The fate of the former St. Patricks High School on East St. will be discussed in Wallaceburg Wednesday morning. (March 25) Sarnia City Manager Margaret Misek-Evans told council Monday staff has a meeting scheduled that day with Bluewater Health and both school boards. She says each organization will be given the opportunity to outline their interests at the meeting. Misek-Evans says the outcome will be reported to council and discussed at councils next regular meeting, April 13. The St. Clair Catholic District School Board issued a 90 day notice periods Feb. 1, giving the city, the public board first dibs on the property. ------------------------------------------------------------- City council has decided not to reconsider its unanimous decision March 9 to veto offers for Sarnia's Bayside Centre.
The Receiver for the downtown mall, A. John Page and Associates, made the request.
The Bayside Centre went into receivership in December 2012. --------------------------------------------------- An emergency standby generator will be purchased for Sarnia City Hall. Sarnia council has authorized the nearly $107,000 purchase from Preferred Electric Ltd.
A backup system is already in place for computer systems at City Hall, but it only provides enough power for about 45 minutes during an outage.
Staff told council when Hurricane Sandy struck Sarnia in October 2012, public works staff were unable to access information required to locate infrastructure in the field as they worked on impacted infrastructure, because computer servers at city hall were not available during a power outage.
The new generator will only supply electricity to essential services like the information technology department, telephone service, emergency exit lights, fire pump and fire alarm system.
Funds for the new generator will come from the "Improvements Works Yard" Capital account. ----------------------------------------------------
The city is getting a new five ton dump truck.
Council accepted a nearly $109,600 tender submitted by Team Truck Centres Monday.
The purchase was approved during the 2015 budget process.
A similar truck was purchased in November 2011 for nearly $98,000.
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A bylaw regulating the use of technology by councillors during meetings has been adopted.
The use of laptops will be permitted while other personal electronic devices will not.
Mayor Mike Bradley said Friday they're trying to prevent problems that have occurred in other cities, where councillors are "tweeting" during a meeting and not paying attention.
He said it hasn't been a significant issue in Sarnia but they want to make sure councillors are fully engaged in the conversation.
Amendments will be made to the city's current rules of order, known as the Procedure By-Law.
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Sarnia council has given staff the green light to start the process of establishing an integrity commissioner for the city.
A request for proposals will now be issued.
Mayor Mike Bradley would like to see the position implemented by no later than July 1.
Bradley says it's common practice in many communities is to have an individual on retainer annually, at an average cost of $15,000-$20,000 each year.
Sarnia council has also approved in principle a Code of Conduct.
A by-law to adopt the code will be presented at councils meeting April 13, 2015.
