Housing, helping the vulnerable, and the fate of Fred’s Tree at the Orillia Opera House were among topics of discussion at the annual mayor’s breakfast Thursday morning, where mayor Don McIsaac spoke about the city’s recent accomplishments and plans for the future.
Hosted by the Orillia District Chamber of Commerce at the Best Western Plus Mariposa Inn, McIsaac delivered an address to dozens of attendees from the city’s business community.
“When we first established this council …we established some priorities which we set: community first, helping the most vulnerable, strengthening the community, and business retention and culture,” McIsaac said. “Those are important priorities that were established to help guide us in our term as we move forward.”
With helping the vulnerable and strengthening the community in mind, McIsaac spoke about the city’s opioid working group, which has proposed a drop-in centre and community hub to help those in need, and onboarding new city staff to help forward council priorities, including a housing coordinator and climate change action plan coordinator.
He also discussed ongoing plans to bring a supportive rapid re-housing project to the city, which will provide temporary housing to upwards of 200 people over the course of five years through a modular facility slated to take shape on West Street South in the coming weeks.
“I think we've been spending a lot of time explaining what it is versus what it isn't. It's … aimed at people who are experiencing situational homeless who have just recently become homeless,” the mayor explained of the initiative.
“It's a transition program designed to help people find a permanent place to stay, and that is looking at having people cycle through the program in less than 180 days," the mayor said.
Boosting city transit usage is another effort city council is working on, the mayor said, highlighting new initiatives meant to get more riders onto city buses.
“We have a 12-month pilot program that started March 1, and that provides seniors with a discount on their fares and provides any teenager between 13 and 19 free transit,” he said. “We are seeing results from that right now and I think, importantly, that will give us data.”
With regard to city infrastructure, the mayor highlighted numerous projects the city has been working on, including approving extensive renovations to Brian Orser Arena, completing the first of four phases in the Laclie Street reconstruction project, and pushing towards the final stretch of the waterfront reconstruction project, among others.
“We put in three stormwater treatment structures which will help us with the lake, in terms of our climate change action plan goals, and we opened up Coldwater Road to Centennial,” he said. “That whole bundle of sticks was about $33 million, and it's almost finished. We'll be buttoning it up in the spring.”
Regarding the looming boundary expansion, McIsaac said the city has enough land to get it to 2030, and said the city has identified 356 hectares of potential land in Severn and Oro-Medonte, with discussions on how to proceed taking place "likely" by the end of this year.
Financially, the mayor noted the city has kept its tax increases under 2 per cent for the second straight year, which is relatively low compared to other municipalities, while absorbing hikes from the County of Simcoe and the OPP.
“I think we've done reasonably good there, but we managed to keep the level of service at or improved versus the prior year,” he said. “It was difficult to get less than 2 per cent increase because the county came in with an 11 per cent increase, and OPP came in with 6 per cent, and they both have $9-million budgets.”
After his presentation, McIsaac fielded questions from both the Orillia District Chamber of Commerce and attendees.
One attendee asked how the city will “protect” Orillia Recreation Centre users from those who access the nearby, soon-to-be established rapid rehousing project.
“I don’t know that they need protecting from these people,” responded the mayor, who was met with applause. “We're going to put people there who are in transition … (and) we’ll work with those people to have better access to resources so they can get a place to stay.”
When asked about how the city will address the opioid crisis, McIsaac noted the county has “technical responsibility” for mental health and addictions, but said the city will continue to advocate for solutions like safe injection sites, among other things, to help address the “significant problem” of opioid addiction.
One attendee asked the mayor how the city plans to increase industry, tourism, and physician recruitment, to which the mayor highlighted the extensive work carried out along the waterfront, and efforts to boost the recruitment of doctors to the city.
“Council has recognized and set as a priority to increase the physician recruitment budget by 50 per cent,” McIsaac said. “Premier Ford was recently here and he gave $2.3 million to the (Couchiching Ontario Health Team), and that improves access to primary care.
“I think that helps, and my hope certainly is all Ontarians have access to primary care very soon.”
Asked about housing affordability for students, and individuals transitioning out of the rapid rehousing program, the mayor highlighted developments taking place in the city – such as a 1,300 home development slated for the West Ridge area – but struggled to provide an answer when asked about how people can contend with the increased cost of living.
“I don't have an answer to that. It’s a great question,” McIsaac said. “We do what we can on the city side, getting tax increases as low as you can, increase services where we can, do whatever we can to create more housing.”
At the end of the question period, one attendee prodded the mayor to weigh in on the fate of Fred’s Tree at the Orillia Opera House. It was the instability of that tree that forced the Orillia BIA to change up the lighting of the tree, which has served as the civic Christmas tree for years. Stories about the situation went viral and was criticized by Jimmy Fallon on his show in the U.S.
“I think we'll maybe recycle him into cutting boards and charcuterie boards and stuff like that,” he quipped. “It's been a great tree. It's survived a lot of Christmases, but we'll have to do something. That's in the works. I'm not sure exactly when.”
