Final council meeting before municipal election is Monday

The final city council meeting of this term is taking place Monday at City Hall.

It will be the last council meeting ever for Coun. Dan McWilliams, who is not running for his seat in the municipal election on Oct. 22.

McWilliams was first elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 in Otonabee Ward.

All other city councillors are running for re-election; Coun. Diane Therrien is running for mayor against Mayor Daryl Bennett in a two-person race.

Here’s a glimpse at Monday’s agenda:

Peterborough Police office at bus terminal

Council will vote a final time on a plan to allow Peterborough Police to open a small office in an unused café space in the downtown bus terminal as part of a larger effort to increase security.

A new city staff report states that over the last year, there have been two reports of sexual assaults in the stairwells at the upper-level Simcoe Street parking garage, which have no security cameras.

The garage has also had 25 car breaks-ins between April and June, and city police are called to the area about 13 times a month.

Council has a preliminary plan to renovate the empty café in the bus terminal so it can serve as a mini-police office, at a cost of $50,000.

There are also other security upgrades planned for the parking garage: a second full-time security guard, for instance at a cost for a year of $62,000, as well as security cameras in the stairwells for $42,000, panic alarms on all parking levels for $12,000 and new

LED lighting.

New Public Works yard

Council will vote a final time on a plan to spend $23.5 million – rather than $22.5 million, as planned last year — to renovate a city-owned property on Webber Avenue to serve as the new city public works yard.

The city bought the former Coach Canada property on Webber a few years ago for conversion into a new public works yard. The idea was to move the yard there from an overcrowded site on Townsend Street.

The renovation on Webber Avenue started last fall and is expected to take a year – until this fall – to be done.

On Sept. 17, councillors voted to increase the project budget by $1 million.

A staff report explains that the cost overrun is due to factors such as soil contamination and poor site drainage.

There was also an issue with the roof of the former Coach Canada office building, the report states, as well as a problem with the structural steel in the large on-site garage.

In early 2017, council hired J.R. Certus Construction Co. Ltd., of Vaughan, to do the renovations.

Parking restrictions on Rubidge St.

Councillors will vote on a new staff proposal to allow only 15 minutes of free parking along Rubidge St., outside Rubidge Hall retirement home, rather than the current 60-minute limit.

The free parking zone outside Rubidge Hall is meant for HandiVans to come and go, states a new city staff report.

The meeting starts at 5:15 p.m.