helping to pull this document and all of its information together. We will review ? tonight, and hope that Compass Kitchener members will take this away and review, mark, and provide th hard copy back to Jenn by Friday, April 13 . Tristan and Kim provided an explanation of the grading system developed by the working group, and ? highlighted the importance of including comments in the marking. Next meeting the results will be reviewed and any glaring differences can be discussed further to ensure the grade is reflective of Compass Kitchener as a whole. The group considered each line of gathered information and discussed how best to provide a mark. ? Detailed discussion and clarifications included below. Discussion: LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT How effective was the community engagement that took place? This is not something we can accurately ? measure currently, however could be something we seek to measure in the future. Thoughts on this can be included in the comments section of the grading page. January 18, 2011 CITY OF KITCHENER - 2 - Satisfaction of citizens on projects that solicit feedback from community where staff interact with citizens ? is at 40%, unsure where this information was gathering, and will clarify with Chris, however this could be another area to be more specific in the comments section. % # staff trained in community engagement is at 20%, this info was gathered from the Volunteer Strategy, ? however the source should be clarified in this document. Information listed in the Narrative section on the bottom of each page is important info to consider when ? grading, it’s generally something that cannot be measured or quantitated, however is important qualitative information to consider when marking. Comment column should also contain source of information for Compass Kitchener’s information and ? further consideration if desired. Currently there is no volunteer tracking systems in place at the city as the options available are solely ? American based, and puts volunteers personal information at risk with Homeland Security. There is currently one Canadian based option available however it is quite expensive. Volunteerism is difficult to measure regardless of the system due to the many variable ways all ages and people volunteer. Is there any possibility of building a volunteer system here, perhaps even by a volunteer? Would be most effective to have a web based system that volunteers enter their info into directly. One major difficulty is that there are so many various volunteers, some volunteer in multiple locations, ideally, the system would be decentralized with multiple users to enter all various volunteer roles. ENVIRONMENT Shelley to provide additional information on the increase in km’s of trails. ? Number of sustainable kilometres travelled and total tonnes of carbon dioxide reduced by employees – ? information is regarding city staff only, measurements will be available in 2013 as staff hired for this work was just hired in spring. That being said, the decision to allocate funds and the masterplans actual development was in 2011 so can be considered. 5 Best bets were developed in 2006, and chosen each year until last, when the Environmental Committee ? revised the Air Quality in Kitchener document, with a goal to have items that are considered more ‘doable’. Committee could consider reviewing their knowledge about the five best bets and rate how ‘doable’ these items are. This is something that may also be an appropriate ask of the Environment committee – have them gauge how successful their group was at revising the Air Quality in Kitchener document. Shelley will ask if they can provide Compass Kitchener with a draft for review. Does the property tax transfer under the storm water item apply also to commercial and industrial? Yes, ? all are included in this. This item will be measured easier next year, once the actual program is active. Water Quality in Stream Monitoring – this measures toxic run off, it’s very good to find they are ? measuring, however do not seem to be doing anything with the data. Shelley to connect to find 2011 data. Dollars to REEP, $50,000 was received under LEAF funding, however there was additional dollars given ? through budget. Shelley to provide this information. Green City Information from Waste Audits to be provided by Jenn. ? An additional item that could be considered here is the shade count from the region that Dave Schmitt ? has worked on. A shade audit is planned for the near future, and may be something we can use as a measurement, there could also be a possibility that they audit a City of Kitchener property. An aside… These strategic directions were put in front of Council, and it’s important for us to continue to go back to ? these. Is there a way to fit some of the narrative into the measurements to ease the measuring processes, may ? be due to no hard numbers available, or difficulty in a true measurement. To clarify, Shelley provided another view, there’s no way to measure effectiveness and efficiency of grant dollars given. All information here will be graded subjectively. QUALITY OF LIFE Shelley will provide additional information on Tax dollars invested in recreation/leisure for youth (direct ? and affiliated) – at this point without athletics and aquatics we are at 1,564,000. More info to follow. January 18, 2011 CITY OF KITCHENER - 3 - Arts and Culture, currently have no way to track here, and this continues to be an issue. ? Per capita investment in Leisure facilities – difficult to get a number here as well, and likely will not be ? able to have information for this by end of week. The difficulty seems to be what to include or exclude. Issue in Heritage as dollars are not available to advertise designations in the news paper – which is part ? of legislation. DEVELOPMENT Items in the shaded areas are to be considered in the narrative. ? Statistics in the Intensification Targets section come from Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey ? Shelley to provide numbers on Brownfield Remediation. ? How does office vacancy rates compares to those in other cities? Shelley to check if Janette can provide ? comparators. She also indicated that the number has decreased dramatically since the info we have from 2008. DIVERSITY Statistics on staff representativeness will be available Monday! This is exciting news for the city! ? There has been a pause on all training at the city while alignment with the strategic plan was considered ? – this explains the decrease in 2011 data. Implementation of legislation took place in late 2011 and this explains the n/a move to 3 in the number of ? labour complaints based on bias, discrimination or harassment. The N/A under # of staff who participated in ESL workplace language training should actually be a 0. ? DOWNTOWN Nothing to note. ? Meeting adjourned at 6:00 pm. Next meeting: May 2, 2012 Conestoga Room – Kitchener City Hall Attendance: Compass Kitchener Attendance 11-12.xls