Presented near the end of a nearly four-hour town council meeting, a six-page staff report on implementation of the Innisfil Beach Park Master Plan could easily have slipped past the attention of Innisfil councillors.
The report provided details of the hiring of a consultant this year to work on the Innisfil Beach Park Master Plan implementation in 2021 in the Alcona community. The consultant will be asked to look at environmental, cultural, heritage, and traffic impacts, as well as geotechnical studies, utility requirements, project costs and project phasing. It is also to include “a detailed plan of which projects are to occur (and) in which order.”
But the report also contained plans by staff to immediately begin two of the projects in the master plan, using pre-approved funding, in advance of the implementation plan.
The report stated that staff would be moving forward with a BMX pump track, at an estimated cost of $292,000, and outdoor fitness at a cost of $233,000. They would be looking at procurement this fall and then move forward in the spring.
Staff justified the expenditures by saying, “there is also a lot of anticipation from the community to see some park improvement projects started in Innisfil Beach Park sooner than 2022.”
Coun. Donna Orsatti asked that the document be pulled from the agenda and referred to budget discussions.
“The content of the report is inconsistent with the motion” passed by Innisfil council on June 24, she noted.
That was when councillors adopted the Innisfil Beach Park Master Plan and agreed to “amalgamate a bunch of projects that totalled $2.58 million” and roll the money into the master plan.
Projects that had already been approved by council included automated parking gates, solar lighting, outdoor fitness, and a docking system, said Orsatti, not the items identified in Wednesday night’s report, which included the BMX track and removal of a concrete pier.
Orsatti said councillors had been assured by Town of Innisfil CAO Jason Reynar that each of the items in the plan would be part of budget discussions.
Jessica Jenkins, the town's capital engineering leader, said the intent this week was to inform council that they were planning to go ahead with the BMX track.
"That being said, I think we could look at a couple of options if council wants a more thorough discussion on this," Jenkins added.
But Orsatti challenged the principle of moving ahead with projects without input from either council or the implementation plan.
“My understanding was ... each item would be coming to council at budget time,” Orsatti said.
Capital project manager Meredith Goodwin, who prepared the report, said the BMX track and outdoor fitness were chosen because they didn't involve much further investigation and could get going right away.
Coun. Kevin Eisses said he agreed with Orsatti.
“When I read the report in the agenda, I went back and watched the YouTube session of June 24,” Eisses said.
Although council approved the master plan, “it was a vision," he said, "and we were assured at that point we’d have an opportunity to talk about how that vision would be brought forward. Now, all of a sudden, things are being prioritized in a way that I’m having trouble following.
“If we put things in that are just easy to put in… I just think there needs to be a lot more information brought forward to our residents," Eisses added. "The vision has been approved, not how this is being brought forward.”
Reynar acknowledged the mistake: “I think there’s a missing step here and we apologize for that.”
However, with 2020 nearing an end, “our engineering team was just very excited to try to get this project moving forward," the CAO added. "We appreciate that there’s more detail required.”
Rather than request a new staff report, council decided to leave discussion until budget time.
“We’ll go through each item as much as you want, but not the motion that was passed in June (approving the park vision),” said Mayor Lynn Dollin.
“This is not about trying to rip apart a master plan that the majority of council voted on,” Orsatti said, “but all of council understood that we would look at all the amenities that were recommended. It wasn’t sanctioned that all 43 of them were approved. Maybe the vision is, but not all the items.”
The Innisfil Beach Park Master Plan includes 43 possible projects, phased in over the next 20 years, including things such as a community garden, a skateboard park, shaded seating areas, an institutional mixed-use building, natural features, picnic areas, a large open-air event space, an expanded dock system, washroom facilities, and a restaurant.
Development of an implementation plan to look at the phasing of projects and how they will fit together is budgeted at $151,000, which includes $120,000 for consulting and $31,000 in staff time.
