This week on the Queen City Improvement Bureau, Aidan & I'll be talking about today's meeting & looking back at the 5 meetings worth of budget preview we've received & there'll be the usual nonsense. Thur at 7pm on 91.3FM CJTR @accessnowradio.ca #yqrcc

And if you're curious about what my view on the meeting was at 10:30am today, I did a Council & Coffee live stream which you can view here. Talks about water utility, Buffalo Pound & Economic Development Regina. www.youtube.com/live/FNTmpzw... #yqrcc

Council is now going on their latest mandatory break.
I'm going to bounce now and do something else.
Thanks everyone for following along. Always enjoy the company. #yqrcc

Vote on city's lead program report: unanimous. #yqrcc

Flores: It has been frustrating to work with the province recently. So I don't anticipate we'll see an improvement on this. I hope we can be more creative & audacious on how we deal with this. I want us to be a city that gets to safe drinking water at a faster pace. #yqrcc

Flores: Reality is many impacted people won't be at the outreach opportunities. But it comes back to whose jurisdiction it is. Dealing w/ landlords is provincial responsibility. But we already regulate short term rentals, for instance. #yqrcc

Flores: To me, this is something that warrants more urgency b/c at end of day we see this impact folks in our community who are less likely to advocate for themselves. I commend work that's been done on outreach. #yqrcc

Flores to close. This past few weeks we've talked a lot about impacts that things like this can have on people who have less control over their homes b/c they renting. #yqrcc

Froh is committing to do work offline w/ admin on looking at capital projects and how to prioritize various projects, including the lead replacement program. #yqrcc

Admin notes in option 4 that increasing replacement timeline to 7 (instead of 10) yrs would result in additional 3.35% on utility rate & 0.53% on mill rate. #yqrcc

Froh: Delegation puts onus on council. When I look at this, I see a utility and mill rate increase. But I also see paving road to the jail for $1.6mil & renovating this building for several million. I struggle w/ how to prioritize our capital plan when this [lead] is a priority. #yqrcc

Admin: That's what option 4 is getting at there. #yqrcc

Froh: I spoke at utility budget on how these things work together. We want to stagger changing pipes while fixing roads to make this work cost effective. How can we boost investment in both? #yqrcc

Froh: I struggle on how to advance this. What I see is some high level aggregate numbers. I'm in favour of accelerating timelines. I think it's the right thing to do ethically & morally & my residents say they're willing to invest in that. #yqrcc

Rashovich: I'm assuming that if someone is buying a house, they're notified of a lead connection?
Admin: I don't know that it's required. #yqrcc

Rashovich: Is that carbon monoxide legislation is that provincial?
City solicitor: Yes it is. #yqrcc

Rashovich: W/ carbon monoxide, I know it's mandatory to have a detector near a bedroom. B/c I think tenants should know. We have legislation on carbon monoxide. I don't know if we can pass something to mandate landlords to let people know they have lead connections. #yqrcc

Rashovich: My concern is when someone buys a house in an area and they know it has lead, then I don't think we have to subsidize that. If they didn't know, they I guess we should consider subsidizing. #yqrcc

Admin: Finding that with our investigations, 20-30% of connections have not been lead but we are expecting that number will not remain that high. #yqrcc