THUNDER BAY – Council is split on whether to have city staff chose for allowable encampment locations.
For the second time, a tie vote has defeated a motion that would give council more of a role in setting the criteria for allowable encampment sites but delegate the actual site selection to administration.
The motion was first brought forward to committee of the whole on Aug. 11 by Coun. Kristen Oliver, where it failed in a 5-5 tie.
On Aug. 25, council approved Coun. Brian Hamilton's motion to defer a final decision to the Sept. 2 meeting to allow those councillors who weren’t in attendance a chance to have their say on the matter — and have a recorded vote.
That vote also failed in a tie.
Oliver and Hamilton and well as Couns. Shelby Ch'ng, Kasey Etreni, Andrew Foulds, and Greg Johnsen supported the motion.
Coun. Rajni Agarwal, Mark Bentz, Trevor Giertuga, Dominic Pasqualino, Albert Aiello, and Michael Zussino voted against.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff was absent from Tuesday's meeting.
With the failure of Oliver's motion, administration will still develop site criteria and present options to council. Although Cynthia Olsen, director of strategy and engagement, said city staff would not be able to identify sites or establish criteria until they know the location of the shelter village.
“This was a hotly contested item. I think it's really important. That’s the reason why I brought it forward. I know city council has struggled in in some ways as a body collectively making a decision around the tent encampments and some of the issues around homelessness,” Hamilton said.
It's my view that the decision-making process should always be led by evidence, best practices and be success-driven rather than politically motivated, led by lobbying from outside parties. So, I believe this is important.”
Bentz did not support the motion at the Aug. 11 meeting, and did not changed his mind on Tuesday.
He said he takes issue delegating site selection for the designated tent encampments to administration without council’s involvement.
“I believe council should be involved in matters such as these, and it doesn't make it wrong to make a political component. It does allow for lobbying from the community, which that's what the community expects from us, is to be able to speak to us and weigh in on decisions,” Bentz said.
Hamilton said the city has been discussing Thunder Bay's homelessness for nearly a year, and a recent motion to rescind the shelter village site decision for a second time “would put (the city) back to zero.”
“I just like to point out the collateral damage of the site selection process has been public trust in this democratic institution to actually come up with a right decision and not one, that's politically aligned, but one that is actually success-driven,” Hamilton said.
“For example, I don't even think we'd be looking at the Hillyard site if we actually had administration make that choice. We only made that on the fly because it was a recommendation. It was a city council decision, and I don't think the administration would have recommended that site as a tent site, considering its isolation, and it wouldn't meet the criteria.”
Later in the meeting Zussino's motion to drop Hillyard and look for a new site was also held up by a tie vote when council opted not to suspend the procedural rules and debate the motion right away. Instead, the debate will be at the next city council meeting, on Sept.16.
Bentz asked city manager John Collin if the Hillyard site gets rejected, is it possible it or the other rejected shelter village sites at Miles Street, Cumberland, and Kam River Heritage Park could be selected as sites for a designated encampment?
Collin said it is a “theoretical possibility.”
“Is it a practical, viable or conceivable option. I do not believe it is. We understand the will of council, and quite frankly, some of the sites that have been mentioned by the councillor would not be suitable for tent encampments in any event,” Collin said.
“So, no, I do not believe that this puts forth a likely possibility that the three sites turned down would become allowable tent encampments. There may be consideration for perhaps one of them. I don't know. We have not done that work, but certainly would not be a wholesale, let's put tent encampments where we had originally envisioned a temporary village. The terrain required for each is very different.”
“That's why council should be in the loop,” said Bentz.
He said council previously indicated that they “were not comfortable” with the shelter village at the Miles Street site, but after Kam River Park was rescinded back in June, Miles Street was once again recommended.
Hamilton argued that city staff would be using the site selection criteria that would be approved by council.
He said council needs to be involved with coming up with the criteria for encampment through “robust debate” and consultation with subject experts and stakeholders to make an informed decision.
Hamilton said without a “robust debate,” he feels council will end up in the same situation it now finds itself in with the Hillyard site, “a politically motivated miscalculation” that “isn't success driven or evidence driven or supported by stakeholders.”
“I also think that this homelessness conversation is taking up all the bandwidth in the community. We need to be developing housing, we need to be developing recreation facilities, we need to be focusing on so many things. The only thing the community is hearing right now is this debate around the site selection process,” Hamilton said.
"So, in my mind, I think we are really harming the public's trust in us to make a choice, but further, I think that we're undermining this institution and actually making a decision. I think if we focus on the criteria piece, that's the critical piece, as a governance body, that we should be focusing on and let evidence choose where those sites are going to go.”
