The front entrance of the Town Hall Arts and Cultural Centre, home of the Astor Theatre, will be closed for the next two weeks. (Rick Conrad)
The front entrance of the Town Hall Arts and Cultural Centre, home of the Astor Theatre, on Main Street in Liverpool will be closed for the next two weeks.
The Region of Queens is doing some work on the front facade of the building.
The accessible entrance at the rear of the building will be open.
The sale of 11 acres of municipal land was the highlight of Tuesday’s Region of Queens council meeting.
The only session in August started with a presentation from the Queens Care Building Society providing an overview of the proposed new long-term care home set to replace Queens Manor and Hillsview Acres.
The four members representing the society highlighted the programs the new facility will provide along with one and two-storey options for construction of the new 112-bed structure.
The society’s request to secure municipal land adjacent to Queens Place and the Best Western hotel was granted during the in-camera portion of the meeting when council agreed to sell 11 acres for roughly $960,000.
Some long-standing items that had previously come before council were also approved.
Region staff will get to work crafting a bylaw to allow Queens to collect road levies on behalf of non-profit associations.
Mayor Darlene Norman says staff has assured council they have the capacity to take on the added responsibility using existing resources.
“It only seems right and proper that we help them where we can,” said Norman. “For example, we do not put streetlights on their roads. We do not have personal garbage collection at their doorsteps. So, if we can, as a council, help them improve their roads, then it is the right thing for us to do.”
Council also agreed to a request from the South Shore Regional Hospital Foundation to provide $100,000 for their Brighter Days Capital Campaign.
The money will be the Region’s one-time contribution towards the $115 million redevelopment at the area’s regional hospital which will expand the size of the emergency room and surgical areas, add new dialysis chairs, MRI suite and CT-scanner among other upgrades.
The vote was not unanimous as some councillors argued with the ongoing doctor shortage and frequent ER closures, council should be supporting Queens General first.
Norman says South Shore Regional is just as much Queens’ hospital as Queens General.
“We could give a million dollars to our hospital, and it is not going to help our ER situation at this point in time. Our foundation, the Queens Hospital Foundation, have encouraged us to provide this money to South Shore Regional,” said Norman.
Council also decided to pay between $50,000 and $60,000 to build an accessible ramp at the Town Hall Arts and Cultural Centre.
The new ramp will be located between the centre and the neighbouring RBC building to provide access from the parking lot into the Astor Theatre lobby.
Council then heard the Region took in just over $300,000 from the sale of 23 properties at the July 18 tax sale.
Approximately $48,000 will go to paying off outstanding debt with the remaining $250,000 or so, being put in the Tax Sale Surplus Reserve Account where previous owners have up to 20 years to claim the proceeds from the sale.
The first quarter financial review indicated the Region will be paying an additional $150,000 for garbage collection this year to cover the increase in fuel costs.
The original estimate was negotiated based on a cost of 89.64 cents per litre and in the past few months, the price of fuel has routinely been a dollar or more per litre above that.
Council was also made aware of human resource changes to the Region’s employee handbook to make the policies more inclusive and in keeping with 2022 standards.
Some of the policies hadn’t been updated in 20 years.
And the planning and development department is looking to increase the fees for some services to better reflect the cost of providing permitting and development amendments.
Council then moved in camera and approved the sale of the lot for the new long-term care facility as well as a piece of property in Milton for a multi-unit housing development.
Council will not meet again until the second Tuesday in September.
Region of Queens council took their last meeting on the road to the Pleasant River Community Hall.
The highlight of the agenda was council’s decision to invest almost $2 million to repair the failing air conditioning unit at the Liverpool Business Development Centre.
The meeting opened with the public comment section.
A couple of residents spoke asking council to put a pause on the permits to a controversial house being built on Eagle Head Beach while a third inquired about the possibility of adding more bylaw enforcement officers.
After that council went about approving the job descriptions for workers at Hillsview Acres long-term care facility.
The Region is mandated by the province to review the positions every four years.
From there, council voted to go ahead with the $1.9 million plan to install a new four-zone cooling system at the Liverpool Call centre.
Council then moved into the discussion phase of their meeting.
First up was a conversation around installing an accessible ramp at the Town Hall Arts and Cultural Centre in Liverpool.
Provincial law requires all government owned buildings to be accessible by 2030.
Council deliberated on the placement of the ramp and how it is to be enclosed.
The preferred option seems to be along the side of the building adjacent to the Royal Bank that leads from the rear parking lot.
The plan will be evaluated and brought before council in greater detail at a future meeting.
The last piece of business was a lively discussion on whether or not to form a pool committee.
The Queens Community Aquatic Society recently received a $3 million private donation towards the construction of a new pool and are looking for the region to begin construction as soon as possible.
The conversation revolved around who will make up the committee, what responsibility it will have and what will be asked of staff.
In the end, council decided to form a committee but what it will look like and what role it will play in the construction of a new pool has yet to be determined.
Council will hold a special council meeting Tuesday July 5 to discuss the location of the new library.
