CAO presenting annual report to council

Councillors can expect a rundown of all the city’s accomplishments from 2016 on Monday night.

Allan Seabrooke, the city’s CAO, is going to give his annual year-inreview presentation at City Hall.

The idea is to remind councillors about all the plans they approved – and funded – in 2016, and give them an update on how those projects are coming along.

Seabrooke spares no detail: He released a 115-page report on Friday that gives point-form notes on all those projects.

Some of the highlights include a new city website (which Seabrooke says is in the planning stages) and a new OHL facility review study (it’s expected to decide whether the city needs a new arena; the study will proceed in 2017).

Seabrooke is also expected to tell councillors more about the former Coach Canada property on Webber Ave., which the city bought in 2014 to serve as the new public works yard.

The plan is to move the public works yard from Townsend St. But first, there are preparations happening on Webber Ave.

Detailed design for the new yard is underway, says Seabrooke’s report, and a construction tender is due out this month for any buildings that will have to go on the site.

Also at councillors’ committee of the whole meeting on Monday: Harper Rd. Land Purchase:

Councillors will discuss buying a piece of industrial land, as well as a railway spur, from Canadian Pacific Railway, at 551 Harper Rd. The cost to the city would be about $411,000.

This has nothing to do with the city’s recent purchases of old rail spurs from CPR to convert them into a recreational trail, however. This rail line is still in use, so the city will be leasing it back to CPR.

But the rail line is located on a piece of industrial land the city wants. At one time, there was a landfill site in that area – and it encroached onto this property, now owned by CPR.

Meanwhile the borders of that former landfill aren’t clear and the city doesn’t know what refuse was buried down there either.

To dig up the property and rehabilitate to the specifications of the province, the city should own the land – and so it has proposed a property purchase. Repair at the Wastewater Treatment Plant: Councillors will consider awarding a sole-source contract for the repair of a digester at the wastewater treatment plant.

City staff recommends hiring a firm called MTE, of Kitchener.

The firm is already repairing another digester at the plant that is very similar to this one that also needs repair.

MTE is expected to be done rebuilding the first digester by July and is prepared to start work on the next one immediately after that.

The cost to the city would be about $250,000 plus HST (council had set a budget of $260,000).

Staff recommends choosing this firm – with no competition – because the digesters are similar and MTE already know the construction and design. NOTE: Don’t forget to check The

Examiner’s website on Monday for livestreaming, blogging and tweets from the meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m.